For all the many and devious ways the government must have mooted to get the goods and services tax past the Senate, one solution has no doubt been overlooked: Skip the Senate stage altogether. Take the legislation straight to the governor general for royal assent, and proclaim it into law.

The whole affair - the Liberal vows to kill the bill, the eight new Conservative appointments, the filibusters and bell-ringing, the Speaker's ruling allowing a vote without the Liberals, and the chaos that followed - is based on the superstition that there is some significance to a vote in the Senate. The government's schemes have only succeeded in adding to this illusion.

In truth, there is exactly as much significance to senators' views of the legislation as there is to the opinions of the governor general. If the Queen or her viceroy were to refuse to sign a bill passed by Parliament, we would find that outrageous. The only reason the senators can mount this charade is because they sit in a chamber that looks like the House of Commons.

An appointed Senate has only one legitimate function: to advise. It doesn't matter how sound its objections, or how wise its members may be: it has no more right to translate those qualities into legislative power than I do. Its sole duty, having suggested amendments and after a decent delay, is to pass government legislation - particularly when it comes to money bills.

ONLY A CONVENTION

Supporters of the Senate say that's only a convention. The rules say the Senate can reject any bill it likes. But it's ''only a convention'' that we obey the rules. They have no power in themselves. They are merely those conventions that happen to have coagulated in print. So suppose the government decided to ignore the rule that says the Senate must approve legislation before it becomes law. Why not?

Certainly there is no provision in the Constitution for this. There is no provision in the Constitution for Quebec to separate, either, but that doesn't seem to deter anyone. The government would no doubt be breaking the law to advance its political agenda. But there's a lot of that going around these days. Why should civil disobedience only be for those opposed to federal authority? Why shouldn't the feds have some of the fun?

Okay, enough satire. Even those who wish the GST dead ought to be mature enough to separate legitimate ends from illegitimate means. It is bad enough that 90% of the opposition to the GST is based on the rankest ignorance of what it entails. But the really dispiriting aspect of all this is that Canadians can't or won't make the distinction.

One could count on one hand the number of GST opponents who have spoken out against the senators' blockade. Instead, the vast majority, including the sainted NDP, urge them on, cloaking the exercise in the mantle of democracy, by virtue of the tax's current low standing in the polls.

This has provoked exactly the wrong response from the government's supporters, to the effect that the government must be allowed to impose unpopular policies on the public, for its own good. It's hard to make a convincing case against the Senate's aristocratic disdain for democracy on the strength of one's own.

What makes the Senate's action illegitimate isn't that the people aren't to be trusted, but that polls are not legitimate interpreters of their will. Decisions in a democracy, whether representative or direct, are not reached in the course of a phone call. They are the product of weeks and months of reflection and debate.

PHONY POPULISM

If the GST were rejected in a referendum, after a campaign in which the merits and demerits of the tax were weighed against those of the alternatives, then however much I might disagree with the result, that's democracy. But it is phony populism to ally oneself with ''the people'' on the basis of a poll, even assuming polls are accurate snapshots of public opinion at the time.

Worse than that, it's patronizing. There is no contradiction in saying the public is completely wrong about the GST and suggesting they be allowed to decide the matter in a referendum. There is such a thing as rational ignorance. Most people are too busy getting on with their own lives to learn a great deal about public affairs, unless they know the decision rests with them. One should have a healthy enough contempt for the electorate to want to give them that power.