Red Herring Par Excellence

Mainstream media has managed to fall into the most glaring of traps by spending the past few days analyzing Harper’s quixotic plans for Senate reform. Journalists are already speculating on what the ‘modernized’ Senate might look like. At the top of today’s Globe, an article details the angry response of Atlantic premiers who are worried that their provinces would lose influence in a ‘new’ Senate.

Here is the cold, hard, fact. Any kind of serious Senate reform (the kind that gets people excited) is impossible without Constitutional reform, and if history is any guide, Constitutional reform is impossible without an existential crisis that puts the future of our nation in peril. So Senate reform, quite simply, is not going to happen.

But notice how, suddenly, no one is talking about Afghan detainees. No one is talking about prorogation or silencing parliamentary committees. Some call it magic. I prefer credulity.