NDP campaigning to abolish Senate
Posted May 22, 2013 9:55 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS1130) – The NDP has announced it is going to be launching a cross-country campaign to abolish the Senate.
Leader Thomas Mulcair says the spending scandal shows why the Senate isn’t needed and he plans on using Stephen Harper’s words against him.
“He promised that he would never name senators and that he would reform the Senate first. He also said that if the Senate couldn’t be reformed, it should be abolished. “For once, I am in agreement with Stephen Harper. He has now proven the Senate cannot be reformed and that the Senate should be abolished,” he explains.
Abolishing the Senate would require major constitutional change but Mulcair says he needs to start working on this now. He says he plans on traveling across Canada building support.
In a speech to his caucus yesterday, Harper pledged Senate reform and greater accountability but did not specifically address the issue of his former Chief of Staff Nigel Wright and Sen. Mike Duffy.
Mulcair is also calling on the prime minister to release all the documents connected to a $90,000 payment to Duffy.
Wright resigned over the weekend after it was revealed he gave Duffy the money to pay back taxpayers for his disallowed housing expenses.
Mulcair says the series of excuses and explanations Harper’s government has deployed since the scandal broke don’t add up.
