Is Senate reform Constitutional?

Vues D'ici asks a simple question about Harper's proposal to make our Senate elected: Is it Constitutional?

Note for American readers: Yes, we inherited an aristocratic fossil from the British. Our Upper House is named by the PM. Feel free to mock us. Of course, at least our Senate wasn't expressly designed to reinforce slavery and it's successive white supremacist policies. So there.

So like the giant nerd I am, I go to the actual document (Constitution Act, 1867 baby!) and see what it says about the Senate. It's a relatively short section, which you can find at Sec. 21 here. The key requirements for a Senator are that s/he own $4,000 in property and be at least 30 years old, so I don't qualify on either count. The candidate also needs to reside in the Province the represent. But the actual naming of the Senators uses interesting language:

The Governor General shall from Time to Time, in the Queen's Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon qualified Persons to the Senate; and, subject to the Provisions of this Act, every Person so summoned shall become and be a Member of the Senate and a Senator.

Notice the legal fiction that it's the GG that names the Senators. The reality is that the PM names Senators, so there's at least a possibility that "the GG" could be instructed by law to name only Senators who had won elections in their provinces. The problem seems to come with the fact that Senators are named for life or their 75th birthday. Now, the same law that elected these Senators could simply have some language about term limits and we could all hope that was sufficient to keep Senators behaving, but the simple fact is that if a Senator decided to fight an election loss and keep their senate seat, the Constitution gives them a pretty solid footing to stay until they've blown out the 75th candle. It would also allow a replacement Senator to be named on a temporary basis until any election was resolved - the Senate can theoretically be expanded to as much as 113 Senators (currently holds 105.)

One creative solution: Make staying past your elected mandate a "treason, felony, or infamous crime" and any Senator who broke the law would be automatically disqualified from their seat under Sec 31 (4). This would, however, pretty clearly contravene the stated language of the Constitution, though arguably no more than electing Senators in the first place.

None of this addresses whether Senate reform is actually a good idea, much less the incremental ideas that Harper is proposing. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see him try.

UPDATE: Duuhh, I'm a PoliSci student. I only spent 4 years learning about Canadian politics, so maybe I should have looked at the proper document - Constitution Act 1982, not 1867. (Thanks, cdntarheel.) Looks like Constitutional Amendment is Stephen's only way out. Moreover, Harper needs a much larger minority than even the Constitution demands, because of Chretien's Amendment Act.