Talk:Senate of Canada

2004

apperently the senate see's the remaining PC senators as a full-fleged party. they get "official party status" quite similar to Mr. St.Germain when he was the only CA Senator.

according to the Senate, the PC Party is still around. to avoid confusion I therefore named them the "Progressive Conservative Caucus"

Pellaken 05:00, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

2005

The seating chart needs to be updated as Liberal Herbert Sparrow retired January 4, 2005. The tables and appointment chart have already been updated. AndyL 00:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, I've done it.

For future reference the official seating plan is at http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/senate/seatingplan/SenateSeatingPlan.pdf AndyL 00:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PC PARTY STATUS

I called the senate, which had no clue. then I called the offices of the PC senators, and they told me that they are waiting for a ruling from the speaker and government house leader as to if they qualify as an official party or not. so this is as of yet undetermined.

NDP SENATOR

according to the official page - http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/senmemb/senate/ps-e.htm - the senator IS an NDP senator.

As I explained over on Talk:Carolyn_Parrish sometime ago, a member has the privilege to identify with whatever party label s/he likes. Ms. Dyck was appointed as a New Democrat and will remain as such until she says otherwise. She is, however, not a member of the NDP caucus. With respect to the PCs, they are now an official party under the Rules of the Senate, they will be apportioned part of the budget and will get to chair a committee, though both of these things may not happen until the next session. - Jord 23:58, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Powers of the Senate

There are actually two exceptions to the equality of the Senate and House of Commons in Canada. One is the power to originate "money bills" as noted. The other deals with changes to the Canadian Constitution.

Nominally, such changes need to be approved by both the House of Commons and the Senate. However, if the Senate does not approve such a change the House of Commons can, after 6 months, approve the change a second time and thus override the Senate.

Ambiguity

Known as the "Upper House", the Senate is far less powerful than...

So which is it, "the Upper House" or "the Senate"? Should that sentence perhaps start "Also known as..."? Or is it US POV, "those funny Canadians call their Senate the Upper House"? magetoo 12:50, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

It is the Senate. It is sometimes called the Upper House. Likewise, the House of Commons is sometimes called the Lower House. --Azkar 13:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

That is not exactly true, the British North America Act says, in section 17, "There shall be One Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons." There is no reference to the House of Commons as the "Lower House", though it is sometimes called that. - Jord 20:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The opening of the BNA Act specified that Canada would have "a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom." Readers would have understood, given this context, that the House of Commons was the "lower house," a term often used in Britain. The reason the Senate had to be specified as the "upper house" was that Britain did not have a Senate, but a House of Lords. In other words, the Commons is constitutionally the lower house in Canada, even if these exact words do not appear in the legislation. HistoryBA

Oh yes, well obviously the Canadian House of Commons is a lower house. I was merely indicating that the Senate can be called the Upper House (i.e. a proper noun) while the House of Commons is simply a lower house but cannot accurately be called the Lower House. - Jord 21:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The style in that day was to capitalize all nouns in a state document, whether proper nouns or not. HistoryBA 23:54, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, despite the fact that my username does not suggest so, I also have a BA in History and I understand the variance between capitalization between the the and now, and regardless of the capitalization in the quote which I cut & pasted, the term "Upper House" was meant as a proper noun. - Jord 04:22, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence? The use of "an" before "Upper House" suggests that it is a generic term, not a proper noun. HistoryBA 21:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Bicameralism uses the phrase uncapitalized. Upper house does, too (except for in the article title). -Joshuapaquin 21:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Status of PC Senators

To clarify the situation with the Progressive Conservative Senators, they are NOT a "Recognized Party" in the Senate under the Rules of the Senate. When Senator St. Germain left the PC's and sat as the Canadian Alliance's first Senator, the Rules were changed to address third parties. A Recognized Party in the Senate was then defined as "a political party that (A) initially has five or more members in the Senate and is at the same time a registered party under the Canada Elections Act, and (B) continues without interruption to have five or more members in the Senate, whether or not it ceases to be a registered party under the Canada Elections Act." When the Alliance-PC merger occured, three Senators left the caucus, and asked to be identified as Progressive Conservatives. While they are identified as PC, they are treated as independents. Despite the Prime Minister's recent appointment of two additional PC Senators, they continue to function as independents, as the PC's are no longer a registered party under the Canada Elections Act.

