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From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Feeding of Old Politicians
Message-ID: <982@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Mar-85 19:24:32 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.982
Posted: Sun Mar 17 19:24:32 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Mar-85 13:38:43 EST
Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Distribution: can
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 30


    So, the weak kneed ruling conservative party wants to reform the feeding 
trough for old political hacks.  (If you haven't guessed I am talking 
about the Senate.) Unfortunately, they don't even want to reform this
house of ill-repute in a meaningful way. All they want to do is handcuff 
it to make it more useless than it already is and turn it into an even 
bigger political wasteland.  As much as it pains me to do so, on this
one I basically have to agree with Ed Broadbent's desire to abolish the
Senate, given the direction the government seems headed.
   I would prefer to see the current Senate replaced with an elected
one where the members serve for a fixed term along with giving it more
actual power to make it worth our money. One purpose of the Senate is 
to provide a representation for regions as opposed to representation 
based solely on population. Given the current power of the Senate and
attitude of the Senators this just isn't working. Earlier this year
a piece of legislation of great interest to British Columbia was 
read in the Senate (It had something to do with the pacific salmon
fishery but I don't think it was the Canada-US treaty.) yet not one
Senator from British Columbia was present. To me, this indicates 
that either they felt powerless to do something about this legislation
even if they though it was "bad" or were shirking their responsibilities
or both. In any case it indicates time for Senate reform.
   Do you know who your Senators are? Do you know where they can
be found when they aren't sleeping in the Senate?
     
       Donald Acton

For those of you who are still struggling with winter, just a reminder
that spring can't be too far away as the cherry trees are now in bloom 
out here on the West Coast.