Chemist in Canoe
Having committed myself to episodic blogging throughout the recess, I thought I managed fairly well in Italy but was completely stymied in Canada where remoteness up in the northern lakes of Ontario prevented me accessing mobile phones and internet regularly. I am full of admiration for Lord Norton carrying the banner for us all and Lords Tyler and Taylor haven’t done badly either but I’d like to know if Lord Norton’s had a break from Hull and London? I arrive back to a weekly quiz question that has me completely stumped.
I went to Canada with good intentions to find out more about the Canadian upper house but everyone I asked said ‘Same as Yours!’. Not quite the same, although they do apparently have a red benched chamber and a chap called Black Rod but there are far fewer of them; they are appointed for life but must retire at age 75. They are also geographically distributed across the provinces. Historically, senators in Canada have been appointed by the Prime Minister. The fact that senators do not have to be elected in order to be appointed has been the cause of much debate in Canada since 1874. So that’s like home. Nevertheless, there exists a loop-hole that allows for the election of senators in Canada; the Prime Minister can choose to fill Senate vacancies by appointing candidates who have been previously elected in provincial Senate nominee elections and Manitoba is one province which has insisted on electing those that it puts forward for nomination. They have not yet beeen successful in making their nomination by election stick with the PM however!
In fact, in the entire history of the Senate of Canada, there have been two senators elected and appointed by the Prime Minister in this manner. In 1990, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed the first elected senator in Canada, Stan Waters of Alberta. Waters had previously won the Alberta Senate nominee election of 1989. In 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Bert Brown, winner of the 2004 Alberta Senate nominee election. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin did not appoint any elected nominees, choosing instead to fill Senate vacancies by traditional appointment. If provinces insisted on elections they probably could make progress on this so perhaps there are good reasons why they don’t.
Canada is vast but the 33 million population is mostly squeezed into a thin line along the border with the US; most is empty space. But what empty space! A little lake stillness, the mournful call of the loon and a canoe is all you need….well all some people need…I needed that supply of good books.
It could be that Lord Norton is blessed in that his hobby/interests and profession happily coincide or that he has epic time management skills. Still with the extraordinary range of medical and scientific expertise in the Lords I can’t entirely rule out the possibility that the Lords’ is quietly cloning busy peers, it might explain their productivity 😀
On the Canadian Senate, I wonder perhaps if the elected/appointed issue doesn’t have the same fire for some without the real or perceived notions of nobility which colour our debate.
The distribution of seats is a point I think the Lords has and continues to fail to address. Setting aside party politics the S/SE of England dominates the membership either by birth and/or residence. Of course a more powerful HOLAC might be able to take this into account.
Baroness: You are such a tease!
The photo shows the Canadian Parliament up the creek with a paddle and by inference ours is…
“I thought I managed fairly well in Italy but was completely stymied in Canada where remoteness up in the northern lakes of Ontario prevented me accessing mobile phones and Internet regularly.”
Phew! For a moment I thought that you might have been on expedition with a committee searching for the Sasquatch? A big feat by any definition!
Baroness M, I made the mistake of entering Lord N’s quiz (again) and getting it wrong (again). I think it is high time we all got our own back by getting together to devise a real stinker of a quiz for Lord N!
The Canadians are lovely people. I was once hired by a Canadian to research a branch of the Molson family, the Canadian brewers. One of their number, a Col. Hugh Molson (as I remember it) was MP for Gainsborough, near Lord N’s beloved Louth, at the time of the original Bloody Sunday back in 1920, and the Commons had to be suspended when fisticuffs broke out between him and the Irish nationalist Devlin in the immediate wake of the affair.
Lord N has promised us a post on the vexed question of Lords reform. Any light on the subject, I’m sure you’ll agree, is more than welcome, whether from Canada or elsewhere!
Croft – sorry, but what is a HOLAC?
stephenpaterson: While it might sound like an antidepressant its actually the House of Lords Appointments Commission
My point being that were HOLAC to appoint a larger number of peers or even an absolute majority they would be able, were the so minded – which is a big if, to try to better balance the representation of the house. The Canadian system at least balances regionally.
