In the wake of her deciding vote at the Senate's transportation committee that the Senate not continue with Bill C-48, which would ban tankers along BC's northwest coast, Independent Senator Paula Simons wrote that ultimately, after her suggested amendments were not passed, that she was voting in defence of her region.  It's almost justifiable for a senator to cite such a reason for any particular vote, but given the current state of the institution and the level of understanding that many senators have of their roles, I find myself being very cautious before giving anyone a pass based on the excuse of regional considerations because it can lead to some very bad places if we're not careful.

To be clear, regional representation is very much a part of the Senate's raison d'être, but it does have a couple of fairly specific connotations.  One of those connotations is a way of rebalancing the representational weighting in the House of Commons, which is organized (roughly) around representation-by-population.  This is one of the reasons why the Senate and its method of composition was very much a key compromise that allowed Confederation to happen at all.  After all, the Maritimes were concerned that their issues would be swamped by a rapidly growing Ontario, while Quebec not only feared domination by Ontario pre-confederation in the United Province of Canada, Canada East had equal weighting with Canada West despite the rapid growth of what would soon be Ontario, and they resisted calls for representation-by-population as long as possible they also had concerns around their minority status in terms of language, religion, and culture.  Hence, we saw the creation of the three equal senatorial regions so that Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes each had 24 seats.  (This has since been expanded so that the western provinces were also afforded 24 seats, while Newfoundland gained six of their own upon entry into Confederation and each of the Territories also acquired one apiece).

The other place where regional representation matters in the Senate, however, is within the national caucus rooms of the main parties a consideration that has been continually overlooked in the short-sighted rush to create an "independent" chamber where senators no longer caucus with MPs.  Why this matters is because there are many occasions in this country's electoral past and present where whole regions are shut out of a caucus after an election.  Witness Atlantic Canada today, where they completely voted Liberal, and shut out the Conservatives and NDP.  The Conservatives, however, have the advantage of still having senators from those provinces in their caucus room so that the concerns of those regions can still be addressed in that very important political forum.  For years, the Senate was the only place where Alberta had a voice in the Liberal caucus, until they were unceremoniously dumped by Justin Trudeau as part of his push to wipe his hands of any Senate "scandal" under the guise of greater independence and reform.  And after the next election, they may find themselves in a position where they have no Alberta seats and no senators in the caucus room, leaving that province without a voice in their deliberations something that should concern Trudeau, but hey, optics.

There are other places in the Senate where regional representation should matter, and yet thanks to the lack of organization among the Independent Senators Group, there are some pretty significant gaps on a number of Senate committees, where there should be some better regional balance.  For example, there are no Quebec senators on the Aboriginal Peoples committee.  There are no Ontario senators on energy and environment committee, while Quebec senators dominate the legal and constitutional affairs committee.  There is no Manitoba representation on the fisheries committee despite that province's freshwater fishery industry.  There are no senators from west of Ontario on the social affairs, science and technology committee, and bafflingly, there is no one from BC on the transport and communications committee, never mind the Pacific Gateway ports, or the province's booming film industry (which that committee's ambit captures).  If the ISG had any semblance of what they were doing when they came up with committee assignments, they would take region into consideration, but they apparently have not.

All of this is to say that yes, region is an important consideration in the Senate but it should not be a dominating one in the deliberations of senators.  After all, there is a danger in parochialism if one gets fixated on how a bill affects their province and only their province (despite the fact that senatorial divisions are ostensibly regional and not provincial), to the exclusion of the rest of the country.  That is again something else the Senate can better allow for a broader view because senators are not vying for re-election, so they don't have to engage in the same kind of pandering or name-checking that MPs will engage in for the sake of votes.  It's also why I am vehemently opposed to the proposition that keeps cropping up that an "independent" Senate should be organized into regional caucuses rather than political ones.  Canada is a country that already has too much regionalism and too many interprovincial tensions that don't allow for proper free trade within the federation, let alone cooperation on some fairly existential things, like environment and climate change plans.  Formalizing a structure that pits regions against each other would do no favours for Parliament or the country.

With all of this in mind, I come back to Senator Simons' vote, and her citing that "Senators have a duty, a constitutional obligation, to defend their regions.  That's the tradition I tried to honour last week."  I'm not sure that this was necessarily the right bill to test that calculus, given that the BC coast is technically part of her region, and much of the rhetoric coming from industry players in Alberta and Jason Kenney in particular are overblown.  Expert testimony stated that it wouldn't have a material impact on oil shipments, and yet the apocalyptic bombast around the bill continues.  And perhaps that's what's disappointing that hewing to industry propaganda was dressed up in regionalism, which is a card that needs to be very carefully played.  Hopefully the longer these senators carry on, the more sophisticated they'll become in finding the right balance for invoking regional concerns, but that starts with awareness of just what that means.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics