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Former senators Mike Kirby and Hugh Segal put out a report in the Public Policy Forum last week suggesting that regional caucuses, based on the four regions in the Senate, should be an alternative to party caucuses, now that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to eliminate party affiliation in the Senate.

Kirby and Segal were concerned that with the appointment of so many independent senators, the chamber, which is currently operated based on a two-party system of “government and opposition,” might become dysfunctional.

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These two distinguished elder statesmen try to draw on the historical record to support their claim, namely that the Fathers of Confederation created a Senate for Canada based on four regions of Canada: Quebec, Ontario, Atlantic Canada and the West.

On the surface, that historical interpretation is correct, but it frankly misses the entire point of “sectional interests” that the Fathers of Confederation were trying to protect in constructing a Senate that had regional divisions, something the Supreme Court of Canada has twice now ruled is central to the body’s character.