It appears the reports are just not true.
After a National Post story reporting Prime Minister Stephen Harper was going to be calling for the abolition of the Senate during a meeting with Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, the Conservatives say that’s not happening.
In an email exchange Friday, the Prime Minister’s director of communications tells Parliament Hill reporter Cormac MacSweeny is purely there to talk about forest fires and guesses talk about the Senate may come up, but that is not why he is there.
Then later Friday morning, Minister of National Defence and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney who was in Calgary for a funding announcement, commented on the story.
“First of all, those reports about a statement by the Prime Minister today are inaccurate,” he said. “The Prime Minister is in Saskatchewan with premier [Brad] Wall to talk about wildfires,” he said.
“Obviously, our government has always been committed to Senate reform, we have appointed only elected senators from the province of Alberta. We asked other provinces to hold Alberta-style Senate elections.
“Unfortunately, for the wrong reasons, they chose not to and we also brought forward legislation to limit the terms of senators and other important reforms.”
The opposition parties had criticized the government over the belief that Harper would shift his party’s stance from a focus on reform to one that would see the upper chamber vanish.
To abolish the senate, the federal government would have to reopen the constitution and it would need the consent of all 10 provinces, which is highly unlikely.
