William Thorsell is a senior fellow at the Munk School of Affairs

A much more credible and influential Senate in Canada's Parliament is possible. And in this context, the Senate's current powers must be substantially reduced.

Canada's Constitution grants the Senate powers equal to those of the House of Commons in most respects. In practice, this means that all bills passed by the Commons must be approved by the Senate to become law.

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On paper, this looks very much like the American congressional system, where a wholly unrepresentative U.S. Senate has a veto over laws passed by the House of Representatives. This two-layered cake accounts for much of the political deadlock in the United States, not to mention corruption and the enormous power of lobbyists (who need to corral only 41 of 100 senators under their rules to crush almost any legislation).

Canada is spared this nightmare, despite our own Constitution's empowerment of the Senate, for one reason only: Our Senate is not elected and so rarely dares to defy the House of Commons in the approval of legislation. Under our Constitution, senators are appointed by the prime minister, and therefore lack the legitimacy to overrule the elected House of Commons. (This is similar to the House of Lords in the United Kingdom.)

Looking at the American system, we should be very thankful for our ways indeed. Here, public policy actions can be taken decisively by a government that enjoys the confidence of the Commons. And we know where the buck stops when such action comes – the government majority. That's the parliamentary version of democracy – representative of the population, capable of action and clearly accountable – a far better version of democracy than the congressional one.

Giving our senators much more legitimacy – not through election, but simply by their better means of appointment – runs a risk that they will be tempted to use their full power over the House of Commons more readily. That simply speaks to human nature.

How then do we benefit from a much smarter and more engaged Senate without risking a slide into the U.S. congressional morass? The answer lies within the hands of the Senate itself.

It could go something like this:

· The Senate passes a rule governing its own actions that captures the "House of Sober Second-thought" without overturning the parliamentary tradition of government.

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· The Senate will consider all legislation arriving from the House of Commons within a certain time frame.

· If the Senate wishes to propose amendments to any legislation from the House of Commons, it will return that amended legislation to the Commons within a certain time frame.

· In those cases, when the legislation returns from the Commons, amended or not, the Senate will pass it immediately.

Under the Constitution Act, 1982, this is the procedure that applies to the Senate if it receives constitutional amendments from the Commons – so we have a strong precedent for a similar rule applying to everything else.

This achieves three things:

· It gives room to the better-appointed Senate to evaluate and suggest improvement to bills without concern about "gumming up the works." It legitimizes "sober second thought."

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· It gives the House of Commons an opportunity to improve bills that should, perhaps, be improved.

· It allows the elected government of the day to carry out its program without obstruction by the Senate.

This is the Canadian Way, nuanced, updated for the 21st century. Empower the Senate to advise, even as the Senate itself refuses to obstruct.

This could be done by constitutional amendment – a fraught task. Much better, though, it can be done by the Senate itself in the spirit of the reforms before us.

This is a rather simple way of making rather important things better.