PROFILES: OUTSIDE THE SENATE

Senator Bert Brown is only the second Canadian senator to be picked by a provincial electorate, in the only province with an electoral process for Senate candidates (Alberta). Since his appointment on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007, however, he has been working to change that.

Senator Brown criss-crossed the country in 2008-09, meeting with the premier or intergovernmental affairs minister of every province and territory to discuss provincial Senate elections. He prepared a package on Senate reform for provincial politicians, which was sent to every MLA and MNA in the country. To involve the public in reform discussions, he published more than 30 articles and letters to the editor on the subject in Canadian newspapers. He also started work on a YouTube channel devoted to interviews with public figures about Senate reform, to be launched early in the next fiscal year. Senator Brown firmly believes that senators should be elected as strong representatives of their province's or territory's interests, and is doing everything in his power to encourage others to follow Alberta's example.

In recent years, senators have brought forth many proposals for reforming their house of Parliament. These include ones to hold a referendum on its abolition; to add Senate seats to better represent the growing population in western provinces; to do away with the requirement of owning $4,000 in property to qualify for a Senate seat; and to eliminate political party affiliation in the Senate.

International opposition to reported human rights abuses by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime has been smoldering for years. The Senate, for instance, urged Canada to recall its ambassador in 2007. The crisis deepened with Zimbabwe's election in March 2008, with allegations of vote fixing and brutality to opposition members and voters.

This year, many senators worked toward finding solutions to the strife in Zimbabwe. Co-founder and Co-chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, Senator Raynell Andreychuk helped organize the first parliamentary delegation allowed into the country to observe the post-election situation (April 2008). She also was part of a June delegation to several nearby African countries, where the situation in Zimbabwe was on the agenda in each, and she pursued the question with leaders at the African Union summit in January 2009. In addition, she worked through the international group Parliamentarians for Global Action to help Zimbabwean parliamentarians leave the country to share information with, and muster support from, other nations.

Senator Donald Oliver also played a direct role in Canada's diplomacy on the issue. In April 2008, he joined Canada's ambassador to Zimbabwe in Mauritius. They held bilateral meetings with African heads of state and foreign ministers, lobbying for an African solution to the ongoing crisis. Senator Sharon Carstairs continued to work for the rights of Zimbabwean parliamentarians under the Mugabe regime. As Chair of the Human Rights of Parliamentarians Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, she reported on the cases of eight members of Zimbabwe's Parliament who had been allegedly displaced, beaten, jailed or tortured by government agents.

Many provinces have among their senators at least one who is a member of an official language minority - be it an Anglophone from Quebec, or a Francophone outside it. Two such senators were particularly active advocates this year.

Continuing her long advocacy for official language minority communities in her home province of Alberta, Senator Claudette Tardif took part in May 2008 in the opening of the first bilingual health care centre in her province. Through Question Period and interviews, she brought attention to the impact of the CBC's funding shortfalls on its French radio and television programs, vital services to francophone communities outside Quebec. She advocated appointing bilingual Supreme Court judges. She stressed the importance of Canada's linguistic duality in an academic article. She also participated in a round table on linguistic duality in Québec City and the intercultural conference on second languages in Edmonton.

As chair of the Senate Committee on Official Languages, Franco-Manitoban Senator Maria Chaput has led many studies on gaps in service to linguistic minorities in Canada, and she has long been an advocate in the Senate chamber. For the past few years, however, she has also been working to make sure that census questions reflect the demographic weight of French speakers in Canada. "The services offered and funds allocated to official-language minority communities depend on Statistics Canada census findings," she wrote in fall 2008. "It is therefore important that measurement tools be properly calibrated to gauge the vitality of the French language across the country." This year, she also successfully counselled against proposed electoral boundaries in Manitoba that she felt would have disadvantaged francophone voters.

The Senate is well known for its frankness on military policy; the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence is prolific in its reports and frequently weighs in about the strength and endeavours of the Canadians Forces. Its subcommittee on veterans also studies the services and support veterans receive.

It's not only those who are directly involved in the military who are affected by it, however. Senator Lucie Pépin has striven to give a voice to, and to increase the visibility of, the spouses and families of members of the Canadian Forces. Although these men and women are not in uniform, they share in the sacrifices of those who serve under the Canadian flag. In 2008-09, Senator Pépin crossed the country visiting military family resource centres. At each, she met with military spouses to listen to their concerns, motivate them, offer her support and take part in their activities.

In September 2008, Toronto played host to the annual fall meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA). Members, who hail from Parliaments across Europe as well as Canada and the United States, were welcomed by their host, Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella, and the head of the Canadian delegation, Senator Consiglio Di Nino.

In keeping with the theme of the conference, "The OSCE in an Open World: Trade, Migration and Security," there were three subjects of discussion planned for the fall meetings: the Economic/Environmental Dimension, the Security and Political Dimension and the Human Dimension. But the topics to be covered under the Security and Political Dimension were amended close to the time of the conference to address a critical situation: the escalating conflict between OSCE members of Georgia and Russia over the South Ossetia region of Georgia. The OSCE PA meetings in Toronto were the first time that Russian and Georgian officials had discussed the situation in an open forum. Participants included Speaker Kinsella, Senator Di Nino and Assembly Vice-President, Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein, who took part in discussion of the role the OSCE could play in helping Georgia and Russia find a solution. Though issues remained unresolved, the meeting provided an important first step towards an open global debate on an issue critical to European, and indeed world, security.