If Canada Can Get Rid Of A Penny That Costs More Than It’s Worth, Why Can’t We Get Rid Of The Senate?

A Commentary by Doug Draper

If Canada’s federal government can get rid of the penny because the coin is worth less than what it costs to keep it in circulation, then why doesn’t it apply the same logic to the Senate and get rid of it too?

An abominatiion of Canadian democracy – a costly, unaccountable senate that offers less than nothing of value compared to what it costs to keep it in business.

I am being perfectly seriously here. Last year, we were told by the Stephen Harper government that the penny was being abolished as of this February, mainly because from a plain cost point of view, there is no benefit in continuing to mint it. It is a one cent coin that costs 1.6 cents to make.

So now, like all the pennies we still have hanging around in tin cans, we have all of these senators from across Canada – some 105 of them in all – that we are paying about $130,000 a pop per year for, not counting benefit and expense packages 99 per cent of Canadians could only pray for if there ever were a heaven, and millions more of our hard-sought tax dollars are being shoveled out for their office space and staff.

And what are we – the people – getting in return?

In answer to that question, I would challenge anyone out there to email me a convincing case for five thoughts produced by this unelected, accountable-to-practically-nobody horde of hacks from a so-called ‘House of Sober Second Thoughts’ that have contributed anything of value to the health and welfare of Canada over the last calendar year – let alone the last five to 50 years.

By the way, Canadian senators, their families and the political operatives who arranged their appointment to what is sometimes so farcically referred to as this “august body” are disqualified from participating in this contest since all we are going to get from them, I’m trust most of you would agree, is  B.S. anyway.

And speaking of B.S. and any and all of related crap we get from this undemocratic, politically appointed body of partisan has been, now what is left of the currency we use to pay taxes with is supporting the likes of Senator Patrick Brazeau, who just this first week of February 2013, was charged by police and jailed for a night on “domestic violence” charges.

Then there is former Canadian TV journalist turned tell-the-media-to-get-an-‘adult job’ Mike Duffy, who was appointed by the Harper neo-cons to the Senate, but doesn’t seem to know if he lives in Prince Edward Island – the region he is supposed to represent in the Senate –  or Ontario. He can’t seem to do much these days, in the way of answering this question, in finding some kitchen route he might slither out from a banquet hall to avoid questions from his old media colleagues at CBC, CTV, etc.

Yet even without the antics of Brazeau and Duffy, we’ve still got a Senate body that is nothing more than a bone rack for shameless partisans who have shown no shame at all in the past of passing through such unpopular items as the G.S.T. form of taxation and, more recently, gutting of climate change programs.

Where are the original Reform Party supporters of Harper and others who once wanted to abolish what they believed was this most useless and costly affront to our democracy?

In other words, where is St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra and others from the Harper government when it comes to paying money for this compost heap of a senate – money that might better be invested in health care and education and other important services for ordinary Canadians.

My plea to you would be to contact your MP and the Prime Minister’s Office – just search up the contact information on line – and say you want this useless body abolished NOW!

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