Bill C-43 (Historical)

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate

This enactment provides for the consultation of electors in a province with respect to their preferences for the appointment of Senators to represent the province.
Part 1 provides for the administration of a consultation, which is exercised under the general direction and supervision of the Chief Electoral Officer.
Part 2 provides for the holding of a consultation, initiated by an order of the Governor in Council.
Part 3 provides for a process whereby prospective nominees may confirm their nominations with the Chief Electoral Officer.
Part 4 addresses voting by electors in a consultation.
Part 5 sets out the rules for the counting of votes pursuant to a preferential system, which takes into account the first and subsequent preferences of electors as indicated on their ballots.
Parts 6 and 7 deal with communications and third party advertising in relation to consultations.
Part 8 addresses financial administration by nominees.
Part 9 provides for the enforcement of the enactment, including the establishment of offences and punishments for contraventions of certain provisions.
Part 10 contains transitional provisions, consequential amendments to the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act, coordinating amendments and commencement provisions.

Concurrence in Vote 1--Senate

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity tonight to speak to the proposal by the member for Winnipeg Centre to oppose Vote No. 1—Parliament, to provide the program expenditures to the Senate in the amount of $57,532,359 in the main estimates.

My remarks, I should say off the top, should in no way be confused as a ringing endorsement of the status quo in the Senate. Our government has consistently tried to reform the Senate while always recognizing the important role the Senate plays in our parliamentary system. That recognition is in direct opposition to the views of the sponsor of this motion, whose party would like to summarily abolish the institution. That is what the motion of the member for Winnipeg Centre would effectively do by depriving the Senate of the resources it needs to function.

Our government has always believed that while the Senate plays an important role in our parliamentary system, it needs to be improved to better serve Canadians in the way it was originally conceived.

A review of our government's record since taking office in 2006 demonstrates not only our government's commitment to Senate reform but also our flexibility in accommodating different views about Senate reform.

Legislation was first introduced in the 39th Parliament in April 2006 to limit Senate tenure to a period of eight years. Bill S-4 at the time proposed to amend section 29 of the Constitution Act of 1867 to limit Senate tenure to a renewable term of eight years and to remove mandatory retirement at 75 years for new senators coming in.

Also in the 39th Parliament in 2006, our government introduced Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act. That was a bill that would have provided for a national consultation process through which Canadians would be consulted on their choice of candidates for appointment to the Senate. That was obviously modelled after efforts made in my home province of Alberta, where we had undertaken any number of these consultations in the past and where we had senators who were essentially elected by the people of Alberta. It was modelled after that particular idea, the innovative approach taken by my home province of Alberta. Unfortunately, as with the term limits bill, the opposition parties refused to support these important reforms.

In the second session of the 39th Parliament in 2007, our government introduced Bill C-19, an act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Senate tenure), here in the House of Commons. Bill C-19 proposed to limit Senate tenure to a period of eight years, the same as the bill we introduced in the Senate a year earlier. However, there were a couple of important modifications.

First, while Bill S-4 did not expressly forbid the possibility of renewable terms, Bill C-19 did in fact expressly provide for a non-renewable term.

Second, Bill C-19 contained the provision to permit a Senate term to be completed after an interruption. An example would be a term interrupted by a resignation. Despite these changes and our government's determined effort to bring change to an institution that had remained largely unchanged since 1867, the time of our Confederation, the opposition parties steadfastly refused to support our legislation.

Then, of course, our government was re-elected in 2008 with a mandate to reform the Senate, and we went to work on that. In the 40th parliament in 2009, our government introduced Bill S-7, an act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Senate term limits). It was introduced in the Senate, and it included two key changes.

The first was the idea of eight-year term limits. That limit would apply to all senators appointed after October 14, 2008, with the eight-year terms beginning from the time that the bill received royal assent. Then, of course, the retirement age of 75 years would be maintained for all senators. Once again, even this modest but important reform was opposed by the opposition parties.

In 2010, our government introduced Bill S-8, the senatorial selection act. It was a bill to encourage the provinces and territories to implement their own democratic processes for the selection of Senate nominees. It would have democratized the Senate and provided an opportunity for the provinces and territories to implement the processes to enable that to happen. This act included a voluntary framework that set out a basis for provinces to consult with voters on appointments to the Senate going forward.

We all know what happened there: the opposition parties refused to support that reform too. Is anyone sensing any kind of pattern here?

That year our government also reintroduced the Senate term limits bill, Bill C-10. That bill died on the order paper upon the dissolution of Parliament. Can we guess why? It was due to a lack of will for reform from the opposition parties once again. They refused to support any idea of reform in the Senate.

Canadians gave another mandate to our government in the election of May 2011 to again make changes to the Senate. A month and a half later, on June 21, 2011, our government introduced Bill C-7, the Senate reform act. Members can probably imagine where this is going. Bill C-7 would have implemented a nine-year non-renewable term for senators. That goes back to the point I raised earlier about being flexible and accommodating. Some concerns had been raised about the eight years, so we went for a nine-year non-renewable term.

