Ok, first the requisite disclaimer: I fully agree that the Senate, in its current form, is a largely undemocratic, relatively archaic insitution.  Senators lucky enough to be appointed at a young(ish) age never have to work a “real job” another day in their lives (though many do) and there is something generally… icky… about an unelected body holding up or rejecting legislation that has been duly voted in by a democratically-elected body.

But I kind of like our Senate.

Sure, the institution suffers for some of the less-than-desirables that call it home but can’t the same be said for just about any major national institution? There are also a lot of genuine, sincere people in the Senate who do great work for Canadians.

Have any of you ever actually read through (or at least skimmed) some of the many committee reports that the Senate generates?  In my experience (which is limited but likely exponentially greater than most Canadians), Senate reports are less partisan, better researched and more thoughtful than the reports generated by their equivalents in the lower chamber.

Why? For many of the same reasons that people want to abolish or reform the Senate in the first place. Senators aren’t bound by the tight schedules that MPs – who need to “show results for Canadians” before the next trip to the polls – are. They can take the time do do their homework on the complex issues they are dealing with. They also don’t feel the same pressure to bow to partisan pressures. Think of the headaches Liberal Senator Colin Kenny gave his party colleagues as chairman of the Senate defence committee during the Chretien and Martin years. Ditto for Senator Michael Kirby and his work on healthcare.

These rogues can get away with pissing all over the party line for the simple reason that they can’t be turfed out of office. For a nice juxtaposition, have a look at the way MPs Bill Casey and Joe Comuzzi have been marginalized since they ran afoul of their party masters.

Compounding all of this is the fact that the Senate can never really defend itself. With a few notable exceptions, Senators are largely unwilling to defend the institution because they inevitably get accused of defending their space at the federal trough.

I tend to agree that the Senate needs some sort of reform, just as I believe the House of Commons needs to be reformed. But I feel bad for the Senate, in a lot of ways. The low-key approach Senators take to their work all but guarantees they will continue to be a target of whichever party (lately the NDP and Tories) feels the need to score some cheap political points.

I just hope Canadians, should we be faced with a referendum on the issue, take the time to do a little research and don’t just vote on the reputation that the abolishionists have worked so hard to create.

Ok, I lied. I’m not actually listening to State of the Union, but it is a good song and it became wedged in my head when I decided to post this. So I’ll pop in the requisite link and get on with the post. Be warned, there are dirty words in both song and intro.

So where was I? Right, I was at Inkless Wells, the fantastic blog by Maclean’s columnist Paul Wells (though unless I’m missing something, the blog is slightly less fantastic since the RSS feed went AWOL. Maclean’s is kind enough to link to this handy page but neither my Firefox Live Bookmarks nor my Bloglines reader can seem to detect a Wells-only RSS feed).

In any event, Wells threw out a great little idea today that I think is worth repeating. Said Paul:

Why brief Parliament only about Afghanistan? In Poland, the government delivers an annual address to Parliament on foreign policy: goals, state of play, progress, setbacks. It’s like budget day, but for another file. Of course they’d do that in Poland, where foreign policy has always been an existential question (will the neighbours permit the country to remain whole and sovereign?). In Canada it would serve as a handy reminder that there’s a whole world out there, which will take an interest in us whether we take an interest in it or not.

When you think about it, this really is one of those forehead-slapping “duh” things, isn’t it? Major corporations have to provide annual reports to their shareholders, why doesn’t the government have to communicate to its shareholders taxpayers people the same way? If you stop to consider how much is spent on foreign affairs between the foreign affairs deparment proper, CIDA, International Trade and who knows what other departments, it’s kind of amazing we don’t ask for more information…

… you know, on Haiti or whatever.