Should they be abolished? Well that's certainly a question that's up for debate. At the very least there should be a huge overhaul and we need to know without a shadow of doubt that the practices that are happening now, will stop.
There's a lot of controversy swirling around Canada's senate. Currently appointed by the Governor General and recommended by the Prime Minster, there are senators (no, not all) who have been misspending and making many wonder if these positions are to continue, whether we ought to be looking at elections rather than appointments.
From using tax dollars to foot the bill for personal expenses, to raking in dollars for meetings that don't happen, are these positions really an expense Canadians need or can afford?
Did you know there are two senators who each pocket thousands of extra dollars annually to head up a senate selection committee that is supposed to meet just once per year? Did you know that their last meeting (prior to one that was reportedly taking place this week in the midst of a public uproar) was held in 2011? There was no meeting in 2012 yet the senator who was named the committee chair still received $11,200 - on top of her $135,2200 salary AND the $11,200 she gets to serve as a government whip. The vice chair also gets paid annually for "meetings". He gets $5,600 on top of his $135,200 pay cheque plus another $6,600 he receives as whip. Well I wanna be on THAT committee! Where do we sign up???
The committee reportedly last met in June of 2011 for a whopping 15 minutes. Wow.
This is a practice that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is saying is unacceptable. And it IS. This is ridiculous.
Regardless of how much work these people claim they do throughout the year or not, Canadian taxpayers need to see a little more accountability.
"What's more outrageous," says one NDP ethics critic, "is Canadians have no ability to find out what they are up to, to hold them to account or even to fire them for this type of abuse. When you have a system that doesn't have any accountability, this is the type of abuse that becomes normal."
Don't we as hard working, contributing Canadian taxpayers deserve a little better leadership than this?
