CTV News Calgary has reported:

Alberta Senator Paula Simons says the province’s referendum question on abolishing the Senate is unnecessary, since any premier can pursue constitutional change with other willing provinces. Question seven asks whether Albertans support the Alberta government working with willing provincial governments to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate. It does not ask voters directly whether they want the institution eliminated.

“You don’t need a referendum question to do that,” said Simons, who represents Alberta in the Senate. “Any Alberta premier has been welcome to do that at any point in history, the problem is that other provinces feel quite protective of the senate.”

She said provinces with significant representation may be difficult to persuade. “Certainly for the Atlantic provinces - for Newfoundland with six senators, for P.E.I. with four senators, for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with 10 senators each - to make the case to them to abolish the senate would be a challenge.”

Simons was appointed to the Senate in October 2018. Before her appointment, she was an Alberta journalist. She described the Senate as a second review of federal legislation, with a role shaped by institutions such as Britain’s House of Lords, the United States Senate and the Roman Senate.

“The idea was to provide a long term perspective,” she said. “That’s why senators aren’t elected, we’re not subject to election cycles and popular pressure so the premise is that every piece of legislation gets a once over from us, we are there to represent regional interests, that’s why we’re we are appointed from provinces so we are very much there to protect provincial rights, but we are also there to protect people’s constitutional rights.”

Jeremy Webber, dean of law at the University of Victoria and an expert in constitutional law and reform, said putting 10 questions on one referendum may make it harder for voters to assess the results. Some subjects may receive extensive debate, he said, while others might not be discussed at all.

“This such a complex list of questions dealing with so many different areas, some of which are going to be heavily discussed, other of which may not even be touched on,” he said. “What’s the status of the result that one is going to obtain from this pretty substantial, pretty costly process of public consultation.”

On the Senate question, Webber said he supports reform and has long objected to the institution’s current structure. “I actually have never been a fan of the current Canadian senate, it strikes me that it is really a poorly designed institution for a democracy, it is really in no material way representative,” he said.

He said the Alberta government’s interest in abolition reflects a change in political alignment: “But it’s interesting that the current Alberta government is gravitating towards abolition, that frankly used to be the position of the left in Canadian politics, the traditional NDP position was that the Senate should be abolished.”

Webber said older Albertans have seen Senate reform discussed repeatedly, but determining a suitable structure is a national challenge. He questioned whether the referendum’s many subjects would produce clear outcomes.

“It just seems to me that we’ve just got so many balls in the air here that I wonder whether one’s going to get the kind of crisp decision that really referendums are designed to provide,” he said. “These kinds of consultations can be an important part of the democratic process or they can be frankly, a bit of a dog’s breakfast.”

Senator Scott Tannas, a High River resident, began his Senate career after being appointed in March 2013. He is the only current senator, and the fifth in Parliament’s history, whose appointment followed a public election. He received 349,346 votes from Albertans in that contest.

“I take all the (referendum) questions seriously,” he said. “And I think lots of people do but it’s a lot of questions to ask a busy Alberta citizen who has a lot of things on their mind besides the inner workings of government.”

Tannas said his 2013 campaign platform was unusual: he argued the Senate was useless, needed reform or should be abolished. Since then, he said, he has come to understand the institution’s research and legislative work more fully.

“What I didn’t realize and what most Canadians wouldn’t realize today even, is the depth in which the Senate does studies on issues and reports that many times form government legislation,” he said. “There’s no question the Senate is full of accomplished people from all walks of life that are there with the right intentions to be helpful, they’ve been successful in their own endeavors and they are there to serve the country.”

Tannas said the Senate has entered a new era of productivity, moving from no input on legislation to successfully amending roughly 30 per cent of government bills that come before it. He encouraged Alberta voters to take a minute to learn who their senators are before voting on Oct. 19.

“It’s a question for me that I think is worth asking and hopefully it informs the Alberta government on how to force more improvements in the Senate,” he said. “I don’t believe for a second that the Alberta government will be successful in enlisting unanimity, which is what would be required so it would be another quixotic move to go from ‘we demand a Triple E senate, to we demand abolishment’, neither of which will ever happen.”