Don’t succumb

Dear editor:
Please accept this open letter to the Senate of Canada.
Honourable Senators:
As I see it, as the final “court of appeal,” your task is to protect the rights of all citizens against the oppressive power of the state.
As the prime minister has said, the Senate is independent—not subject to the other House and certainly not to a prime minister, who is as embattled and compromised as the senators he is asking to have removed.
The prime minister is asking you to champion his cause; a cause in which he has a clear and pressing personal interest. His plea is worth no more than mine, or yours, or the pleas of Senators Duffy, Wallin, and Brazeau.
You must not succumb to feelings of loyalty to the prime minister or to the Conservative Party; you must fearlessly do what any good Conservative must do—defend the citizen, applying our traditions of liberty and due process.
Each of the senators subject to suspension is entitled to no less than the weak and the vulnerable; the rich no less than the poor must be treated fairly. If the Senate cannot defend its own members, who can it defend?
If the Senate is prepared to sacrifice its own at the altar of expediency, what trust can any citizen have in an institution which is supposed to be a bulwark against mob rule and an autocratic Commons or prime minister?
Due process also demands that there be no lump sum thinking; each senator’s case must be examined on its own individual merits.
If the Senate passes the motion before it, it will cement a continuing loss of respect in the eyes of the public. It will, to borrow a metaphor from the witching season, contribute to the bad odour which hangs around the Senate like the cloak of Dracula.
Do not succumb to the temptation to continue to suck the blood out of the nation’s democracy. Invigorate it by restoring our trust.
Finally, I ask whether the Senate has the legal authority to do what it is being asked to do. To do something illegal only will magnify the perceived incompetence and wrongdoing which have brought the Senate into disrepute and strengthen calls for its abolition.
I appeared before a Senate committee in 2012. You treated me with courtesy and respect, which has made my respect for the institution tangible. I do not want to lose this.
Be brave, be independent, be honourable. Show Canadians that you respect democracy above partisan politics, personal feelings, or a misplaced devotion to a compromised prime minister.
If not now, when?
Signed,
Peter Kirby
Kenora, Ont.