In 2013 Canadians grew appalled at scandals involving prominent senators: resignations at highest levels, damning reports from independent auditing firms, a precedent-setting review of all Senate spending by Canada's auditor general, and RCMP investigations of criminal acts. In this timely book, J. Patrick Boyer provides an in-depth look at this new low in the history of Canada's Senate, and shows how the bigger national scandal is the Senate's very existence. The Senate of Canada is a leading specimen of "resistance to change," that little-understood phenomenon by which the entrenched power of existing institutions creates a dead-weight of inertia. Yet at last, even this institution seems on the brink of transformation as Canadians have reignited long-smouldering demands for reform or even abolition.