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What a splendid idea! — as Boris might put it. How about we do likewise and move our Senate to, say, Saskatchewan?

It wouldn’t be an exact parallel. Saskatchewan didn’t return a single Liberal in our own recent election. But without a majority the government lacks a free hand to do what it would really like and move the Senate to Spadina. Or Scarborough. Or some other section of the Liberal heartland of downtown Toronto. Moving it to Saskatchewan instead wouldn’t reward or reinforce new voting patterns. But it would be clear encouragement to the rectangular province and to the West more generally, to start thinking more Liberally.

Just about all parts of Canada have at one time felt aggrieved with Confederation. Strike that. Just about all parts of Canada feel aggrieved with Confederation just about all the time. But the West has been especially aggrieved most recently, even more than Quebec, which polls suggest is an uncharacteristically happy place these days. So a big symbolic gesture to the West would not be out of place.

And it wouldn’t just be symbolic. There would be pecuniary benefits to Saskatchewan of having the Senate move there. There would have to be a lavish, grossly over-priced and grossly post-modernist new Senate meeting building — after years of consultations and delays, that is, and a billion or two dollars in construction spending. The province would get the presence of 100+ well-paid senators ($153,900 base salary, unlike British Lords, who receive no salary, only attendance allowances). Senators would have to at least visit their new home once in a while, which would at least be good for hotels and restaurants, and might in fact stay longer than that. The province would also get several hundred Senate staff, complete with their civil service salaries, pensions and perks. Munificence that has rained down on eastern Ontario for a century and a half will now fall on Saskatchewan.