That Would Be A Fun Job
I occasionally get to visit Ottawa on business, and I like the city - even in the winter. Well, I've decided to try to get a job that would let me visit Ottaw more often.
I got the inspiration while (I mean whilst) reading Farbled:
I like Mexico, but I think I'm more suited to just visit. If I ever become a Canadian senator then I guess I'll have to move there, but until then... (for you non-Canadians, its a long standing joke that our "appointed for life" senators don't even live in our country, sad that its more true than false eh?).
It turns out that Canadians don't like their Senate. Here's an excerpt from a piece entitled Outrageous Canadian Political Facts:
This page is for those citizens who are concerned that their senators might be overabundant, overpaid and inefficient. Where does $50 million a year go?
Pigs are such loving, intelligent little persons, who are treated abysmally by humans, that it is a shame to compare them to senators.
Here's what Canada's prime oinkers get:
THE SALARY - A basic $70,000.00 per year and an extra $150.00 for every day they show up in the senate. This is an incentive for them to actually be there, rather than retiring to Mexico on the generous salary and expense account.
THE JOB: - The Senate meets on average for 100 days a year. Senators are allowed to miss 21 days without losing any salary.
THE EXTRAS - * Research Grants (for what?) $30,000.00 per year. * Office Budget $20,000.00 per year. * Tax Free Expense Allowance $10,100.00 * Free Business Class flights for Senators and their families, as many as 52 return-trip flights a year. * Free telephone calls and faxes, and also free postage, at home as well as office. * Free Gym privileges, private equipment and instructors. * Subsidized (that means REALLY CHEAP!) haircuts, dry cleaning, furniture, limousine rides.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Write! Write! Write! to every newspaper and politician. Get Canada's Senators off the elite welfare roll! It is a disgrace to Canada that we could hire ten people who actually want to work for the same price our Senators get in salary and perks. Our Senate should be cut to one tenth its size so it would be a fair representation of population as well as less costly. Canada might be better off if it was abolished altogether.
Here are portions of a 1997 Washington Post article on the Canadian Senate:
When it was established along with the rest of the country in 1867, the Canadian Senate was designed as a hybrid between Britain's hereditary House of Lords and the equal state representation provided by the U.S. Congress's upper chamber. Appointed to their posts for life, members had to own property and were expected to balance the populist House of Commons with the "sober second thought" befitting landed nobility....
These days, however, it isn't just Canada's 104 senators who are having second thoughts. With one of the chamber's members on extended vacation in Mexico and rampant absenteeism on the part of about two dozen others, Canadians are wondering whether it is the Senate itself that is proving fickle....
The current anxiety focuses on Andrew Thompson, an Ontario politician and former House of Commons member named to the Senate by then-Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in the 1960s.
True to its reputation as a clubhouse where strength of character is the only restraint, the Senate did not keep attendance records back then. But in recent years, after the public and media decided that even honorable men need watching, it became apparent that Thompson and a good many other senators did their sober thinking elsewhere.
According to reviews of Senate records published in several Canadian papers recently, Thompson attended fewer than 3 percent of Senate sessions over the last decade. He continues to draw his approximately $60,000 annual salary but spends much of the year at his home in La Paz, Mexico.
During his rare appearances on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, he signed papers saying that he was still conducting Senate business and offered a medical excuse for his absence – documents required for his paychecks to keep flowing. One of his assistants explained in interviews published here that Thompson has a condition that affects his immune system and would be aggravated by the Canadian winter.
That might have been sufficient in a more forgiving era, but no longer. Canadian journalists tracked Thompson down at his Mexican home, and pictures started trickling back of his substantial villa and his leisurely walks in the sun.
Last month, Prime Minister Jean Chretien booted him from the Liberal caucus, and his colleagues are moving to strip him of his office space, his research expenses and his secretary's salary.
None of those steps affect his membership, however; that can't be revoked. He must retire in two years when he turns 75 – a change from the lifetime appointment that existed until the 1960s – but until then he is untouchable.
Thompson is by no means the only truant. According to Senate records published recently by the Globe and Mail daily newspaper, about a quarter of Canada's senators missed at least 40 percent of the chamber's sessions....
[A]ttendance rules...currently excuse senators for virtually any reason – from corporate board meetings to charitable functions. Essentially, if a member does not feel like traveling to Ottawa, he or she can stay home – or fly to Mexico – with impunity....
Incidentally, Thompson eventually resigned. [I]n 1998, Senator Andrew Thompson resigned after Prime Minister Chretien removed him from the Liberal caucus. Between 1990 and 1997, Senator Thompson attended only fourteen Senate meetings. Dubbed the “Tequila Senator” by the media, Thompson faxed his resignation from his home in Mexico..
Well, the beauty thing about serving in the Canadian Senate is that you don't even have to be elected - Senators are appointed by the Prime Minister. So how do I get on Paul Martin's good side?
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