When the framers of Canada's constitution, which was in fact an act of the British Parliament, met back in the 1860s to decide how the country would be governed, they were markedly conscious that it must be both North American and British. It must therefore have a bicameral legislature – i.e., an "upper" and "lower" House – as did both Britain and the United States. They copied the British in calling the lower one "the House of Commons" and the Americans in calling the upper one "the Senate." However, the Canadian Senate bears little resemblance to the American one. The...