There is only one question in this Senate election

To vote for a Party man: or, a free-thinking, independent Alberta Senator?

My opinion

Your opinion

146 years ago...

...a small group of men wrote the law for our country. 146 years ago - laws for an era long gone by, laws for a world that no longer exists!

Today, we try to live by those laws. The result is constant confusion, if not confrontation, between the provincial and federal governments.

For example, there is the Canada Health Act, but it is the provincial government that has responsibility for health care. The Alberta Government has authority over oil sands development, but it is the Canadian Government that has responsibility for the environmental calamity at the oil sands.

It is time to modernize government!

Everything has changed over the last 100 years - except for government.

The Senate must adapt to reflect those changes.  Electing a party man will not achieve change.  It will merely reflect the House of Commons in the Senate.  And that means more of the same  ─ the interests of central Canada, where most of the votes are.

Still "old school" thinking...

"Every Senator in this [Conservative] caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here" (that is, the Prime Minister) [Senator Brown, June 15, 2011]

This is the old party hack mentality of "my party, right or wrong". Well, this attitude is wrong! Canadians elect members of Parliament to represent them in Parliament; to legislate and hold the Government accountable, not to rubber stamp the party in the House of Commons.

"Can they (new Senators) choose to be analytical and open minded when looking at important issues or are they going to be merely an automatic extension of the thought process of the power groups that appointed them?"  (Medicine Hat  business man)