Canadian Senate

The Senate is the appointed upper house of the Canadian parliament. John A. Macdonald’s overriding goal for confederation had always been a system that, though federal in order to secure the assent of Quebec and the Maritimes, would be as centralized as possible, with a central government directed by a powerful executive. At the London conference William Pearce Howland worried about the power of the projected senate, whose members were to be appointed for life by the governor general. To curb its power over the lower house, he suggested that each of the proposed provinces be allowed to appoint senators to fixed terms. It was William Alexander Henry’s suggestion, however, that was incorporated into the British North America Act: that the elected government be given the authority to appoint a specified number of additional senators in order to guarantee that the representatives of the people would not be held hostage by the appointed body.