The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1985, WHITBY FREE PRESS yl FtbPublished every Wednesday w hitby r by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phione 668-6111 The Free Press Buildin tm I Â S di r131 Brock Street North. Voice of the County Town Michael lan Burgess, Publisher - Managing Edior P.O. Box 206, whitby,1 o The only Whitby newspaper înaepenoenumy owneu unu upca i u - MICHAEL KNELL Community Editor VALERIE COWEN Advertising Manager g, Ont. econd "lasSMi3 We need an elected, effective Senate instead of learnlng a lesson in humility, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has been behaving like a spoilt brat ever since the Senate finally passed his government's borrowing bill last week. In essense, the Liberal dominated Senate told the government that it couldn't borrow billions of dollars unless It was prepared to state for what purpose It was going to be used. That's not so bad - after ail, when a private citizen goes to the bank The difference between watching the House of Commons on TV and sitting in the Press Gallery is even greater than the difference between wat- ching a hockey game on the tube and being there, right in the rink. When you watch a hockey game from your living room, you miss the rasp of blades on Ice, the solid whuck of a slap shot, the players' profanity, and butt-ending off-camera and a host of little details that make it a blood and flesh event. Question period on TV is an even paler reflec- tion of the reality than a televised hockey game. For one thing, because of the rules under which the House is televised, the camera stays on the member speaking. And yet half of the interest, when the Prime Minister is replying to a question from the leader of the opposition, for example, is what Mr. Mulroney's words are doing to Mr. Tur- ner's facial expression. Speaking members are rather closely miked, so much of the by-play - the catcalls, the angry inter- jections - is lost to the TV audience. You don't see the members who slam out of the chamber when the time for question period expires and they have not been recognized. So you don't see petulence. You don't see the grins on the faces of the back- benchers, so you don't know which members have the respect of their peers and which don't. Since the camera is switched when a minister stops speaking, you don't see which of them are so pleased with the cleverness of what they've just said that self-satisfied little smiles creep over their faces. One of them, in particular, on the Tory front bench, is by and large enormously pleased with himself. You don't see arrogance, and it is developing, in at least one member of the Mulroney government, to the same degree it did in some of his Liberal predecessors. He sits there with half-shut eyes and a faint smile, supremely and quite obviously indifferent to the scum across the aisle. You begin to appreciate the ministers who haven't changed because they now find them- selves in power, and the ex-members who haven't changed although they find themselves out. These are people who feel secure in their own right, and you are relieved to discover that there are more of those than the other kind. And on television, you don't really see how many members are missing on Friday. There are a lot of them. to apply for a loan, he or she must say why the money is needed, for what purpose It wilH be used and how the money will be repaid. This newspaper is not entirely convinced that what the Senate did was ail that wrong. If the mon- th long hold-up did anything at ail, it forced the new Tory government to table its expenditures for the next fiscal year. Until the Senate decided that it was not going to roll over and play dead, as it so often does, the government would have taken its sweet time to produce the expenditure estimates. The result was that Canadians now know they have elected a government that intends to spend just over $105 billion in the next fiscal year. No Government of Canada has ever spent that much money during our 118-year history. Instead of learning that he can't borrow money without justifying his government's need for it, Mulroney came charging out of Parliament saying that he is going to propose a constitutional amen- dment to restrict the powers of the Senate. He's doing this simply because a bunch of Liberal "discards", as he termed them, dared to question the policy of his government. If Mulroney is serious about Senate reform then he should let his anger subside and look at the situation rationally. Abolition of the Senate would have certain advantages, the primary one being It would practically destroy the government's best patronage position. However, perhaps making the Senate an elec- ted chamber with defined constitutional duties and responsibilities is a far better answer. When created under the old British North America Act, the Senate's major function was to act as a chamber of "second thought". It was to review government policy and legislation to en- sure that it was both wise and just. It was to prevent government from behaving foolishly and unconstitutionally. Perhaps this role would be strengthened and respected If those supposedly wise counsellors sitting In the upper chamber of parliament were elected to their posts by the people of this coun- try. Before abolishing or makIng other changes to the Senate, Mulroney should look at the situation in our fellow dominion - Australia, whose Senate is not only elected but is a parliamentary version of the U.S. Senate. The Senate of Australia is elected every three years. It operates along party lines and is in- dependant of both the lower house and the executive branch (i.e. cabinet). It cannot initiate money bills and is equally representative of ail Australla states. Perhaps what we need in Canada is an elected Senate that equally represents ail 10 provinces and two territories and operates in the same man- ner as does its counterparts in both Australia and the U.S. And remember, in both countries any bill that fails in the Senate isn't necessarily dead. It goes back to the House of Commons (or Representatives in both the U.S. and Australia) and starts again. In this day and age, no appointed body of political "hacks" (as some are believed to be) should hold sway over the elected representatives of the people. Mulroney is absolutely right on that one. But instead of stripping away the power of the Senate and making it a fossil, Mulroney should introduce a constitutional amendment giving that power to the people of this country - where it properly belongs. Having an elected senate would solve many problems. It would also create a few. But, if the people choose the Senators, then Mulroney and future Prime Ministers of this country would be way more accountable for their actions between general elections. And it is not such a bad thing to remind a Prime Minister that he, too, is human and does not command corpse-like support or hold absolute power over us. ky nd nnprntpd hv WhitbviresidentsfOr Whitby residents. 1 t