Once seeking Senate reform, Alberta now ponders voting to be ‘rid of the darn thing’

It was in the pages of a 1985 issue of the Alberta Report newsmagazine where conservative Alberta writer Ted Byfield proposed a “triple-E” vision for the Canadian Senate.

In Byfield’s view, a triple-E Senate — equal, elected and effective — offered a salve if Alberta again faced something like Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s controversial 1980 National Energy Program, seen as evidence by Byfield and others that Ottawa unfairly treated the West.

In addition to being equal and elected, a triple-E Senate would also see senators having more legislative power.

“The task of selling this to Canada is awesome, but not impossible,” Byfield wrote in his 1985 column. 

“There is an obvious first step. Triple-E supporters — the revolutionaries — wear a triple-E symbol on their lapels.

“It denotes the opposite of separatism. It does not declare, we want out. It declares we want in. If a million westerners and a half-million Maritimers began wearing it, the politicians would soon be listening.”

Though the idea predated Byfield (the Canada West Foundation proposed the idea in 1981), the “triple-E” catchphrase was adopted by scores of Alberta leaders, from Preston Manning and his Reform Party to former premier Don Getty.

Speaking in 1987, Getty said “Senate reform along the triple-E lines is the only hope for westerners who are loyal to both their region and their country.”

Various reform attempts followed, but none matched what Byfield and Manning and Getty envisioned. The Senate reform movement, as Alberta conceived of it, stalled. 

This October, Albertans will be asked to ponder the Senate’s future once again. 

Unlike the triple-E movement of decades past, Albertans will be asked to consider a more dramatic gambit: abolishing the Red Chamber entirely.

“The unelected Senate is a waste of taxpayer dollars, is entirely undemocratic, doesn’t represent the interests or will of the province they represent, and should have been abolished years ago,” wrote Ryan Fournier, a spokesperson for the premier’s office, in an email.

A “yes” vote prompts Alberta to partner with “other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate.”

That would be no easy feat.

“I think it’s a dead end, myself,” said Gary O’Brien, a former clerk of the Senate. 

That’s not to say O’Brien doesn’t understand the frustration. The author of The Senate of Canada was clerk in the Senate from 2009 until 2015, when he retired.

Much pessimism has been tied to a 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, in O’Brien’s view. 

That ruling stated the federal government doesn’t have the power to enact reforms on its own. Instead, reform takes the support of seven provinces representing half the population, while abolishment requires the support of all 10 provinces.

“The chances of this happening are almost nil,” O’Brien said.

In O’Brien’s view, eliminating the Senate would weaken provincial representation in Ottawa and remove a key institutional check on the House of Commons. 

“I give credit to Alberta for … putting it on as a very important issue facing them and facing Canada,” O’Brien said. “I think their solution is the wrong one, but at least they’re putting the Senate on the map.”

O’Brien argued past efforts at reform failed by being too broad. In the future, reform could concentrate on individual problems, starting with Senate seat allocation.

He noted Alberta has six seats out of 105 with a population of five million, while New Brunswick has 10 seats for less than a million.

“Why not correct the way seats are distributed to give a better balance of fairness?” he said. “I think if people enter into that debate with a sense of compromise, there could be a chance of success.”

On its referendum website, Alberta lists its grievances with the Senate. Along with seat counts, it states five of Alberta’s senators were appointed by the current federal government “with zero consultation, entirely ignoring the Senate election process in place in Alberta.”

Unlike other provinces, Alberta elects Senate nominees. Between 1989 and 2012, Alberta held elections that resulted in 10 nominees, half of whom were appointed. The process was revived under former premier Jason Kenney in 2021.

There’s nothing on the books to stop provinces from holding such elections, but the results are non-binding. The Governor General appoints senators on the prime minister’s recommendation, following input from an advisory board.

Gerard Kennedy, an associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Alberta, said the province’s process can’t trump the clear constitutional purview of the federal government to recommend appointments of senators.

“The federal government is entitled to arrange an alternative process. Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that the non-elected nature of the Senate is a key characteristic of it,” Kennedy wrote in an email. “While the government can choose to appoint an elected Senator, they cannot be obliged to do so.”

In a 2021 letter to former prime minister Justin Trudeau, Kenney wrote provincial nominee elections “could work in conjunction with the federal nomination process to ensure alignment of our respective processes.”

Provincial Senate nominee Erika Barootes on Alberta’s frustrations

Erika Barootes was one of three provincial Senate nominees from 2021. 

Under Trudeau, Barootes said there was “not an expectation” she would be called to service right away.

“Would I say I fell off my chair when I found out that he had appointed other Albertans to those vacancies? No,” said Barootes, a former principal secretary to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. “But it is, I think, still frustrating and insulting to know that I’ve put in lots of work. I travelled the whole province.”

Though Barootes views abolition as a “throwaway” question on the referendum ballot, she believes talk may have moved in that direction given long-standing frustration over reform.

“I think that’s where we’ve seen the triple-E idea of seat counts shift towards — just get rid of the darn thing … because it’s not working,” she said. 

Under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the government recently announced it intends to recruit candidates “with enhanced focus and expertise in key Canadian strategic industries, regulatory frameworks, and emerging social and economic affairs,” while also removing the non-partisanship criterion for Senate appointments. 

Sen. Scott Tannas was elected as an Alberta senator-in-waiting in 2012 and was appointed to the Senate by former prime minister Stephen Harper the next year.

“Honestly, when I first went, I said, if we can’t make the changes, we should abolish it,” Tannas recalled.

Sen. Scott Tannas on why he changed his mind on the Senate

But Tannas, who is the former president of the insurance services company Western Financial Group, said his thinking flipped after spending time on various committees.

“I got an appreciation of the committee work that senators do, the studies that they do, where their expertise and whatever area of experience they have come to bear,” he said. “And that was humbling.”

Sen. Scott Tannas on what would be lost should the Senate be abolished

Gary Mar, a former Alberta cabinet minister who is president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, said the idea of an elected, equal and effective senate is still central to the foundation’s “legacy on co-operative federalism today.”

“Abolishing the Senate requires constitutional reform, and history shows that this is neither easy nor simple. Renewed engagement and discussion are perhaps the more realistic path towards Senate reform that can benefit all of Canada and especially the West,” Mar wrote in an email.

The idea of affixing triple-E symbols to one’s lapel never really seemed to catch on in Alberta.

As to whether Albertans feel ready to throw in the towel on the whole institution? Clarity on that point is only months away.