Our much-admired skiing heroine and B.C.-booster Senator Greene Raine states in all honesty (The News, April 15th) that she has never really been active in politics, but that she is learning.
Well, I would like to help her get up to speed by expanding on how our un-elected Senate is supposed to work; especially since it is providing her with a third pay cheque.
I am pleased that the new Senator is aware that the basic function of the Senate is to provide a “sober second thought” when confronted by bills that have been passed by the elected Commons, but she does not seem to understand that “sober second thought” means unbiased!
How this is achieved by weekly attending a two-and-a-half-hour closed door meeting with only the Conservative caucus is truly a mystery.
I have to admit that reference to a “warm, communicative environment to talk things out” makes me think of a cult-like brainwashing experience, but perhaps I am too jaded and cynical.
Unfortunately the quote by Senator Greene Raine that the Liberals called the current election to get the electorate to do their dirty work is not only slanderous, but is also totally false.
The facts are that the Governor-General called the election because the Conservative government was found to be in contempt of Parliament, strictly according to the voting rules of the House of Commons, as defined in the Constitution. Thus we are sadly confronted with hard evidence that our senator is already regurgitating the Conservative propaganda that is quickly destroyed by a little analysis, and it is not my cynicism that should be questioned, it is the senator’s gullibility.
M. J. Green, Qualicum Beach