none of the parties are very good on the issue. i might abstractly agree most with the liberals' position, but i don't see it as a vote changer. recent polling has upheld that this is the case amongst most voters.
our system of government really doesn't have a lot of checks and balances. i'm in favour of structural changes to reduce the power of the prime minister's office, which strikes me as a far more pressing concern than senate reform. if we can do both at once, great. so, in all honesty, i do like the idea of a chamber of "sober second thought".
but, if that was ever an accurate description of the senate, it sure isn't an accurate description of it at any point in my lifetime. there is clearly a need to reform the appointment process so that it can accomplish it's stated purpose. we don't need a house of lords, of course. i'd rather see it work as some kind of an independent, technocratic body that draws primarily from academia and is largely run by the civil service - which might not be what the liberals are actually calling for, but is philosophically very trudeauvian. and, i think, inherent with that, is salary cuts. one of the best ways to prevent it from being a patronage institution is to take the money out of it. this is directly contradictory with liberal capitalist thinking, which is going to push the idea that if you want quality candidates then you need to pay them; that's true sometimes, but in this case it's the opposite - you want candidates that are willing to do the job as a public service because they give a fuck, not in order to get a nice pension. you want to throw people looking for personal gain out of the pool of candidates.
the value of the institution is that it remains unelected - i would certainly oppose an elected senate, as harper is pushing. our separation of powers was constructed to avoid the problems with states rights in the united states, which our framers saw as the cause of the american civil war. and, continuing on with the historical approach of learning from the mistakes made in the american system, i think the gridlock they get down there is reason enough to avoid emulating their system of government. an elected senate would likely grind ottawa to a halt. but, we do need to find ways to restrict the pmo in other ways.
the ndp position is not serious. in a practical sense, the ndp can promise to abolish the senate all they want, although they seem to have retreated from that position. the reality is that they're never going to get the premiers to agree. it's a non-issue in a practical sense. it's consequently not really rational for somebody that leans liberal on the issue to take the position of not voting ndp because they want to abolish the senate, because they're never going to succeed in abolishing the senate. and, you could say the same thing about an elected senate.
we need senate reform. it's just that none of the ideas being floated around are very good - or have any real chance at success.
after all - the whole purpose of bringing the east into confederation with upper and lower canada was to break the gridlock.