Unicameral constitutional monarchy? New Zealand.

For what it's worth.

Why a Queen? Why not a Queen? It's fun having royal titles on a bunch of organizations and regiments. And constitutional monarchies are stable.

Excellent information. I wonder what mad bout of clarity 56 years ago led to this:<blockquote class="smalltext">It was eventually decided that the Council was having no significant impact on New Zealand's legislative process, and it ceased to exist at the beginning of 1951.</blockquote>

I see no problem with "sober second thought" and I see no problem with an appointed senate, but, I do see a problem where PMs of the day simply pump up the empty seats as they see fit with supporters of their views just to stack the deck for when they aren't in power. I still go with my idea of a floating list of potential senators that a PM must choose from with rotations between parties.

oops, forgot to add an elected senate serves no purpose really as it being elected, it would be redundant, essentially just being a second parliament. Plus, as it is supposed to be "sober second thought" how can it be honest and truly sober if the senators are facing re-election at some point and thereby have to appease the people of their constituency every time their speak or raise their hand to vote. Cause as you know, the masses generally vote based on looks, snappy speeches and promises.. they don't really know what is good for them in the long term (stupid humans)..

Unelected bodies that are part of government are antithetical to democracy however familiar or practical their traditional role might be. The Canadian Senate is unaccountable to me the citizen yet they have a role in passing laws to which I must as a citizen adhere. This is wrong. I believe it was Jefferson who said something about that truth being self-evident. The fact that this idea is still debatable in Canada shows how puny and cringing we are as a nation. I don't care if an elected Senate would be equally useless as the House of Commons, at least, I would have a say (however paltry or academic) in how I let myself be governed. And its the same for the Queen: Goodbye already! We can still have the Princess Patricia Light Infantry, we can still have the pomp & ceremony of the thrown speech with an elected head of state. If we are to have a head of state at least let me help decide who that might be.

<i>The fact that this idea is still debatable in Canada shows how puny and cringing we are as a nation. </i><p>This excellent sentence is equally applicable to many issues facing this land.

So, from what I understand, it is possible to reform the Senate constitutionally as long as we ...

a) turn it into a secular school system ...

b) declare it to be a vast Arctic territory, or ...

c) change its name to the Senate and Labrador.

I'm actually coming around to the status quo. Notwithstanding its sometime use as a Liberal check on Conservative governments (the only time it ever flexes its muscles), it's a decent thinktank and patronage slot.

My small-c conservative side tells me that if it ain't too terribly broke, why be in a hurry to fix it?

"if it ain't too terribly broke, why be in a hurry to fix it?"

Exactly. Just because I don't get to take part in the design choice of the corporate jacket I was given this year, doesn't mean it isn't as warm. People nowadays whinge and whine incessantly about their lack of a say in things that traditionally they never have had a say in. Its a knee jerk reaction to being an individualist in a society that is based on 50% plus one.

Sometime ago, I think Harper floated the idea that the provinces didn't even need to approve reforms to the Senate. That was one of the days he shout have just screamed "I am a silly moo that wants to get my way" as he lay on the floor of the entrance to Parliament kicking his legs.

The British colony of New England wasn't terribly broken? Why did they bother with that whole revolution thing? Washington and Jefferson were just knee jerk individualist whiners, weren't they? They never had a say in how the colony's were won before the Revolution, so what's the big deal? Maybe I'll go ask Musharraf what he thinks about the Canadian Senate......

"he British colony of New England wasn't terribly broken? Why did they bother with that whole revolution thing?"

Because a small sector of their society were power hungry elitists bent on separation from the throne so as to solidify their future control over all aspects of the nation by way of a star chamber like secret government that would eventually control the world?

Whoops. Didn't mean to get all Fox Mulder on you...

Of course, on the logic of efficacy there is a very sound argument to be made for getting rid of the vast majority of MPs who, apparently, are entirely incapable of voting any but their party's line. Most of the Cabinet could go as well. Switzerland gets by with a total of seven Cabinet officers. And, hey, what about those relics of antiquarian constitutional practice, the provinces? And the municipalities. (And Indians as a third order of government.) And you have to wonder about the efficiency of the legal system and those judge dudes in the robes who are not allowed to intervene even when the truth is as plain as the nose on your face. There are a lot of those judges and they all make way more than I do.

Junk'em all I say. Let us have one election for one Prime Minister every five years and let him run the show. We could have cool, rational guys with MBA's running pretty much everything. They report to the PMO and what they say happens. It would be great. No tiresome elections, no pretense of political or judicial independence. And, hey, if your garbage was not collected you'd know who to blame...the Prime Minister. Happily, without any checks on his power the PM would be able to get your garbage collected and make the trains run on time. (Maybe drain a bit of muskeg every so often.)

Cool. Sign me up!

Now now Jay! Don't get all slippery slope on us! I'ver heard some of those arguments before (especially getting rid of the provinces (mostly getting rid of the smaller provinces, i.e. Maritime Union)). We could get rid of provinces and municipalities but at least those orders of government have elected officials running their jurisdictions. However useless the Mayors of Charlottetown and Victoria may be, they are not analogous to the Senate. If we follow your argument a bit, though, I think it behooves us to analyze the issue from the system of checks and balances of the American model. There the legislative branch is elected. The other two branches are the "sober second thought" and are unelected. In Canada, we have also have the three branches of government and yes two of them are appointed. Why bother keeping another layer of checks or balances in the legislative branch? Is democracy running rampant over the other parts of government?

"There the legislative branch is elected. The other two branches are the "sober second thought" and are unelected."

Hans, say what you will about the quality of American Elections but I am pretty sure the American President is elected ;)

Jay, with all due respect, you forgot the quotes around "elected".. hee hee!

Okay, without getting into my opinions of the nuances of the Executive branches in the USA and Canada, I would say that in bothe cases the Executive Branch is a mix of elected and unelected.

(And parenthetically, I have no comments about the manner of the USA Presidential Elections i.e. the 2000 controversy over Florida. If Al Gore had been at all electable in some other states, including his home state of Tennessee, for god's sake, there wouldn't have been a controversy.)