{"id":1563,"date":"2007-11-06T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-07T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2007-11-06T20:16:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-07T01:16:00","slug":"second-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1563","title":{"rendered":"Second Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I know there&#8217;s no rule that says I <em>have <\/em>to post every few days here but I kind of feel I should put something up. Unfortunately, the only real newsworthy story out there right now is&#8230;<em>gulp<\/em>&#8230;Jack Layton&#8217;s musings on the Senate. So it is with great reluctance that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20071106.wsenate06\/BNStory\/National\/home\">I link to Layton&#8217;s call for a referendum on abolishing the Senate<\/a>. Apart from Harper tossing a bone to his base (&#8220;<em>I&#8217;m sorry about the Quebec nation thing but look! Bert Brown<\/em>!&#8221;), I can&#8217;t see this being a real vote mover for anyone. I&#8217;d be surprised if the question of Senate abolition gets on a referendum ballot anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>As for me&#8230;meh. I think there&#8217;s something to be said for having the Senate as a check on the House and they do a lot of good committee work, adding needed amendments to more bills than people realize. It&#8217;s abundantly clear that the current system is deeply flawed but I think an elected Senate would be far worse. Once you elect Senators, you&#8217;re giving the institution legitimacy and inviting activist decisions which opens up a whole can of worms, especially if you have unfair regional representation.<\/p>\n<p>So, yeah, it&#8217;s kind of a non starter for me. But for all of you out there who love talking Senate reform, go nuts!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know there&#8217;s no rule that says I have to post every few days here but I kind of feel I should put something up. Unfortunately, the only real newsworthy story out there right now is&#8230;gulp&#8230;Jack Layton&#8217;s musings on the Senate. So it is with great reluctance that I link to Layton&#8217;s call for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}