Why are members of the Canadian Senate appointed by the Governor General, and not elected in some way?

Senators are nominated by the Governor General under advise of the Prime Minister, which means "nominated by the Prime Minister".

The Senate, on top of being a "Chamber of sober second thought" also acts (or should act really) as a representative of the provincial governments. There is a minimum number of senators that must originate from each of the 10 provinces. Their number is specified in the Constitution. But since all the Senators are aligned with one party of the other, it really doesn't play its role very well.

Canadian Parliamentary democracy revolves around the (symbolic) power of the British Monarchy. Elected officials serve at the (symbolic) pleasure of the Monarch, although the Queen really has no real power.

In our system, any government can so what it pleases as long as it keeps the "confidence of the House", which means that every vote is technically a test where the ruling party can do as it pleases as long as it gets a majority of votes.

In essence, you could call a Parliament where one party has a majority a soft dictatorship.

Just like in the USA, we have a Supreme court that acts as the Guardian of the Constitution and it happens sometimes that some laws get overturned on constitutional basis.

So what is the role of the Senate in all of this? Nothing! It does virtually nothing!

Why haven't we reformed it yet? Because Constitutional amendments require the agreement of the provinces, 7 provinces representing 50% of the population for small amendments and all 10 provinces for big amendments.

In Canada, there is one province, a majority French speaking province (Quebec), that is treated like it has some weird contagious disease because part of its population are separatists. Most of the other provincial governments are afraid to look like they are getting too acquainted with Quebec for fear of being labeled "friends of the separatists" or "Soft on Quebec".

So the great dream of amending the Constitution awaits the time when the rest of Canada will get over their reluctance to being seen in a coalition with Quebec.

Canada is complicated, most of us have no clue how we manage to make it work.

/r/canada Thread