I am struggling to understand the benefits behind such a system. A great many people so chosen would turn down the offer - I know I would, I’d have little choice but to say no - and so you’d simply end up with a house of Parliament made mostly of random people who literally had nothing better to do but were sufficiently avaricious of power to take the job.
A more significant problem, though, is that you still have a chamber full of people who weren’t elected. You still have people who can shoot down legislation who have no moral authority to do so. It’s offensive. The Senate should be elected or eliminated, one or the other, and I see no reason to bother electing it.
So you’d re-open a Constitutional debate over eliminating the Senate?
No snark intended, Rick, we were just discussing what we can do about the Senate within current constitutional parameters. A lottery of “ordinary Canadians” was one idea. You make some good points about why that might not be the best solution.
I actually agree with you in a way; I believe we need an elected Senate. But I do not believe that the Senate needs to be eliminated. I like the idea of a chamber of “sober second thought”; we see such chambers in other first-world democracies: the UK, the United States, Australia, and so on. But it has to be more than a sinecure or a resting place for the party faithful.
It should be gotten rid of. Whether that merits reopening a Constitutional debate is another matter - but I am inclined to say yes. Maybe once the PQ’s out of power.
In the meantime there is nothing you really CAN do about it. Every Prime Minister is in a prisoner’s dillemma; s/he must continue appointing mostly party loyalists because s/he cannot trust the next PM from the other party to not do the same.
It’s not clear to me those countries actually get much benefit out of it, or that the thought to be had there is any more sober than in the other house.
We’re okay here at home - my wife is stuck downtown because the subway is flooded, though. Lots of power outages throughout the city. According to the weather network, we just got a month’s worth of rain in the two hours between 5 PM and 7 PM. There are a couple of shots of it here.
During the worst of it, I was stuck at the library for about 45 minutes with absolutely no rain gear - I didn’t want to get my book wet. I couldn’t see the end of the block, and the rain completely filled the street from curb to curb. Finally, I bummed a plastic bag off someone and made a run for home. Half a block later, there was a lightning strike that scared the shit right out of me. One of those ones where there’s no time lag at all between the blinding flash and the deafening blast.
I heard via a Facebook friend that Burlington wasn’t in the path of the worst of it - RickJay, are you all right?
Still nothing like what Calgary and High River have gone through.
No problems here. Some rain but you’d never know Toronto was deluged. My sister lives at Weston and 401 and hasn’t had power since 5.
The line of demarcation was remarkable. In Burlington there was nothing past a drizzle. But at 6:30, I and my little one were visiting my girlfriend in downtown Oakville and we had a 25-minute rainstorm of some ferocity. It was really quite a sight. But in Toronto they’re talking about four INCHES of rain, which is a deluge of astonishing proportions in this part of the world, one that the city certainly would not have been designed to drain. GO trains are flooded to people’s knees and the passengers are hopelessly stranded. It’s apparently also very bad in Mississauga; major intersections are now lakes. There’s a picture out there of Burnamthorpe at the 427 where cars are effectively submerged.
Frankly, though, I’ll take interrupted services and power outages over my goddamned town exploding because of a runaway train - I mean, let’s put stuff into perspective. They’ve not reported a single injury in Toronto yet, which is incredibly lucky if true.
Any Dopers in Toronto, stay away from the Don and the Humber.
There was nothing like that in Oshawa, and we’re only 60km east of the city. We’ve had a lot or rain lately, and it was pretty muggy when I went out around 2PM, but this…?!! The 427 flooded? GO trains stranded in water? An elevated highway flooded because it just can’t drain away fast enough?
Wow … just wow. I’ve never seen flooding in Toronto like that. Those photos are amazing: power outages, the subway shut down, GO trains flooded, sewers geysering, cars floating away. Again, just wow.
I’m guessing flights are being re-routed from Pearson, since I’m still hearing jets approach here at this ungodly hour. That doesn’t happen at this time of night in sleepy old Ottawa.
And the more I read, the nastier it seems. From the National Post (all quotes are from the link):
The rainfall at 123 mm equates to 4.8 inches! The comparison to Hurricane Hazel is apt, as it was that storm which swept away Raymore Drive–both the houses and the residents. As Wikipedia says, “Subsequent residential development in that area was prohibited. The properties were expropriated and made into Raymore Park.”
In other words, stay away from the creeks and rivers–Toronto’s watercourses aren’t normally terribly exciting, but they can turn deadly quite quickly.
For many years, I lived a bit south of the Hogg’s Hollow area–indeed, when I was a teenager, I often rode my bike down there. I also played golf at the Don Valley golf course, which is the northwest corner of the Yonge and York Mills/Wilson intersection. Given that the subway goes under the river, the river is well-contained; but if the experts say that the banks are in danger of collapsing, then I’d imagine that the valley would flood: the golf course, sure; but also houses on the southeast quadrant flooded. And the York Mills subway station would be out of service for who knows how long.
Can Calgary loan Naheed Nenshi to Toronto for a few days?
I left work downtown at 5:40, took the subway from Union Station (where water was trickling from the ceiling, natch) and ended up at Lawrence Station around 7:00. Then I spent three hours pointlessly waiting for the subway to start working again and/or pointlessly waiting for the shuttle bus to Finch Station before giving up and walking home. It took an hour to walk, which isn’t bad considering the fact that traffic was jammed (due to the non-functioning traffic lights and people getting picked up from the subway).
The bright side: the power came back on when I was just a couple of blocks from home!
