LETTER

Senate appointments coming home to roost

 

Of interest in the scandal involving Senator Don Meredith is the nature of his political activity prior to his appointment.

Meredith was appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper after becoming the unsuccessful Conservative Party candidate, replacing Mark Warner, in the Toronto-Centre Riding by-election of March 17, 2008.

Warner, who was nominated by his party's Toronto-Centre riding association in February 2007, was arbitrarily removed as candidate October 30, 2007 for differences  with "the national party's campaign over social and urban issues”. At the same time, the CPC Guelph Riding candidate was "dropped because he wasn't campaigning hard enough to build up the party locally, "

Meredith was made Senator in 2010 after having accepted acclamation as Warner's replacement in December 2007 and campaigning for only three months in the Toronto-Centre by-election against Bob Rae.

As with Mike Duffy and all other Harper senate appointees, Senator Meredith's appointment was made only after a "pledge" was made to pass Conservative Party policy proposals derived from its predecessors, the Canadian Alliance and Reform parties, rather than on the basis of duty to Canada in our Upper House of "sober second thought".  

The "pledge" to then Prime Minister Harper included a promise to the prime minister and his party to resign from the Senate of Canada after eight years in the Upper Chamber, in keeping with new Conservative policy and against his constitutional duty to be a check on the prime minister and cabinet government.

The current scandal may well be sufficient reason for the Senator to resign from office. His past willingness to replace a duly elected candidate, arbitrarily removed, and the "pledge" made by all new Conservative senators to the former prime minister and to his party both add just causes that he do so.

Joe Hueglin,
Leader Progressive Canadian Party