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Want to reform the Senate? Get rid of it

Canada's Senate is one of the strangest institutions that could exist in a modern democracy. It vastly over-represents some parts of the country and brutally shortchanges others.

Canada's Senate is one of the strangest institutions that could exist in a modern democracy.

It vastly over-represents some parts of the country and brutally shortchanges others.

It's stacked with the partisan fundraisers of years past and a handful of quasi-celebrities of sporting or military fame.

The only qualification any of them have is being viewed with favour by the prime minister of the day.

Even when they do actually show up, it's difficult to point to any actual work they do.

You have to go back at least two decades, to the GST controversy, to find anything our senators have done beyond pointlessly mull over legislation, occasionally delay it and cash their paycheques.

So it's equally pointless for the B.C. Liberals to suggest we should elect the province's next senator. Spending a bunch of money to pick a single person to sit among 104 others and continue to do next to nothing is not reform, even though the idea is clearly meant as a sop to erstwhile Reformers.

There's no appetite among Canadians to restart the divisive constitutional battles that would come with genuine Senate reform.

The call for a Triple-E Senate - equal, elected and effective - is fraught with challenges and difficulties that hardly seem worth the trouble they would cause.

Why pit region against region to rework an institution that has virtually no impact on anyone's life?

This is a conclusion that even Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived at, despite his Reform roots.

We get along quite nicely at the provincial level with a single legislative chamber. The simplest and best way to reform the Senate is to get rid of it.

Would anyone really care - or even notice?