Last month Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien added three persons of his own choice to the appointed membership of the Senate of Canada. He has now appointed 73 (seventy-three) Senators and is expected to appoint even more people of his own choice before the date he leaves office.

At the same time as Canadians try to stomach Senate appointment after Senate appointment, and chew the cud of their disgust, they can only marvel at movements underway in Ireland and in Britain to relegate to "the dustbin of history" such appointments, (a) to the Irish Senate, (b) to the House of Lords.

In the case of the Irish Senate , whose members are elected by vocational panels, labour, agricultural, industrial, the Prime Minister has the power to appoint thirteen Senators a la the Canadian model, people of his own choosing, and again a la the Canadian model these are usually government party supporters.

Now a parliamentary sub-committee is reviewing the entire practice of panel and Prime Ministerial appointments.

In Britain, the Mother of Parliaments is fair set to make both Canada and Ireland look like stagnant backwaters in the devolution of democracy into the hands of the electorate. Hereditary peers are facing the axe in response to calls for democratic reform, and the Government of Tony Blair is pressing ahead with the necessary legislation to chop off their heads, parliamentarily speaking.

Even our closest neighbours, the Americans, elect their own Senators.

We cannot claim to be a democracy until Canadians elect their own Senators.

The present system of patronage Senate appointments is disgusting.

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