The Canadian Senate Awaits The Barbarians

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
        Because the barbarians are coming today.
        What laws can the senators make now?
        Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Constantine P. Cavafy, Waiting For the Barbarians, 1898

As I have mentioned in many earlier posts to this humble blog, the Oracle of Ottawa gets very nervous about the future of Canada when the barbarians start talking wholesale and rather insane changes to long existing Canadian institutions. Being of a very suspicious and conspiratorial nature, with darn near a half century of careful reading behind me, I am acutely aware of how dangerous such moronic tinkering can be.

One of the greatest books that I have ever read was that by Edward Gibbon, entitled  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I was very fortunate to acquire and still own the wonderful two volume quarto Virtue and Hall edition with the Bartlett plates, the pull out maps, and all the in text engravings of the roman coins and monuments. It took me months to get through. But it was totally riveting. I still get very strange looks every time I say that, but I just can't lie to you Dear Reader. One of the great lessons of this work was the importance of protecting the institutions of the state. The Roman Empire lasted from 753 B.C. - 1453 A.D.!  And so did the Roman Senate! A very strong theory about the fall of the Western Empire could possibly by tracked to a  Preston Manning type character inadvertently dinking up the machinery of state. Ponder that for a moment...

Canadian Senate chamber ceiling...

My most favorite Prime Minister, of my lifetime, is without a doubt Jean Chretien. He was more than a two-termer, serving over ten years as Prime Minister, always with huge majorities, and always with awesome poll ratings from beginning to end. This was no doubt due to making the the very subtle Canadian system work! It also helped a-lot that he was an expert on how the system actually worked! The one main reason for his long stable run was not to tinker in Constitutional matters! He was very aware of the words of Thomas  D'Arcy Mcgee, of which ones exactly, I will leave as an exercise to the reader!

Jean Chretien was very leery about an elected senate, especially one that would be "jury-rigged" from the present senate. In his biography, he briefly discussed some of the problems that could come up. If both houses were elected by the people, and there was a Liberal majority in the House and a Conservative majority in the Senate, which one would be the legitimate voice of the people? Should the senators and the members of Parliament be elected at the same time, should we go to the dreadful 24 month continuous American system? One could also conclude that if there was a treasonous plot to save a certain modern nation state that is at present losing former friends at an alarming rate, the destruction of the house of sober second thought, would have to be the place to start, to destroy the present Canadian Constitution. Beware!