Helen Forsey is a writer and activist based in Ompah. Her book, Eugene Forsey, Canada's Maverick Sage (
The late Senator Eugene Forsey praised the Senate's purposes.
by Helen Forsey
"The idea of senators as lazy old busters who sit twiddling their thumbs and don't earn their keep is seriously exaggerated." Eugene Forsey, Canada's beloved constitutional expert, was being interviewed back in 1978 in his Senate office. "Our work is not spectacular as a rule, but it can be exceedingly important."
Has my father's assessment of the Senate become obsolete in the years since? Some more recent appointees certainly seem to have dedicated themselves to proving him wrong. Sensational cases of breach of trust, fraud and even alleged violence have disgusted a long-suffering public and revived calls for Senate abolition or radical reform. Clearly, there's something rotten in the Upper Chamber. The question is what to do about it.