The Conservatives and Stephen Harper believe that the current Senate must be either
reformed or abolished. An unelected Senate should not be able to block the will of the
elected House in the 21st century.
As a minimum, a re-elected Conservative Government will reintroduce legislation to
allow for nominees to the Senate to be selected by voters, to provide for Senators to serve
fixed terms of not longer than eight years, and for the Senate to be covered by the same
ethics rules as the House of Commons.
Sure. Can't run a decent government with a bunch of partisan appointments - unelected Senators stacking the Senate!
Unless, of course, it is to stack it in your favour.
Harper most likely made the appointments as well to show he knows how to reward biased journalists, and party fundraisers, knowing he will need many more this upcoming year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper filled all 18 vacant Senate seats on Monday, a move he was expected to make some time before Christmas...Several Conservative party stalwarts got the nod, including Michael MacDonald, the vice-president of the Conservative Party of Canada, and Irving Gerstein, a Toronto businessman who is known as a top Tory fundraiser.
n making the lengthy list of appointments, Harper has deviated from his long-held belief that senators should be elected, not appointed.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Breaking platform promises: the series - VII
A re-elected Conservative Government will proceed with an impartial third-party
investigation of the recent listeriosis outbreak.
The Harper government now says it hopes to name in the next few weeks a head investigator- likely a health-care expert to assess the deaths of 20 people. That timeline would leave less than two months to deliver a food-safety report and recommendations originally due March 15.
''It's a joke,'' said Rick Holley, a professor of food safety and food microbiology at the University of Manitoba. ''The government should use the folks that they're already paying to have the expertise and knowledge and understanding of what's wrong with the food system in this country, put them in a room together and get a solution,'' he said. ''It can't be a political appointee.''
investigation of the recent listeriosis outbreak.
The Harper government now says it hopes to name in the next few weeks a head investigator- likely a health-care expert to assess the deaths of 20 people. That timeline would leave less than two months to deliver a food-safety report and recommendations originally due March 15.
''It's a joke,'' said Rick Holley, a professor of food safety and food microbiology at the University of Manitoba. ''The government should use the folks that they're already paying to have the expertise and knowledge and understanding of what's wrong with the food system in this country, put them in a room together and get a solution,'' he said. ''It can't be a political appointee.''
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