For years, the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, and now the 'new' Conservatives have been advocating an elected Senate. And they want it to more closely represent the population. But that idea really doesn't conform to the original concept of the Upper Chamber, which is not supposed be a duplicate of the 'rep by pop' House of Commons. Rather, it's supposed to be a chamber of men and women of noteworthy character, experience, service and expertise, who will provide a regional balance to the House of Commons, thus protecting the provinces with smaller populations from the dominance of Central Canada's two big-population provinces.

The United States switched from an appointed Senate to an elected Senate between 1911-13; there is now a movement in the U.S. to repeal the 17th Amendment, which made that change-and the movement is growing. The problem, they have discovered, is that Senators, because they represent many more people than the Congressmen in their states, have become the most powerful politicians.

But they're still politicians.

It makes you wonder: why would people who say they advocate "smaller government" want to put still more politicians into the mix?

It's true that decades of Liberal and Conservative prime ministers have corrupted the Senate by making it a retirement home for bag-men and other party faithful; and by stacking the Senate with appointments to help them ram through unpopular legislation. But neither the Conservative 'Triple-E' Senate nor the NDP's clamoring to abolish the Senate is the answer.

The answer is to give the Senate back to the provinces it is intended to represent: let each province choose whether to elect or appoint its senators. And in the Red Chamber, senators should be seated by region, not by party. That would encourage the kind of regional input on legislation that was the original mandate of the "chamber of sober second thought".