The Canadian Senate

A clear-eyed look at the Senate's original purpose and contemporary role in Canada.

This reference book is primarily a procedural work which examines the many forms, customs, and practices which have been developed and established for the House of Commons since Confederation in 1867. It provides a distinctive Canadian perspective in describing procedure in the House up to the end of the first session of the 36th Parliament in Sept. 1999. The material is presented with full commentary on the historical circumstances which have shaped the current approach to parliamentary business. Key Speaker's rulings and statements are also documented and the considerable body of practice, interpretation, and precedents unique to the Canadian House of Commons is amply illustrated. Chapters of the book cover the following: parliamentary institutions; parliaments and ministries; privileges and immunities; the House and its Members; parliamentary procedure; the physical & administrative setting; the Speaker & other presiding officers; the parliamentary cycle; sittings of the House; the daily program; oral & written questions; the process of debate; rules of order & decorum; the curtailment of debate; special debates; the legislative process; delegated legislation; financial procedures; committees of the whole House; committees; private Members' business; public petitions; private bills practice; and the parliamentary record. Includes index.

This first in-depth analysis of Canada's Senate in 40 years.

This book addresses the highly contentious subject of Canadian Senate reform. Its conclusions reject conventional recommendations and argue that the Senate should remain an appointed body with a more expansive appointment process and restrained powers.

Claire Hoy has turned his irascible attention to Canada’s Senate. It’s not a pretty sight. The trial of Senator Eric Berntson that resulted in his conviction for fraud in February 1999, (a result that is being appealed), represents only the most recent in a long line of scandals the Canadian Senate has endured. True, some senators perform work that is constructive and useful, most of it in committees that examine legislation put forward by the House of Commons. But even their defenders admit that these contributions don’t add up to much and note that a declining minority of senators carries the load. Tory Senator Brenda Robertson, vice-chair of the Standing Orders Committee, admitted the party has problems getting senators to attend. “According to my math,” she reported, “in about four years we will have about twenty-five active members in the Senate.” Those are the good ones. The others collect their generous pay, perks, and allowances while they either slack off, actively pursue partisan political advantage for their respective parties, or build wealth for themselves and the corporations on whose boards of directors so many of them sit. There are signs that the end may be approaching. The mammoth battles – of ego and partisan rancour – that marked the second term of the Mulroney government, when the Liberal leader in the Senate set out to sabotage the legislative program of the Tories, marked an undoubted low point in the history of the upper chamber. Whether the Senate can be reformed, however, and what shape reform should take, remain open questions.

The role of the senate has changed much in recent years and—judging by the amount of recent public discussion on its role—might change even more in the future. This new study, the theoretical framework and theoretical discussion of which lift it out of the merely descriptive, contains a great deal of well-marshalled new material, from manuscript and ephemeral sources as well as from the printed Senate Debates Journals, and Reports of Committees. Little is generally known about the Senate, and of what little, much is erroneous. Professor Kunz's mass of detail and factual data, along with his evaluation of second chambers and of the performance of the Canadian Senate in particular, will do much to remedy this situation.