Beyond scandal and patronage

Today we have a Senate that is not only ineffective in playing its crucial role within our larger constitutional edifice, but has become an embarrassment and a laughing stock, in large part because no one knows what the Senate is for and the way senators get there is widely seen to be illegitimate. The result is that discussions around the Senate focus entirely too much on the peccadilloes of current senators whose shenanigans, however risible, should not blind us to the vital work the Senate can and indeed must do for Canadians.