Canada is technically a constitutional monarchy, but the king is more like a figurehead, and really, is not that important in the grand scheme of things.

Rather, Canada, for all intents and purposes, is a parliamentary democracy. This means Canada’s democratic system has a House of Commons made up of elected members of parliament (MPs) who vote on laws and introduce bills. Of course, all these MPs belong to parties, with the majority party being in charge of the whole country.

However, there is a much more sinister second group of people called “the Senate.” This group is not elected at all, they are appointed by the governor general after being selected by the residing prime minister. The Senate, the unelected folks, have the final say to turn down laws and generate their own bills.

By its very nature as an unelected body of government, the Senate flies in the face of democracy. Not only are senators appointed, but their appointments can last until they turn 75 years old. A bill was introduced in 2010 that attempted to limit a senator’s term to eight years, but it did not make it past the second reading in the House of Commons.

Not only are senators unelected officials that hold a great degree of power in Canadian politics, they also basically go unchecked. There is no governing body that monitors senators outside of a committee that comprises senators. There is a senate ethics officer, but that officer is only accountable to the senate itself.

Unelected officials shouldn’t even be present in the Canadian system of democracy, never mind unelected officials without a body of accountability. Democracy is supposed to be the rule of the people. Alberta is the only province in Canada which elects senators to represent them in Senate, and even these senators are appointed for life.

Even if these senators were representative of Canadians, what represents the body politic in Canada changes over time. A senator who, on the rare occasion, actually is representative of their region of Canada in 2005 is not necessarily representative, or even useful, in 2024.

A lack of term limits effectively sets senators up for life, and that is without even considering their salary. Taking their salary into account makes the situation even more egregious. A senator’s base salary is $169,600.

Furthermore, Senate expenses tell a grim tale. They show office, living and travel expenses typically costing taxpayers thousands of dollars per senator, and that is just within a quarterly report. In one quarter alone — from July 2023 to the end of September 2023 — former senator Dennis Glen Patterson ran up a travel fee of $43,492.

To put all these absurd numbers in perspective, the Senate proposed a budget estimate of $121 million for the 2022 to 2023 session of parliament. There is no possible justification for over $100 million being used simply to review, veto and table bills when there is an elected body — the House — that already does this.

I, the honourable taxpayer, and every other taxpayer for that matter, are practically paying senators millions of dollars to do a job that the elected body already does. If it weren’t such a waste of money, it would almost be funny. The justification for this is that the Senate provides a “sober second thought.”

I was under the impression that since Canada elects 338 MPs, we should have around 337 sober second thoughts after some overpaid goober says something. While elections such as those held in Alberta remove some the undemocratic aspects by introducing election, this still does not account for the Senate’s cost and political redundancy.

While there have been numerous attempts to reform and modernize the Senate since its creation, these critical issues will always be present, which is why abolition is the most logical decision. As a totally unbiased political expert on Canadian democracy, I think abolishing the Senate would free up millions of dollars and streamline the democratic process.

Removing a body of parliament whose entire job is to review bills that already go through three readings and committee reviews would improve the political process in Canada. This would grease the wheels of the legislative process.

The Senate is Canada’s most expensive roadblock in the democratic process. Not only would the democratic process improve from the Senate’s removal, but the millions of dollars that are freed up could be put toward something more important like the wages of MPs or student journalists. That money genuinely could be used for the numerous social and economic crises across Canada.

Unfortunately, the Senate probably isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but we can hope.