{"id":220474,"date":"2019-06-26T21:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T01:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=220474"},"modified":"2019-06-26T21:00:49","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T01:00:49","slug":"alberta-wants-to-bring-back-elections-for-nominees-to-fill-senate-vacancies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/26\/alberta-wants-to-bring-back-elections-for-nominees-to-fill-senate-vacancies\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta wants to bring back elections for nominees to fill Senate vacancies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer introduced legislation Wednesday that would revive and update a law that allowed for four elections before it lapsed in 2016. (File Photo<\/a>: @doug_schweitzer\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EDMONTON \u2014 Alberta’s United Conservative government plans to bring back elections for would-be senators and hold a vote in a little more than two years.<\/p>\n

Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer introduced legislation Wednesday that would revive and update a law that allowed for four elections before it lapsed in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The bill) will continue Alberta’s push for the democratization of the Canadian Senate, so Alberta senators have a mandate from Albertans to be effective voices for our province in the federal Parliament,\u201d Schweitzer told the house.<\/p>\n

Under the bill, cabinet would decide when elections were held.<\/p>\n

Premier\u00a0Jason\u00a0Kenney\u00a0has said the next vote would be in conjunction with municipal elections across Alberta on Oct. 18, 2021.<\/p>\n

Candidates would be allowed to run under the banner of established political parties or as Independents.<\/p>\n

Up to three of the top finishers would have their names submitted to the federal government for consideration to replace outgoing senators.<\/p>\n

However, the Governor General, acting on the advice of the prime minister, would not be bound by law to pick anyone on the list.<\/p>\n

Senators can keep their job until age 75.<\/p>\n

Elaine McCoy, a senator from Alberta, turns 75 in March 2021, which would be about seven months before the first Senate election proposed by the bill.<\/p>\n

Kenney’s campaign for the April provincial election included bringing back votes for nominee senators, but the premier fast-tracked that promise last week after the Senate passed two energy bills that he says are prejudicial to Alberta’s energy interests.<\/p>\n

He noted that while five of Alberta’s six senators voted to reject Bill C-48 banning tanker traffic on B.C.’s north coast, three of the six voted to reject Bill C-69 that rewrites the rules for assessing major energy projects. Critics and industry leaders say that will make it difficult for new energy megaprojects to be approved.<\/p>\n

Kenney\u00a0noted that two of the three senators who rejected Bill C-69 \u2014 Doug Black and Scott Tannas \u2014 were named to the upper chamber after winning senator-in-waiting elections.<\/p>\n

That shows it’s time to bring back elections for senators who may be more amenable to voting for issues that benefit Albertans, he said.<\/p>\n

Alberta is the only province that has chosen senators-in-waiting and has held four elections since the Senatorial Selection Act was passed under then-premier Don Getty in 1989. Five of 10 elected candidates have been named to the Senate.<\/p>\n

The act lapsed at the end of 2016 under then-premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government.<\/p>\n

Notley, now the leader of Alberta’s Opposition, said this week that the concept of Senate elections is expensive and flawed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally speaking, anything that would cost Albertans millions of dollars in order to legitimize a body in which Albertans are incredibly under-represented makes no sense,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s wasteful, regressive, re-treaded politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 Alberta’s United Conservative government plans to bring back elections for would-be senators and hold a vote in a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":220476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-dean-bennett","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220477,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220474\/revisions\/220477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}