Redundant power to appoint eight extras

I just noticed that there are two mentions of this power, each citing the same example of it's use. The one under "Senators" is needed and well written, but the one in "Legislative functions" seems redundant and irrelevant. Does anybody object to a complete deletion of the second mention? --rob 8 July 2005 20:15 (UTC)

Deletion done. The remaining wording about eight senators seems complete, and remained unchanged. No information was lost (just redundant words). --rob 17:10, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Legislative functions

Why do you have to wade through almost the entire article to get to the bit about legislative functions? Tony 04:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Senator in Mexico ?

Several years ago there was a senator who hadn't come to the senate in years because he was living in Mexico. Does anyone remember who this was ? Dowew 03:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

See here - Jord 16:16, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Representation in the Senate

"Senate seats are divided among the provinces, so that Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and the Western provinces are equally represented." - What a load of crap. By population, it is not fair.

--Liam27 07:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The reason for this is that by population, the Maritime provinces are severely under-representated. The effect of this disparity is that it is next to impossible to have government support when it clashes with the interests of a more populated province. Such cases were the closing of CN Rail depots that were re-located to central Canada and cost thousands of maritimers their jobs, in a place where unemployment was already at 11%. The effect was to totally cripple the economy of those places, just to placate the populations of Quebec and Ontario. Also, when the senate was established, the maritime provinces were the ones to foot the bill for confederation, as Upper and Lower Canada were fledgeling provinces and not able to pay their way. Essencially, the Maritime provinces paid for a country that has turned their back on them in order to centralize the power, and therefor the population, of the central provinces. So, this helps balance the power of the federal government.

The Maritimes are not under-represented. They are actually over-represented. The maritimes are about 6% of Canada's population yet they have 24% of Senate seats. That's 4 times as much as they should have. So it's true that the Senate is not fair by population but that's because the Maritimes get too many seats. Also at the time of confederation there was no such thing as "Upper and Lower Canada", they had been merged into the province of Canada several decades before. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.226.18.229 (talk • contribs) 04:54, 22 Jan. 22 2006 (UTC).

Now that I think about it, we should take out that line because it is blantently untrue

Region | % of Population | % of Senate seats

Maritimes | 5.6% | 22.9% [(938134+757100+137900)/32438404]

Ontario |38.4% | 22.9% [12449502/32438404]

Quebec |23.3% | 22.9% [7568640/32438404]

Western |29.3% | 22.9% [(1,165,944+4,168,123+3,183,312+978,934)/32438404]

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.226.18.229 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 22 Jan. 23 2006 (UTC).

One of the purposes of the Senate is to provide regional representation. So, no, by population the regions aren't equally represented. That's not the point, though, of the distribution of Senate seats. --142.242.2.248 14:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Vacant seats in current total

Someone has edited the seat composition table to make the total "105/105" — I would think that the logic in this change is that there are one hundred seats, including the vacant seats. However, I would think that it would be more appropriate (as I would think is more in keeping with the original intent of the table) for the numerator to be equal to 105, less the vacant seats. Would it be okay if I changed it back to "105/105"? FiveParadox 15:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. You're going to change it from "105/105" to "105/105"? HistoryBA 18:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

My apologies! Meant "100/105".  :-S FiveParadox 00:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

"The other place"

I've read a few transcripts of the Senate precedings, before, and notice they frequently refer to the House of Commons as "the other place". I'm just curious if there's a history behind the custom, or what. I don't recall ever seeing an MP refer to the Senate in that manner .. --142.242.2.248 14:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually MPs regularly refer to the Senate as "the other place" as well, here is a search which will produce you the results. I am not sure where the exact origins come from, but one would assume that as there are two chambers it makes sense; I could assume that it might be in the same manner that you don't refer to members by name, maybe you don't refer to the other chamber by name? That is just conjecture and I suppose this isn't really the place for it anyway ;) - Jord 15:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Basically, parliamentarians aren't supposed to discuss affairs of the other chamber. So "the other place" is their workaround. Maureen McTeer once wrote that she thought that MPs were talking about heaven until her husband corrected her. -Joshuapaquin 20:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

hey, just browsing for a picture for a school project and i just happened to notice there was was no section titled criticism. is this covered? again, i didn't read the article. just looking for pictures...