The call came from inside the house

Among those quibbling with Stephen Harper’s plans to reform the Senate: Stephen Harper’s Senators.

“There are a lot of unintended consequences from an elected Senate,” Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald told Postmedia News. “(Not only) in terms of its relationship . . . with the House of Commons, its relationship with the government of the day and the relationship of the (senators) with their own provincial governments. These things have to be looked at because . . . the long-term implications are pretty significant.”

People often complain the Senate is illegitimate and not democratic but, MacDonald said, “the Senate wasn’t set up to be elected.” “It was set up to be a deliberative body and not an elected body and it’s been that way for 147 years and for the most part, it seems it has worked pretty well,” he said.