The eight-year term limit in the Harper government's latest Senate bill looks like a stopgap; it would be better to pursue directly the Conservatives' goal of a democratically elected Senate.
Such a maximum term could actually be an obstacle to democratic reform, getting in the way of the re-election of deserving senators, and depriving the people of the option of selecting the same person more than once.
Reportedly, the Conservatives also intend to introduce a new version of a previous bill called the Senate Appointment Consultations Act. That would be much more on the right track. Yet they may be backpedalling; rumours suggest some sort of indirect election.
The Conservatives are trying to accommodate the Constitution Act, 1982, which says a change in "the method of selecting senators" requires an amendment agreed to by at least seven provinces that are lived in by at least half the population of all the provinces.
The government is right to think in terms of consultation. If a constitutional amendment is too difficult, consultative elections for senators held at the same time as provincial elections are the way forward. The voters' choices would not be strictly binding on the prime minister's exercise of the Crown prerogative to appoint senators, but a practice would be accepted that the winning candidates would become senators, unless there were some compelling reason to the contrary.
Brian Mulroney acted on this principle in 1990 when he appointed Stan Waters from Alberta, and so did Stephen Harper in 2007 when he appointed Bert Brown, of the same province; the voters of Alberta had chosen them both. No one obtained any court decision saying that the Constitution had been violated.
Fixed, maximum eight-year term limits would not mesh well with the uncertain timing of provincial elections, and senators should not be caught up in the same relentless electoral cycle as members of the House of Commons. In the United States, senators have longer terms than members of the House of Representatives; similarly, Canada should think about providing for the re-election of senators in every second or even every third provincial vote.
Moreover, eight-year terms would usually not coincide with the timing of a provincial election, when a province's voters might either elect or re-elect a senator.
Sober second thought would be more likely to occur in the Canadian Senate, if its members have longer intervals between partisan campaigns and are not forced to depart after they have accumulated eight years of senatorial experience. The voters should have the democratic choice to re-elect, or not to re-elect.