First Nations Elections Act June 14th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I heard the member correctly. He said that this legislation would effectively take the minister out of the picture. From what I understand from paragraphs 3 (1)(a) and (1)(b) the minister would be still in the picture. It still has the paternalistic and colonial role for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

I am not sure if I understood it correctly. Is the member supporting what the Assembly of First Nations asked the Senate to do, and that is to take paragraphs 3(1)(a) and (b) out of the bill? Is that what the member was getting at?

Conservative Party of Canada June 14th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, although the Conservatives are trying to divert our attention, Canadians remain focused on what matters—and what matters is not being popular, but rather getting answers in order to understand how the Senate expense scandal unfolded and who is involved.

It is the Prime Minister's Office that really runs this country, and that very same office is where Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy's shenanigans took place. The PMO is still happy, however, because the Conservative caucus continues to serve at its beck and call, as we saw yesterday. Their caucus is full of trained seals who are happy to sit back and blindly applaud while the head seal spins a ball on his nose.

Canadians deserve better. They deserve a party that will think of them instead of rewarding its party cronies by appointing them as senators for life.

Main Estimates, 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have noticed over my two years here that when women members of the House stand to speak, the heckling is usually much worse than when male members stand to speak.

The member for Calgary would probably—

Main Estimates 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the money being spent there is not working. It could be put to better use.

As I have already said, there are 21 municipalities represented by democratically elected men and women in my riding. Those people work hard in the interests of their constituents. They live in their city, not elsewhere, and they work for a laughable salary. Many of them have to get a second job to make ends meet.

When it comes to funding the Senate, I think that we could be paying far less than what we are now, for the same work.

Main Estimates 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, this is the problem, and we have seen this since the beginning of Confederation. The party in power uses the Senate to stack people with patronage appointments in that place.

It does not actually function as a chamber of sober second thought. It functions as a parking place for party bagmen, partisan campaigners and the like. We saw that after the 1984 election when Brian Mulroney took power. He used the Senate in exactly the way for which he has denounced the previous Trudeau administration. We see that with the current Prime Minister using it in the same way that the Chrétien administration used it.

This has to come to an end. We have to get rid of the other place. This is a good first step, talking and having a debate about whether we should be giving these millions of dollars to it.

Main Estimates 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, I respect this member very much, but if he wants to talk about not having the opportunity to stand up in this House and do his part, he should talk to his House leader for invoking closure in debate 40 times in this House. It is a total affront to our democracy.

If the hon. member wants to talk about not being able to stand in his place and represent his constituents, I would tell him to talk to his House leader so that this place can function properly.

Main Estimates 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, I should have referred to the other place as sometimes misleading and sometimes deviating from proper oversight.

Our party has always called for abolition of the Senate, even when we were the CCF and the ILA even before that. We have been calling for the abolition of this unelected and accountable body known as the Senate.

Just last week in my riding I was talking to a Ms. Martin, a single mother who lives in my riding who is working two jobs and still struggling to make ends meet. Her difficulties are hard but sadly not unique to Canadians. From coast to coast to coast, Canadians are struggling in this economic climate. What is the government doing to help Canadians? What is it doing to help lower unemployment rates? What is the government doing to help Ms. Martin spend less time worrying about how she will pay her bills and spend more time at home with her children?

Instead of fixing these problems, the Prime Minister and the Conservative government are writing a cheque for $58 million to the unelected, unaccountable senators who work just 71 days a year on average. It does not make sense. It is not giving enough for hard-working Canadians to collect EI when they need it. However, it does have enough to give to the Senate to give senators a nice salary and pension.

The Conservative government, like its Liberal predecessors, would rather protect its party bagmen, party hacks and failed candidates in the Senate than protect the thousands of Canadians who are struggling every day.

At its purest form, the Senate is a place for senators to come together and represent and fight for their constituents. As we can see, this noble cause is lost in the upper chamber. Could this be because they are not elected and held accountable by their constituents? Could this be because they are not appointed based on their community work, but rather because of their backroom partisan work?

Enough is enough. The Canadian people need to be the first priority of the government and it has to stop funnelling money to the unaccountable, unelected Senate.

In a recent Ipsos poll it was found that 43% of Canadians agreed with the NDP that the Senate should be abolished, 45% of Canadians believed that at the very least the Senate needed to be reformed and a small 13% of Canadians, including the Liberal leader, agreed with the Liberal leader's and Conservatives' record, that the status quo worked and nothing needed to be changed.

Nevertheless, it is not just Canadians and the NDP who want the Senate abolished. The premiers of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan all believe that the Senate is an archaic, wasteful, undemocratic institution that has no place in Canada's government. Every province in Canada has done away with their upper chamber and have all thrived after doing so.

Canadians want and deserve better from their government. It is time to end the gravy train, stop the funding and start using taxpayer dollars to make their lives better and more affordable.

