An Argument for a Runner-Up Senate

Mr. Brown recalls how he and Mr. Harper discussed at Caesar’s how a reformed, elected Senate and an unchanged House of Commons might interact: A Senate with newfound democratic legitimacy might rival the House in ways never before seen, and both men knew there was nothing in the Constitution preventing a deadlock or even a Senate-sparked government shut-down.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has committed to Senate reform.  There are not a few Canadians who feel a Senate no longer serves any purpose and should be gotten rid of entirely; their main argument is that an unelected body does not represent the will of Canadians, which the Prime Minister would seem to agree with.

At the same time, Canada is grappling with a democratic deficit - voter turnout is trending down and, as the electoral watering hole shrinks, the politics that covets those votes is getting nastier.  Part of the problem here is the nature of our first-past-the-post system; how many voters can legitimately claim that their votes make no difference in the forming of government?  The majority of Canadians who voted did not vote for the Harper Conservatives, to say nothing of those who didn't vote at all.  This isn't a trend that will encourage voter turnout.

There have been suggestions of alternative electoral systems we could employ to fix the imbalance between votes cast and results, with a Mixed Member Proportional System frequently being cited as an option.

I think we're making this challenge more complicated than it needs to be, because we're looking at Senate reform and electoral reform as separate entities.  Ultimately, we have one voter - why not take the best of what we have and tailor it to better represent that voter's choices?

A Runner Up Senate

What if, instead of appointed Senators or separately elected Senators, the Red Chamber were filled with Runner-Up Candidates of general elections from individual ridings across the country? 

We could set a fixed number of Senate seats per province/territory; the runner-up candidates with the highest aggregate vote-counts would then end up not in the House of Commons, but in the Senate.  Sober second thought would still be in place and would more accurately represent the will of Canadians as expressed by their votes.

I see this as positive in a couple of ways - one, it would validate voting for those who feel their voice is lost in the first-past-the-post system.  It could also help reduce the partisan nastiness that is increasing in our system, particularly at the local level.  Knowing you might have to work with your riding-level opponents in Ottawa and that they might have a say in the positions you put forward might reduce the chicanery that is all too common in political brinkmanship.

Yes, there's a risk of such a move leading to more hyper-sensitive political in-fighting, positioning and gridlock, but if the right relationships are built between candidates on the ground, I think this would be far less of a problem.  Again, it's about empowering the individual representatives to represent the views they were elected on but also the interests of their constituents.  In addition, it's really more of a risk to the Parties that try to play games; as Robocalls is proving, the more complicated you make your opaque voter manipulation schemes, the harder they are to carry through to completion without getting burned in the process.

Forcing our politicians to view collaboration as part of their long game can only benefit Canadian politics and our national democracy.  That's my view, anyway.  I'd love to hear yours.