Last Wednesday, in Chancellor Day Hall, Linguistic Rights McGill held their inaugural panel discussion on Canadian senate reform and its impact on linguistic minorities. The panel consisted of Stéphane Dion, former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada; Céline Hervieux-Payette, former Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Senate; and Louis Massicotte, professor of political science at Université Laval.

“With this event, we sought to create a forum where academics, legislators and students could … share knowledge, experience, and possible solutions and outcomes in regards to the issue of reforming our chamber of sober second thought,”  Andrea Suurland, president of Linguistic Rights McGill, said.

Currently, the Governor General of Canada appoints members of the Senate on the advice of the Prime Minister. Senators can keep their positions until they reach the age of 75, and each province and territory is entitled to a specific number of seats, as determined in the Canadian Constitution.

Proposed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2011, Bill C-7 would amend the constitution to make the senate a democratically elected body. The Bill proposes that senators should be elected by each province, and be limited to a nine-year term.

According to Dion, one of the major problems with Bill C-7 is it would make both the Senate and the House of Commons essentially equal powers.

“What Steven Harper is trying to do does not exist in any place in the world,” Dion said. “I think it is very dangerous to have two elected chambers able to stop each other.”

Dion also suggested that having a powerful, elected Senate would  be a disadvantage to provinces such as British Columbia, which,  for historical reasons, have fewer representatives in the Senate.

In his opening address, Massicotte addressed the importance of the Senate to linguistic minorities, as a larger percentage of people from minorities are found in the Senate than in the House of Commons.

“From 1963 to 2006, 17 per cent of the 253 senators came from a minority language community,” Massicotte said in French. “Language minorities are almost two times better represented in the Senate than in the House of Commons.”

Massicotte explained that using province-wide elections to select senators would likely lead to fewer minority language senators, since language minority populations are often concentrated in small areas.

“We shouldn’t exaggerate, however, in presenting the Senate as the defender of linguistic minorities,” Massicotte continued. “The first line of defense for official language minorities is very clearly the Charter of Rights and [Freedoms].”

Hervieux-Payette, a sitting senator for the senatorial division of Bedford, Québec, said that the senators selected under the existing system are dedicated and experienced.

“The [high] level of education amongst Senate members is for the good of the community,” Hervieux-Payette said in French.

The panelists also gave their opinions on whether or not the Senate would ever be abolished.

“I don’t think [abolishing the Senate is] a Canadian priority,” Dion said in French. “[The Senate] isn’t a problem, even though it isn’t optimal. It’s useful.”

Massicotte agreed that abolishing the Senate is not feasible.

“You would have to go around the Constitution to abolish the Senate,” Massicotte said.

He also pointed out that the Senate could not be abolished without a referendum question, and that both the House of Commons and the Senate must approve all referendum questions.

Overall, this panel was an opportunity for students in the McGill community to learn about their country’s politics from a Quebec perspective.

“I thought [the panel] was informative,” law student Annie O’Dell said. “I don’t have an opinion on Senate reform yet, so it was nice to hear [experts] talk about it.”