POLI 221 Chapter Notes -Senate Of Canada, Clarity Act, Charlottetown Accord
Document Summary
Docherty, david c, the canadian senate: chamber of sober second thought or. Loony cousin best not talked about , journal of legislative studies, 8, #3, Our senate is the most unreformed chamber in all parliamentary democracies. Defenders of canadian senate: allow pm to make up for the lack of representation in the lower house that might occur because of the single-member plurality system. There have been calls and attempts at reforms. Argument: most reforms have failed because there must be constitutional amendments. Hope lies in smaller reforms that do not require amending the constitution. The initial objective was to represent 2 distinct segments of canadian society: regions (because at first, provinces did not have much power. So, must find a way to represent regions: propertied interests. 3 criteria for appointment: region, age (30, copied on the us, property (4,000$, used to make senate more elitist and conservative)