A Postmedia News analysis of the current retirement dates for the country's senators suggests the NDP would have to win, at minimum, two consecutive election victories to end Conservative dominance of the Senate. The same is true for the Liberals.
Postmedia's projections also rest on the assumption that if the NDP formed government, the party actually would appoint New Democrats to the Senate.
But an NDP spokeswoman said on Friday that the party would not comment on hypothetical scenarios.
Should the New Democratic Party form a majority in 2015 — when the next federal election is scheduled — the analysis suggests it would take the party seven years to appoint enough NDP senators to overtake the Tories. This would require winning two consecutive elections at least four years apart, starting with that 2015 ballot. And it would require that whenever a senator retired, the NDP would actually fill the vacancy, appointing an NDP supporter.
Should the NDP not unseat the Tories until 2019, it would take election wins through to 2034 for the New Democrats to accumulate enough Senate seats from retiring Conservatives and Liberals to wrest control of the upper chamber for itself.
The NDP's position on the Senate, however, is that the upper chamber should be abolished.
So it could simply not appoint any senators at all, and let vacancies remain unfilled. But those vacancies would have to pile up for about 30 years before the Senate suffered from a lack of quorum.
If the Liberals were to win a majority in 2015, they could take as little as five years to recapture the Senate. If they did not unseat the Tories until 2019, it would take them 10 years beyond that.
The projections are based on the state of the Senate today, where appointments are made by the prime minister and senators do not need to retire until age 75.
These rules could change, should the government pass the Senate Reform Act. The bill would create a voluntary framework for provincial elections for senators and impose nine-year term limits on anyone appointed since October 2008.
Changing the face of the Senate, even when power shifts in the House of Commons, is not easy. It took four years after he was elected in 2006 before Harper gained control of the Senate from the Liberals. That's also how long it took Jean Chretien to do the same after becoming prime minister in 1993.
Brian Mulroney had to wait six years before he gained control of the Senate. In fact, Mulroney might have had to wait an additional year had he not become the only prime minister to use a clause in the Constitution that gives the government powers to appoint senators without a vacancy.
After receiving the Queen's approval to invoke Section 26 of the Constitution Act, Mulroney appointed eight Tory senators in late September 1990 in order to pass the GST through the upper house. Section 26 required that the next eight senators to retire would not be replaced.
Harper could add to his majority in the Senate this year. There are currently four vacant seats, with five more senators set to retire before the end of 2012.
Should he continue his tradition of appointing Conservatives, he could bring his party's numbers in the 105-seat chamber to as high as 63. If he were to win the 2015 election and continue appointing Tories, he could swell the Conservative benches in the Senate to as many as 82 members before 2019.
In a radio interview earlier this month in Calgary, Harper admitted his Senate reform agenda was moving more slowly than he had hoped.
The Senate Reform Act has not budged on the parliamentary agenda since January. A Harper spokesman said this week the government remains committed to the bill, but wouldn't say when the prime minister hopes to see it passed.
When asked about filling the current and upcoming vacancies in the Senate, Harper spokesman Carl Vallee said in an email that "vacancies will be filled in due course."
A court challenge from the Province of Quebec has not helped matters, either. The province is arguing before a provincial court that the Senate Reform Act amounts to the federal government unilaterally changing the Constitution, which requires approval of seven out of 10 provinces who combined have at least 50 per cent of the country's population.
The government has argued the Senate Reform Act doesn't require constitutional amendments because the prime minister will still appoint senators, but will do so from a list of provincially elected nominees.
If the government were to pass the Senate Reform Act this year, it would mean 41 Harper-appointed senators would retire by 2021 - 70 per cent of the seats the Conservatives currently hold in the Red Chamber.
No current Liberal senator would be caught in the nine-year term limit requirement. They would still be required to retire when they reach age 75.
jpress(at)postmedia.com
Twitter.com/jordan_press
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Senate at a glance:
Number of Senate seats: 105
Number of current senators: 101
Vacant seats: 4
Party standings in the Senate (as of July 13): Conservative, 58; Liberal, 40; Progressive Conservative, 1; Independent, 2.
Retirements by end of 2012: 5
Retirement age for senators: 75
Province with elected senators: Alberta
Provinces with pending or approved legislation to hold senate elections: Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, British Columbia.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Jordan Press
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