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Senator Linda Frum recently wrote on Twitter that “a Senate full of meritorious but apolitical, non-partisan, politically neutral appointees is a fantasy/myth/lie.”
And the partisan/shameless/intolerable Senator Frum is right. There’s no such thing as a politically neutral human being, and if she thought through her own logic a bit further she’d realize that this makes her and every other senator redundant and a waste of perfectly good velvet.
But the Liberals apparently believe in the myth of the non-partisan objectibot, so they’re setting up an advisory board to recommend merit-based Senate candidates. Any Canadian can apply if they meet certain criteria. For example, they must have demonstrated outstanding achievement in their chosen field of expertise, which in Senator Frum’s case was fundraising for the Conservative party.
They also must own $4000 of property because that is the foundation of a strong moral fibre and definitely not a constitutional relic to restrict the aspirations of the poor with the interests of the landed gentry.
But none of these criteria matter because the behaviour of political representatives doesn’t depend on who they are, it depends on how accountable they are. There’s a reason the expression is “power corrupts” and not “power corrupts bad people but not people with a proven record of integrity.”
And in case you weren’t already convinced the Liberals were just reshuffling a stacked deck, all recommendations of the advisory board will be non-binding on the Prime Minister.
And like a sitcom that adds new characters to distract viewers from how terrible it is, the Senate will continue to be renewed season after season. Urkel wept.
This video originally appeared in The Toronto Star.
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