It is not just Canadians who know that something is not right in the Senate. During the 2005 election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to reform the Senate so that it would be equal, elected and effective. If he had to do it all over, he would probably add “ethical” to his list. He forgot the fourth e.

During their seven years in power, the Conservatives have introduced various bills that have never amounted to anything or been high on the list of priorities. Even worse, although the Prime Minister himself had promised that he would not appoint senators, he has appointed 59 since coming to power. This is a new record in Canada's history.

Not only did they break their promise, but the Prime Minister and the Conservatives perpetuated the Liberal tradition of using the Senate to reward the party faithful.

There is the appointment of failed candidates such as Josée Verner and Larry Smith and the appointment of Conservative cronies such as Irving Gerstein, Judith Seidman, Donald Plett and David Braley. Before he was appointed to the Senate, David Braley donated a total of $86,000 to the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister.

The NDP has always spoken out about these practices. We were against this archaic, undemocratic institution at the time of the Liberals, who behaved the same way the Conservatives are behaving now.

It is not surprising that the leader of the Liberal Party is against abolishing the Senate. Just think of all the Liberal senators who are benefiting from this institution. They include David Smith, James Cowan, Fernand Robichaud and Grant Mitchell, who are all friends of the party. All of them have used Canadians' money, public funds, to quietly campaign, when they are supposed to be working to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent more wisely.

When it comes to using taxpayers' money more wisely, 23 mayors in my riding are paid very little for all the hard work they do. I am talking about Géraldine Quesnel, Marc Roy, Marie-Claude Nichols, Guy Pilon, Robert Grimaudo, Yvan Cardinal, Michael Elliott, Manon Trudel, Robert Sauvé, Maryse Sauvé, Marc-André Léger, Réal Boisvert, Jean-Pierre Daoust, Réal Brazeau, Patrick Bousez, Nicole Loiselle, Jean-Yves Poirier, Yvon Bériault, Gaëtane Legault, Patricia Domingos, Aline Guillotte, Jean Lalonde and Claude Pilon.

Personally, I would rather see these millions of dollars given to elected officials who do their job properly and work tirelessly to represent my region than to senators who do nothing.

Main Estimates 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, all across our great country, Canadians are struggling and going through financial hardships. Living pay cheque to pay cheque and relying on credit cards to make ends meet has become the reality for thousands of Canadians under the current government.

I would also like to say that I am splitting my time with the amazing member for Trinity—Spadina.

Yet here we are debating whether the Conservative government should give $58 million of taxpayer money to the unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic Senate. This does not represent the best interests of Canadians, which we are here to do.

The Fathers of Confederation envisioned the Senate to be an academic, non-partisan body of sober second thought. Instead, it has been turned into a tool of patronage for Liberals and Conservatives alike.

I would like to share with the House that my political awakening as a teenager, when I was 13, was the 1984 federal election. For those members of the House who remember that, it was Brian Mulroney versus John Turner. It was Brian Mulroney of the Progressive Conservatives, which no longer exist, they are now, I would say, the regressive Conservatives. In the televised debate of that federal election, Brian Mulroney, who was a Conservative, lambasted John Turner for doing a raft of patronage appointments that were asked of him by the former Prime Minister Trudeau. Conservatives at that time said that the Liberals had the option of not doing it.

However, in the past 30 years we have seen that Conservatives and Liberals alike have used the Senate as their patronage dumping ground, at the expense of the taxpayer. All we are asking tonight is to take pause and reflect. Does that chamber deserve the money that the taxpayers are paying for it? We just want to pause and reflect, and see if the money is being well spent over there. As Canadians have seen over the past couple of weeks, I think they would agree with most of the members of the NDP that it is not being spent well, that taxpayer funds are being misused.

That election in 1984 started off with Brian Mulroney riding into Ottawa on a white horse to clean up Ottawa, to get rid of the patronage appointments and it ended in 1993 with two members of the Progressive Conservatives remaining in the House, with division in the country. The same thing is going to happen in 2015. After nine years of power, the current government is going to end up a small rump, if anything, in the House, with a New Democratic government in power.

The Senate is an institution full of scandal and lies and it is a stain on Canadian democracy. I am proud to say that I am a New Democrat and I am proud to say that I am part of a party that does now and has always called for even when—

Main Estimates 2013-14 June 5th, 2013

Mr. Speaker, the mayors in my riding work hard every day. Only 21 of the mayors of these 23 municipalities receive a salary. These people truly represent the riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges. They work hard for no pay. They receive an optional salary of roughly $17,000 or $20,000. That is not much for those who do real work on the ground.

The minister says this is a gimmick. I think it is a pretty clear plan. We will stop providing money to the Senate in order to address other priorities in the country. It is possible to reduce the amount of money that goes to the Senate.