The Canadian Senate: Politics and The Constitution

“… [M]ost Canadians who are aware of the subject,” says the author of a recent essay, “feel that the [Canadian] Senate has outlived its usefulness and has become a superfluous appendix to the political system. Indeed, the prestige and authority of the Senate has probably fallen to its lowest level in Canadian history.” Considering the disparagements which have been tossed at the Senate, the allusions to “… genial old gentlemen who … live on, undisturbed, meeting a few weeks in the year, bumbling and grumbling at the government, making a few good speeches, and drawing an annual indemnity [now $10,000] for less work than any other citizens of Canada,” this was a restrained indictment. Nevertheless, in 1961 and early 1962, the Senate was also being extolled in some quarters as the keeper of Canada's conscience. Yet others saw it as a crafty player of rank politics and as an infringer on constitutional propriety. The Prime Minister threatened Senate reform and the injection of Senate misbehavior as an election issue. The Senate had seemingly come to life, and in so doing thrust itself into the center of Canadian political controversy. The purpose of this article is to examine the problems surrounding the position of the Senate in the Canadian political system, through an analysis of the agitated discussions of 1961-62.