Extending the terms of Alberta’s elected senators is a mistake that marks a retreat from a positive stance on democracy, said Link Byfield, a resident of the Riviere Qui Barre area who is third in line for one of Alberta’s six Senate seats.
Premier Ed Stelmach announced last week that he was extending the terms of the three senators-elect by three years. The terms were due to expire in November.
“I think it’s a very bad idea,” said Byfield, calling it undemocratic for the premier to make such a move, especially since previous terms have always been six years.
“If you start playing too many games with that, you discredit the whole process and of course the process is challenged enough as to its credibility without them further straining it,” Byfield said.
Byfield is a founding member of the Wildrose Alliance, which has surged in public opinion polls in the last year, but he insists his criticism has no political angle.
“I’m speaking as a senator-elect on this. Even if I thought the Wildrose Alliance would actually lose these elections … I would say it anyway. Six years are up, let’s go to the polls,” he said.
Byfield thinks the government is afraid that Progressive Conservative candidates would lose if an election was held along with municipal elections in October.
However, Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert MLA Doug Horner said the decision was made for a variety of logical reasons. For one, Alberta Senator Bert Brown just introduced a bill that would provide for elected senators and it’s unlikely to have gone through by fall, Horner said.
Another reason for the delay is that the province is discussing the co-ordination of Senate elections with British Columbia and Saskatchewan, possibly in conjunction with federal elections, Horner said.
Taking advantage of a federal government offer to pay for Senate elections is a third rationale, Horner said.
“It isn’t that we’re cancelling the elections. We’re still the only province that actually has done it,” he said.
“The majority of my constituents are saying do it when the time is right. Don’t do it for political reasons,” he said. “We’ll do it when it’s right with the three Western provinces.”
Albertans elected four Senate nominees in 2004. The top vote-getter, Bert Brown, was appointed to the upper chamber in 2007. The terms for Betty Unger, Cliff Breitkreuz and Link Byfield were set to expire in November.
Senators hold their seats until they turn 75.
Alberta has previously held elections for Senate nominees in 1989 and 1998. So far it’s the only province to do so but others are considering it, with Saskatchewan having made a commitment in 2008.
Byfield thinks the Alberta government’s rationale for extending the terms is “pretty thin.” He’s leaning toward turning down the extension but admits this is largely academic since, as the third in line for a seat, he’s unlikely to be pressed into service before the next election.
Byfield doesn’t expect the other senators-elect to turn down the extension because doing so would allow the province to put forward whoever it wants.
“You’re almost tempting them to pick some retiring cabinet minister,” he said.
