Election vs Appointment

During the most recent Canadian Federal election I was surprised that "reforming" the unelected Senate was controversial. But since none of the parties opposed to the notion were willing to articulate why, I assumed they just had a vested interest in protecting the status quo. (It turns out that the debaters at the all candidates meeting I attended were not entirely representative of their parties - the NDP for example is calling for the abolishment of the Senate, presumably because it would currently kill any revolutionary acts of parliament.)

However, I am coming to appreciate what an unelected Senate has to offer.

Normal politicians seem to be idiot savants - they are very capable at one very narrow task: getting elected. Unfortunately, they tend to be pretty lousy at pretty much everything else. I can only assume that most well rounded potential candidates are scared off by the meat grinder aspect of campaigning.

(Digression: In the US, some judges are elected. In Oregon at least, they seem to all run uncontested, suggesting that for positions that require significant technical knowledge the rules are somewhat different.)

So the main benefit of having appointed legislators is that it allows smart non-sociopaths to participate in the political process. You get to elect the most charismatic/coherent lunatic, and then they get to appoint their strongest backers to positions of even greater power.

There is something to be said however for changing the current structure of the Canadian Senate - extremely long appointments are pretty undemocratic, and lots of people are totally senile by the mandatory retirement age of 75. I like terms that are longer than that of the elected officials - 8 years ought to be enough to smooth out parliamentary mood swings. And then Senators can be reappointed if the current (or a future) power thinks they were doing a good job.