EDMONTON — Senate reform will not be taken seriously by Ottawa unless Premier Ralph Klein gets more strongly behind the issue, say candidates in Alberta's Senate selection race.

On Monday, voters are to choose candidates to fill this province's vacancies in the Senate. A list of four winners will be presented to the federal government for consideration.

There are currently three vacant Alberta seats in the upper house, but Prime Minister Paul Martin suggested this week he doesn't plan to fill them with the winners of the Alberta election.

Link Byfield, an Independent Senate candidate and former publisher of Alberta Report magazine, said Martin's position is understandable.

"In a way I don't blame him (Martin). He's being asked to initiate a process of reform that would take power away from the prime minister,'' Byfield said Friday.

"Until the Alberta government gives it a push, it is not going to happen.''

Spawned by feelings of western alienation and the growth of the Reform party, Alberta held the first Senate election in Canadian history in 1989. The winner, Stan Waters, was subsequently appointed to the Senate by then prime minister Brian Mulroney.

While another vote was held in 1998, it hasn't been a top issue in Alberta politics for almost 10 years.

Klein only agreed last month to allow Senate candidates to run under the Progressive Conservative party banner after he was pressed by his Tory caucus.

Byfield said without strong leadership from Klein, Senate reform will be just another Alberta complaint.

"He's been a disappointment consistently on federal issues,'' Byfield said. "He says things about medicare, grain marketing and Senate reform, but there is never any followup.''

Michael Roth, an Alberta Alliance Senate candidate, said Klein deserves credit for holding the vote.

However, unless the premier vehemently pushes for reform, the $3-million Senate election will be an empty gesture, he said.

"To me it is tokenism. He hasn't really pushed this thing the way he should,'' Roth said.

"Really and truly, when you get right down to it, he's done very little. If his heart was in it, he would be doing a lot more.''

Progressive Conservative candidate Bert Brown, one of the driving forces behind Alberta's push for Senate reform, is more supportive of Klein.

Brown, who ran in Senate elections in 1987 and 1998, said such democratic reforms come slowly.

"I'd love to see him or any other politician put it forward more forcefully,'' said Brown, who plowed the slogan The Right to Vote in huge letters in a farm field near his southern Alberta home on Tuesday.

"I think Ralph has really put his credibility on the line in this election. I'd like to see what happens after this election. I think the premier will probably speak quite strongly on the choice of Albertans.''

Other candidates in the Senate election include Cliff Breitkreuz, a former MP from Onoway; Jim Silye, a former MP from Calgary; Betty Unger, a nurse from Edmonton; David Usherwood, a farming consultant from Cochrane; Tom Sindlinger, a Calgary economist, Gary Horan, an Edmonton small business owner and Vance Gough, a Calgary business instructor.

Klein could not be reached for comment.

Marisa Etmanski, the premier's spokeswoman, said he has been working behind the scenes to promote Senate reform on the national level.

While no other province holds Senate elections, Etmanski said Nova Scotia and Quebec are considering supporting the idea of Ottawa making appointments from lists of candidates supplied by provinces.

"Ralph Klein has been on the leading edge of Senate reform across the country,'' she said.

"If Ottawa was serious about listening to western Canadian concerns, they would give us an answer on why they won't appoint senators.''

The four western provinces, with 30 per cent of the Canadian population, have 24 of 105 seats in the Senate.

The imbalance is most acute in British Columbia and Alberta, where the two provinces together have about 23 per cent of the population but only 12 seats in the upper house.