Clearly, there’s a problem with Canada’s Senate. The government would like to make it more American. The opposition would like to make it disappear.

Few, however, seem to think that a country with a first-past-the-post electoral system – one that often results in majority governments – needs an appointed upper house designed to provide sober second thought on national legislation.

That’s a shame. One need look only as far as the United States to see the damage that can be caused by the gridlock that two elected houses can create. On the other hand, now that whipped votes and omnibus legislation have become the norm, majority governments checked only by a feckless opposition function more like four-year dictatorships than liberal democracies.

Surely there is a place for a body that, while remaining sufficiently deferential to the elected leadership, can rise above the pettiness of Question Period in the House of Commons and provide considered reflection and analysis on the strategic direction that the government plans to take before it is too late to turn back.

The real problem, then, is that the “house of sober second thought” is hardly sober.

Rather, it has been corrupted by partisanship. Always evident in the way that prime ministers, Liberal and Conservative, have used the Senate as a hub for patronage appointments, that partisanship has now spilled into committee meetings and onto the Senate floor, where votes are increasingly decided along strict, federal party lines.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After all, senators are nominated based on their province of residence.

Perhaps what the Senate needs is an ethical wall: the prime minister should be prevented from appointing individuals who have partaken in overtly partisan activity over the previous four years (an entire electoral cycle). And once appointed, senators should agree not to join a political party, or attend caucuses, fundraisers, or electoral events of any form for as long as they serve.

An ethical wall would make it easier for the prime minister to appoint the kinds of senators that Canada needs: thoughtful policy wonks, as opposed to the power-hungry, attention-seeking politicos that are so prominent today.

For the time being, keeping in mind the hyper-partisanship that has done so much damage to Canadians’ faith in the democratic process, this proposal is beyond the realm of political plausibility. But it’s certainly something for members of the Opposition to consider seriously.

Adam Chapnick teaches defence studies at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. His column appears on thestar.com every Tuesday.