NDP opposes budget allocation for the Senate

Tonight, the NDP will continue a long tradition of voting against the budget allocation for the Senate.

"Estimates votes are confidence votes, and the NDP simply does not have
confidence in the government’s proposed budget for the Senate," said NDP
Democratic Reform critic, Craig Scott (Toronto-Danforth).

Reducing the Senate’s bloated $92.5 million dollar budget is just one example of
the perfectly constitutional measures that Parliament could take right now
to reform this expensive, unaccountable, and unelected institution.

"Sitting in the Senate is supposed to be an act of public service. New
Democrats know the Senate could fulfill its core functions without the large
salaries and outsized office budgets and entitlements that some Senators have
come to abuse," added NDP Democratic Reform deputy critic Alexandrine
Latendresse (Louis-Saint-Laurent).

While the NDP believes the Senate should be abolished, last fall it proposed a
number of reforms to make the Senate less partisan, less expensive, and more
accountable.