Halifax (AP) - Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm says he's prepared to follow Alberta's lead in holding elections for vacant positions in the Senate.
"What I can commit to is Senate reform," he told provincial Conservative members as the party's annual general meeting wrapped up in Halifax on Sunday.
"One of the ways we can do that is to follow the Alberta example."
The premier said Canadians are clamoring for more accountability out of Ottawa and changes to the Senate process might be a partial solution.
He proposes what amounts to an informal appointment process, where voters in a province elect their senators and the prime minister rubberstamps them without comment or interference.
In recent years, Alberta has held two elections to choose senators, but former prime minister Jean Christine refused to appoint the elected choices.
Hamm stopped short of calling for direct Senate elections, which would require a constitutional amendment.
That's a debate many people in the country are not keen have, Hamm admitted.
Federal NDP leader Jack Layton dismissed Hamm's proposal as trying to tinker with a system that's already broken.
"It's unelected, it's undemocratic and it becomes a repository for political friends," he said. "Instead, what we should have is proportional representation for the House of Commons."
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.