SAVING A DEMOCRACY:

Canadians can look Down Under for democratic reform Australia's effective, elected Senate (Jack Aubrey, October 01, 2002, The Ottawa Citizen)

There are signs on the rolling highway to Australia's tidy capital city that offer some unintentional advice to Canada's beleaguered and much-maligned Senate.

The signs, which are directed to sleepy truckers, read: "Stop. Revive. Survive."

And if the country ever does stop to breathe life into the lifeless red chamber in Ottawa, the model offered up by the Australian Senate is a good place to start. To begin with, it's elected.

This is just one part of an astonishing 19-part series called The State of Our Democracy. Many of the offered cures seem as bad or worse than the disease, but it's fascinating to see how a mature democracy is grappling with some major problems.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 6, 2002 9:01 AM