I blame it all on Sir John A. MacDonald.
How did he, and the other Fathers of Confederation, spend so much time arguing about the Senate, only to come up with mush? Did they just get bored? Were they all too anxious to take their mashies to the links? Whatever it was, they walked away from the table having created a Senate that had no real mandate, no guiding principles that lasted more than a few years, and, it appears, no conscience.
To paraphrase the current Finance Minister Joe Oliver, it seems like Sir John A. Left solving the Senate problem to his great-great-great-granddaughter.
So let’s give her a hand.
First off, we can all agree that there’s nothing right or forgivable about using public money for personal pleasure. Those that do such a thing should be stopped and punished.
But let’s also start with the admission that as far as national spending scandals go, this isn’t a world beater. After spending $23 million, the auditor general found less than a million dollars that are questionable. In the major capitals of the world, outrage doesn’t even get out of bed for anything less than a million.
It’s worth noting that the auditor called the spending questionable. Not necessarily wrong, unethical, or criminal. Just questionable.
That’s so Canadian.
But it’s also understandable. It appears that no one — not the auditor general, not the governor general, nor the prime minister — has a clue what the Senate rules are on the most fundamental question: where do you live. When that’s a crowd stumper you know you’ve got an epic mess on your hands.
So is it all just a matter then of clarifying some accounting and residency rules? No, its not because there’s a much bigger problem that’s only hinted at in the audit.
Put simply, many senators have an astonishing sense of entitlement and self importance. This leads them to do all manner of ridiculous and infuriating things. Charging to go on private fishing trips, or swanning around Europe to sample wine and food courtesy of the good taxpayers are obvious examples.
But what sense of inflated ego leads someone to charge the public for their attendance at a board meeting . Equally galling is when they insist that taxpayers foot the bill for travel for even seemingly benign causes such as promoting a charity. What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, where does that leave the many thousands of Canadians who work and sometimes travel to help charities on their own dime? Are they less worthy than the honourable senator from Pleasantville?
The problem here is how Senators see themselves and what they’ve agreed, over the decades, is their role.
So perhaps Sir John A’s great-great-great granddaughter may want to consider this: let’s define what a senator is and just as importantly what a senator is not. Constitutionally, the Senate is there primarily to review legislation brought to it by the House of Commons and suggest amendments if needed. Occasionally it generates its own bills, which is largely harmless.
Perhaps the country could ask the senators to do just that, and only that. No need to gambol around the world on the taxpayers’ credit card, no requirement to attend weddings, funerals and fundraising events.
It may just be enough to calm the waters until a more permanent solution is found.
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