This chamber is neither sober, nor thoughtful - discuss amongst yourselves.
Apparently, the Senate, an institution 'known' as the the Chamber of a 'sober, second thought', has closed down debate on the SS"M" bill after 2 hours of debate. Oh, those clever Liberals, they sure know how to work the levers of power (all you lefties must be giggling with glee now).
posted by Cyrano at 6:04 p.m.
9 Comments:
You missed the earlier post (about a month ago) where I listed leftie blogs this way to tease their authors. Often, I find that left-leaning bloggers have a political scale that runs from "severely and fanatically rightist" to "pleasantly mild and moderate". I'm just throwing it back as a joke (ha ha).
Nobody said you had to be grammatically correct in the blog-business ;-)
What's happened with this? When was the debate supposed to end and the vote to start. There's been so much other news this week, I've missed this.
Prior to these more recent events, I would've thought this to big news - now it's (justifiably) getting drowned out. Maybe the Liberals committed the terrorist act in London to distract Canadians? (Okay, VERY BAD joke).
I read that it just passed second reading in the Senate, either yesterday or today.
BTW, what happened over at your web-site, Canadi-anna? Was it hacked?
"your naivete surprises me"
Look this has been disgussed time and time again. You righties don't like the senate as it is. Would you support it holding up other legislation the House of Commons passes or just that you disagree with? Do you have priciples?
Thanks for stopping by, Rick - I've noticed your comments in a couple of other places I read at.
The Senate, as it is, is next to useless. It has been billed as the chamber of "sober, second thought" for quite awhile now - with the push to get this legislation through it without taking enough time to debate it, it certainly doesn't live up to its supposed reputation. I don't think it's inconsistent to identify one more thing pointing to the need to overhaul the Senate, and make it truly useful as a democratic institution. I'm quite interested in the EEE Senate - I think the only model that's been proposed so far that has a clear hope of reforming it. It shouldn't be considered 'holding up' other legislation to take the necessary time to debate a bill (the ideal length of time to debate controversial legislation is certainly up for discussion, but 2 hours? Surely we can agree that this amounts to pushing through controversial legislation without fully discussing the ramifications of it - if the Senate won't take enough time to discuss it, then we should agree that it's not fulfilling its purpose, and needs some kind of change).
Of course, I disagree with the legislation itself, particularly because it's such a fundamental change from what has always been prior to now, that we should listen to and respond to the legitimate concerns of those opposed to it - I didn't see this happen enough in the Parliamentary debate, and the 2 hours in the Senate is beyond belief for its brevity.
The 'naivete' comment was directed at me because John of 'chase the clouds' didn't understand my joke in putting left-leaning sites under that heading.
Thanks again for dropping in.
i've noticed that a lot of countries similar to ours refer to their senates as the "upper" house. you don't often hear that term in canadian media.
i think the fact that they are not elected makes all other points moot. i find it embarassing.
Robert - amen to that.
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