Alberta will spend $3 million on another round of Senate elections: Klein
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By DARCY HENTON
EDMONTON (CP) - Alberta is going to spend $3 million on another round
of Senate elections despite its lack of success in getting the prime
minister to appoint its senators-in-waiting to office.
Premier Ralph Klein said it will be money well spent simply to show
the federal government that Alberta continues to push to have the
members of the upper chamber democratically elected.
"We firmly and strongly believe in the democratic process and $3
million to make a point that we want to nominate our senators through
an election process seems to be a reasonable amount," Klein said
Wednesday.
"I think most Albertans understand that. They want to see senators
appointed from democratically elected lists."
The Senate elections will be held in conjunction with the next
provincial election, expected in November.
Alberta has been electing so-called senators-in-waiting since 1989.
The six-year terms for the two Albertans chosen in the last election -
Bert Brown and Ted Morton in 1998 - expire Sept. 20 but the Alberta
cabinet has extended them until the election is held.
There are currently vacancies for three of Alberta's six Senate seats
as a result of the retirements of Nick Taylor, Doug Roche and Thelma
Chalifoux.
Klein said Prime Minister Paul Martin told him during a private
meeting at last year's Grey Cup game in Regina that he would consider
appointing Brown.
Klein said that would be "a good political step forward."
"To me it would make good political sense for the prime minister to
do," an exasperated Klein said. "Bert isn't going to cause any
problems. For goodness sake, appoint him."
Klein said he was disappointed to hear the prime minister has since
said there won't be any changes to the way senators are appointed.
Brown said Martin should appoint Alberta senators-in-waiting if only
to address the issue of western alienation.
"It is not whether Bert Brown is appointed to the Senate, but whether
all senators are elected in the future," he said. "I think it's the
most important democratic thing he could do to wipe out the
democratic deficit.
"He won't do that by taking his cabinet to B.C. for one day. It takes
a lot more commitment than that."
Brown, 66, who farmed north of Calgary before selling his land in
1999, said that after six years of waiting, he doesn't carry "a lot
of hope around."
The developer said he hasn't yet decided whether to run in the next
round of senate nominee elections, but as chairman of the Canadian
Committee for a Triple-E Senate, he will continue to lobby to make
the Senate equal, elected and effective.
Morton, a professor of political science at the University of
Calgary, has given up aspirations of a Senate appointment and is
running for the Tories in the next provincial election.
The only senator-in-waiting to ever make it to the upper chamber was
the late Stan Waters, who was appointed by former prime minister
Brian Mulroney in 1990.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/09/08/620878-cp.html
