Claire Hoy is a muckraking right-wing Southam columnist. His target is a cheap and easy villain: the Canadian Senate. Not many Canadians, senators included, defend the current institution.

Hoy’s style is engagingly full of opinions, put-downs, and innuendo. He offers a loose historical spine with some informative detail on the Senate’s origins and rationale, and follows this with chapters on sordid scandals and the personalities involved.

The best chapters are the last two on foreign Upper Houses and Hoy’s prescription for change. His preference is for an elected Senate and free votes in both Houses. Yet he doesn’t confront the implications of these recommendations. Nor is there an appreciation for the obstacles to changing the Constitution to enable reform.

The text is peppered with colourful quotes, but alas, there is no index.

For Hoy, the Senate is a venal, sleazy, “patronage heaven.” Senators supporting or opposing whichever government are derided. So too are the prime ministers who promised reform but delivered only more cronies and bagmen. Hoy thinks the pay and perks are scandalously high ($75,000) and he lambastes the annual cost of $45-million. On top of it all, the work is too easy, permitting Senators to run a business on the side. One of the few positive points, according to the author, is that the Senate does have proportionately more women than are elected to parliament.

Conrad Black, Hoy’s employer, makes a passing appearance. Piqued at being denied appointment to the Senate’s soulmate, the House of Lords, Black is currently suing Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. One wonders if the author expects Black to give up his business if he gets there. Are the personal shortcomings of senators – what this book dwells on – any greater than those of elected politicians, media barons, or journalists for that matter?