A veto on non-ministerial appointments would also be a great step forward in stopping time serving MPs being kicked upstairs in return for supine loyalty or giving up their seat to the leaderships latest protege.
Lord Norton: The thought of the minister, sitting in the chamber, due to bring in the latest ‘big idea’ looking up from his crib notes upon a sea of Lords Norton does tickle my sense of humour!
PS Lady Murphy doesn’t seem confident in the chemist’s paddling, as even on a millpond, she took the photo from the safety of land!?
Thanks. Clearly not an antidepressant! Thought it might have been a Canadian canoe. The acronym doesn’t appear to have made answers.com yet, I’ll see what I can do.
I think the idea of a huge cohort of additional Lords being appointed would not be without opposition, though I’d be all for a more regionally even approach over time. There again, there are other ways of looking at constituencies than a purely geographic approach. I was going to say that that is already provided by the Commons. It would be if it were not for the travelling roadshow of prospective candidates.
Greetings from southern Ontario. Whereabouts were you exactly?
It’s good you discussed the Canadian Senate with a few people here in Canada, it’s not very well regarded, although I think there may be resistance to changing it to an elected house. We can see how the US Senate — once appointed, now elected — do not represent the US population very well.
Unfortunately our dire, wannabe-theocrat of a PM has just made a bunch of awful appointments, carefully picked based on the likelihood that they’ll support some upcoming ‘tough on crime’ bills. This is not helping the image of the Senate.
As for Lord Norton, I suspect he never takes a break, even at Christmas.
Didn’t Harper state in one of the recent elections that he wouldn’t appoint anyone to the Senate because he didn’t believe in an appointed senate?
I think Baroness Murphy has set her own quiz question.
Croft: Should it necessarily be an ‘or’ in the first sentence? Not that I am suggesting that my management skills are epic. It’s rather that I tend to have a tidy mind (if not desk). As for clones, I don’t think the world is ready for that. There are enough people around who think the world is not really ready for me, never mind copies.
Liam: If it wasn’t for the fact you live in Ontario, I would have assumed from your last sentence that you know me rather well.
Lord Norton: Don’t worry though, I don’t camp out in your back garden or follow you to work; I just deduced that you never take a break by your consistency in posting and the things you wrote about Christmas time, about people who cannot work being lonely.
Frankly, I thought such an insightful argument could only have been borne of personal experience. I reserve the right to be wrong though. 😉
Croft I do agree that the Canadian system does provide for better regional representation than the HoL. I believe it is one of those matters HOLAC is meant to address or at least take into account when making recommendations. Some more formal regional system would come with elections of course.
I fear you spotted correctly that the canoeist was photographed from shore. I never really did find my inner Minnehaha.
Liam, we weren’t that far north but were returning to an old haunt of my husband when he was a boy, on a lake quite a way north of Parry Sound. But we also had a weekend in Toronto with family and a few days on the Niagara peninsula, again to explore old family associations. And we stopped to wave the grain ships through the Welland Canal locks on their way to Europe.
Senex, I had to look up Sasquatch of course, sounded to me like a rare Canadian animal.
Thank you for the reply, Baroness. That sounds like up north by most Torontonians definition of the word.
They’re like English southerners who think there’s nothing worth seeing north of the Watford Gap! I include myself in that definition, having never been past Manchester in Britian, nor past Sudbury in Canada. 🙂
I hope her Ladyships coracle and skiff wielding ancestors are not making her think snide thoughts about the lovely canoe. Is that a hate crime?
The love of the canoe is something that unites Americans in the braod sense. chemists in Canada, underwriters in the United States and bankers in Brazil with a drop or no drop at all of Amerind blood feel a magical tie to this hemisphere. They are not the majority in any American country but many of them do like good books. So I feel obliged to encourage you to look at the picture in that sense.
Greetings from the unofficial Mystical Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the Canoes of the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps an honorary membership can be added to your curriculum vitae.
Do the words ‘carbon footprint’ not mean a thing to you ? never mind ‘Do as I say..’