In a recent column in the Financial Post daily, I put forward a suggested system of representation in an elected Senate. Since the campaign for a ''triple E'' model of reform - Equal, Elected, and Effective - now seems to be heating up, and since it is a dangerous delusion on the West's part to think that Ontario or Quebec would entertain such a scheme for one moment, let me flesh out the details of this alternate plan.

The basic framework would see an equal number of senators elected from each province, say six, allocated according to the proportion of the popular vote obtained by each party in that province. The bases of representation here combine the recommendations of two earlier proposals: the Alberta select committee on Senate reform (equal) and the Macdonald Royal Commission (proportional).

But the people would also elect six senators in nationwide elections, each of whom would command 10 votes. The exact numbers don't matter so long as this relationship is preserved: as many national senators as are allotted each province, each having as many votes as there are provinces (I am leaving out the Territories here for simplicity). The six national senators would thus together wield the same number of votes as the representatives of the provinces: 60-60.

SEPARATE CONTEST

Each of the national senators would be elected in a separate contest; their seats would represent no interest or region, but might be named after former Prime Ministers, or journalists. The provincial senators might be elected every five years, while half of the national senators would be up for election at the same time, thus sitting for 10 year terms.

This is clearly a substantial modification of the triple E concept. But it seems to me to offer a reasonable compromise between the populous provinces' reluctance to give the same standing to Prince Edward Island as Ontario, and the insistence of the West on a greater say in Ottawa than is afforded by the Commons. Instead of triple E, you might call this the ''half-and-half'' solution: half provincial, half national.

The combined package - some senators elected on a first-past-the-post basis in nationwide voting, some on a proportional basis in equal numbers from each province, together with a representation-by-population lower house - reflects the balance of nation and regions, majorities and minorities required in as complex a federation as Canada.

The national senators would form a sort of political Supreme Court within the upper house, rather like the Law Lords. They would ensure a national perspective carried decisive sway in the midst of provincial power-broking. They alone would have the sort of national mandate a U.S. President has.

Would their presence then encourage the provincial members to take an excessively regional view? Possibly. But remember that they will be elected by proportional representation, so will be unlikely to vote as a bloc. Since each of the national senators would be elected separately on a first-past-the-post basis, each thus having equal voice, there is no guarantee or even likelihood that they would all agree either.

If it were possible to forbid party affiliation, that might be desirable. But let us suppose senators were elected in the usual fashion, along party lines. Let us suppose further that the same pattern of voting prevailed as in the recent elections to the Commons. What might Parliament then look like?

The lower house, of course, would have the same party standings as now: 168 PC, 83 Liberal, 43 NDP (one vacant). But the upper house would be an intriguing mix. The provincial senators would give no majority to any party, dividing into 25 Conservative, 21 Liberals, 13 NDP and one Reform Party.

It could well be, however, that the Conservatives would win all the national seats. They would then have 85 votes in the Senate, out of 120: 71%, as opposed to 57% (168 of 295) in the Commons. But that's only if they got all six of the national senators. Lose three of them - if the six were distributed, say, three Tory, two Liberal, one NDP - and you lose your majority in the upper house.

Even if all six of the national Senate seats were captured by one party, party discipline would be difficult to maintain. The nature of the position would make these the most hotly contested elections in the country, emphasizing the quality of the candidate rather than the party.

Even provincial senators would be bigger fish than MPs, having been elected by larger numbers of constituents. But the national senators would be more or less immune to party influence - especially since they would be banned from holding Cabinet office.

What could they be promised, or what threatened, if they did not follow the party line? What local pork-barrel could tempt nationally elected senators? What special interest could they serve? It's a lot harder to buy elections nationwide than in one riding.

RARELY AGREE

Since the bulk of the population is in Ontario and Quebec, it might be objected that the national senators would simply represent the interests of Central Canada once again.

But a candidate in need of a national majority could not succeed if seen to represent too narrowly the interests of one region. Ontario and Quebec rarely agree as it is, and without an overwhelming vote for such a candidate in both provinces, they would be unlikely to outweigh the rest of the country.

Even if all six national senators came from Ontario and Quebec, and even if they all voted together, and even if they were joined by every other senator from those two provinces, that would still only give Central Canada 72 votes out of 120 - 60%, or about their proportion of the Commons. But that would be the absolute ceiling of their influence. It would likely be far less in practice.

In the Commons, moreover, a party with barely half the popular votes in a province or region can win almost all of the seats, as the Tories did in Quebec, thereby giving disproportionate weight to that region in selecting a government.

The proportional representation envisaged here would limit the Tories to half of Quebec's six senators, while Quebec Tories would have only so much weight in selecting national senators as half of Quebec's population represents in the population of the country as a whole - which is rather less than that of Quebec's MPs within the Tory caucus.

As a final thought, we might want to change the name of the upper house, if just for the sake of differentiating ourselves from the Americans. As a reminder to those deliberating within that they are there as legislators for one country, not the emissaries of ten, the ''House of Confederation'' might be appropriate.