Harper wants Senate reform
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By BRUCE CHEADLE
OTTAWA (CP) - Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is daring to tread
where no federal politician in more than a decade has gone.
And Liberal demonizing notwithstanding, it has nothing to do with
credit-card health care, abortion, immigration policy, official
bilingualism or a host of other hot button, politically suicidal
issues.
Harper's truly terrifying agenda? Constitutional reform.
Harper said his first term as prime minister would see him pry open
the Constitution to tinker with the Senate and possibly extinguish
prisoner voting rights. Quebec and aboriginal issues would not be on
the table.
"I don't have the intention of having a general constitutional
overhaul," Harper said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"I've been critical of that in the past. I don't actually think
that's the way to change the Constitution. I think the way to change
it is to handle issues individually when it's essential to do so."
At the top of Harper's list of essential issues is an elected,
independent and regionally representative Senate.
Appointing only elected senators could be done without changing the
Constitution, Harper noted.
"But as part of making the Senate truly democratic and effective and
independent (and) representative of regional interests, I think it
would be in the interests to make some constitutional changes."
Tinkering with the Constitution has been considered political
quicksand since two ill-fated endeavours by the last federal
Conservative government split the country at the beginning of the
1990s.
The Meech Lake (1990) and Charlottetown (1992) accords began as
specific reforms that wound up as historic documents that would have
fundamentally altered everything from aboriginal self governance to
Quebec's place in the federation.
The lesson of both Meech and Charlottetown, says constitutional
expert Patrick Monahan, who teaches law at Osgoode Hall, was
that "you really can't open the Constitution for particular items
without everyone who has constitutional issues wanting to be at the
table."
And since changes require the consent of seven provinces representing
at least 50 per cent of Canadians, not to mention approval from both
the Commons and the Senate, everyone has a lever to wedge open the
debate.
"Certainly any discussion of Senate reform is going to be seen as
substantive and is going to provoke calls to have the agenda
widened," warned Monaghan, adding there's absolutely no appetite for
such an exercise.
"Even those of us who are professionally involved with it recognize
it's a non-starter."
The last prime minister to tackle the job was Brian Mulroney, who
Harper says will help advise the Conservatives if it comes to putting
together a transitional government after an election.
Harper might not like everything Mulroney has to say.
In an interview at the bitter end of 1992, the Conservative prime
minister said it was impossible to "cherry-pick" constitutional
changes.
"You don't get to say, 'I would like to keep this,' or, 'I would like
a reformed Senate, but I don't want distinct society for Quebec,'
or 'I would like a reformed Senate, but I don't want you to deal with
the aboriginal problems.' Well forget it. Canada is not just one
instrument."
That doesn't appear to deter Harper. Nor do the niceties of political
convention.
No federal government - and only three provinces, Alberta, Quebec and
Saskatchewan - has ever used its power to override the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. But Harper didn't waffle when asked if he'd do
so.
"I consider the notwithstanding clause a valid part of the
Constitution . . . It's there to ensure that the courts themselves
operate within the Charter and don't become a law unto themselves."
In Harper's view, that doesn't necessarily mean he'd be faced with
using the escape clause to avoid sanctioning same-sex marriages.
Harper said he would immediately repeal Ottawa's reference to the
Supreme Court on the issue and instead put it to a vote in the
Commons in which even cabinet ministers would be free to vote their
conscience.
Regardless of its outcome, such a vote might well make a
confrontation with the court unnecessary.
"I will go on the basis that the courts would love Parliament to fill
this void for them," said Harper.
"If Parliament spoke clearly, I would hope the courts would recognize
this is within parliamentary authority."
Challenges to accepted wisdom in Ottawa are not new to the former
founding policy guru of the old Reform party.
One of the most significant legislative reforms of the federation
under the Liberals in the last 10 years was the adoption of the
Clarity Act, which sets out strict rules for secessionist
referendums.
Many Reform originals say it was Harper who conceived the strategy,
which they claim was then stolen holus-bolus by Liberal prime
minister Jean Chretien.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/05/15/461077-cp.html
