Canada's Senate is supposed to be known as the "chamber of sober second thought", as they are supposed to look over the various pieces of legislation that come through the elected House of Commons and give them "sober" consideration.
After recent incidents, Canadians will also now have "sober second thoughts" about the Senate, and what should be happening there.
The options range from reforming the Senate (which many people have been seeking for decades) to outright abolishing the "upper house" of Parliament.
Why do we have a Senate? It's part of the Parliamentary system that we inherited from Great Britain, which sort of sets us apart from the United States style of government, with local, state and federal layers.
While the House of Commons is fully elected, the Senate as it currently exists are filled with appointed members, and as vacancies arise, they are appointed by the Prime Minister.
The intent of the Senate is a good one, to give "sober second judgement" to the bills that are sent through the House of Commons - but it is clear we also need accountability there like there is with MPs, and with appointed senators, there is no accountability.
Thus we have former broadcasters like Mike Duffy and Saskatchewan's own Pamela Wallin now bringing disrepute to the upper chamber, plus other senators like Patrick Brazeau seeming to make a mockery of the rules governing where one's main residence is.
Those same rules were what dragged Duffy and Wallin down as well, but they were further mired by ongoing questionable practices, such as Duffy having a friend (who just so happened to be the chief aide to the prime minister) cover his $90,000 repayment of expenses, and it's become some big overblown political scandal that really nobody wants.
We need to take a step back and reconsider the Senate; the first question is, do we need it?
Under our present system, it seems to work best if we have it - but that system should be able to grow, change and evolve as needed, and perhaps the time is now (and is in fact past due) to make the change, and make the Senate accountable by electing the members.
If there is no way that that can be done, maybe the best route then is to abolish it. There is a function that the Senate can in fact fill, as a check-and-balance against the House of Commons, so why not consider elected senators then?
