Senate of Canada
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The Senate of Canada (French: Sénat du Canada) is the upper house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the House of Commons, they compose the bicameral legislature of Canada. The Senate is modelled after the British House of Lords, with its members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister. The appointment is made primarily by four divisions, each having twenty-four senators: the Maritime division, the Quebec division, the Ontario division, and the Western division. Newfoundland and Labrador is not part of any division, and has six senators. Each of the three territories has one senator, bringing the total to 105 senators. Senate appointments were originally for life; since 1965, they have been subject to a mandatory retirement age of 75. Although the Senate is the upper house of parliament and the House of Commons is the lower house, this does not imply the former is more powerful than the latter; it merely entails that its members and officers outrank the members and officers of the Commons in the order of precedence for the purposes of protocol. As a matter of practice and custom, the opposite is true, with the House of Commons being the dominant chamber. The prime minister and Cabinet are responsible solely to the House of Commons and remain in office only so long as they retain the confidence of that chamber. Parliament is composed of the two houses together with the "Crown-in-Parliament" (i.e. the monarch, represented by the governor general as viceroy). The approval of both houses is necessary for legislation to become law, and thus the Senate can reject bills passed by the House of Commons. In practice, this power has rarely been invoked throughout Canadian history. Although legislation can normally be introduced in either chamber, the majority of government bills originate in the House of Commons, with the Senate acting as the chamber of "sober second thought" (as it was called by Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister). Notable examples of the Senate failing to approve a bill passed by the Commons include its rejection of the Naval Aid Bill in 1912; its refusal to allow a vote on legislation enabling the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, thus precipitating the 1988 federal election; and the 1991 defeat on a tie vote of a bill that would have criminalized abortion.