As well, that bill would have once again enabled a voluntary framework for the provinces to implement Senate appointment consultations. Processes were put in place for that. As with all the other times, the opposition parties still would not change their minds. They refused to support meaningful Senate reform.

Throughout all of those debates on the Senate, time and time again our commitment to reform was crystal clear, as was our recognition of the value of the Senate in our parliamentary system.

Our commitment to reform was also demonstrated by a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada on Senate reform that our government launched in an effort to clarify questions about the constitutionality of legislation that we brought forward. While we were obviously disappointed by the court's decision, it is unfortunately one that all governments will have to respect going forward.

However, the court's opinion does not in any way change our view that improvements to the Senate are needed, nor does it change our view about the value the Senate can play in our bicameral legislative system. My hope certainly remains that reform will be accomplished at some point in the future.

In the meantime, there are other ways of improving the operation of the Senate, as demonstrated by the measures that the Senate itself has initiated to improve transparency and accountability with regard to its expenses.

The Senate plays a key role in the review of legislation. My Liberal colleague across the way can debate what sober second thought means, but he was right that this idea of sober second thought is a learned opinion of second thought. That is something the Senate provides, and it has resulted in improvements to legislation in the past.

The Senate also plays an important role in its committees in the investigation of issues of importance to Canadians. Certainly, the committees, as has been mentioned already in the debate this evening, have produced comprehensive reports. They have produced many, in fact, that have proven to be of tremendous value to the debate and to learning and understanding here in Parliament and throughout Canada. The Kirby report on mental health was an example of that. There was a study done by the national finance committee in the Senate on the price gap between Canada and the U.S. Again, the national finance committee looked studied the elimination of the penny. I could go on and on, citing reports that have been helpful and that have come from the Senate.

There is no doubt that, while the Senate is one of our key institutions here in Parliament, it has been hampered in its role by the lack of accountability that we have seen. There is no question. This lack of accountability has, in turn, been created by the lack of a democratic basis to the system of appointments. Despite the best efforts of most senators and the good work that does get done, some have questioned the legitimacy of the Senate because it lacks that democratic basis.

As I said earlier, I personally do not question the work of the Senate. However, clearly the events of the past year or so have fairly resulted in some damage to its reputation. While we agree about the need for improved accountability, and there is no question that it is needed, we do not believe that the solution is to remove the Senate altogether from our parliamentary system. Rather than destroy the institution and the valuable role it does and can play, we continue to believe that it can be improved and that it can continue to function as one of our key institutions.

Clearly, the recent decision by the Supreme Court on the Senate reform reference has changed the outlook considerably on the reform front. However, improvements can still occur, and the Senate itself has been a leader in that regard over the past year. The Senate has an important role to play in making the improvements. That it has the responsibility to regulate its own affairs is the prime reason for that.

I would draw to members' attention section 33 of the Constitution Act of 1867, which says:

If any Question arises respecting the Qualification of a Senator or a Vacancy in the Senate the same shall be heard...by the Senate.

The Senate has made some progress in dealing with the issues it has faced in this area of financial accountability and transparency. Much of the progress has been the result of the investigations carried out by the Senate Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. As a result of that committee's recommendations, the Senate has adopted new administrative rules to render the reporting system more transparent and to tighten the requirements that senators must meet in filing their expense claims. Some senators have been required to reimburse the Senate for expenses that were considered to be improperly claimed.

The Senate has also asked the Auditor General to conduct an audit of Senate expenses, which will take place in the months ahead. The Senate has also acted by suspending several senators without pay or without access to Senate resources. It seems as if the Senate is taking these matters into its own hands, as it should. Our government has encouraged the Senate to address these issues, and it supports the progress that has already been made.

Since 2006, our government has made a number of attempts to reform the Senate, as I have outlined throughout my remarks here this evening, and as I have indicated, the opposition parties have continued to stand in our way every single time. We as a government continue to believe that providing a democratic basis for the Senate would be a vast improvement and that it would in turn improve accountability.

Our reform efforts, of course, culminated with the introduction of Bill C-7, the Senate reform act, in the last Parliament. Bill C-7 would have introduced non-renewable terms of nine years and provided for a voluntary framework, which provinces and territories could use as a basis to consult their populations on their preferences for Senate nominees, again, as I have indicated, much like what has been done in my home province of Alberta many times. It has produced some great senators, some senators with democratic legitimacy and accountability. The ideas in Bill C-7 were real and concrete measures to reform the Senate.

Unfortunately, our efforts to move those important reforms forward came to an end with the release of the Supreme Court's decision on the Senate reform reference. The fact that in that reference we included a question on abolition was not in any way an indication that our government favoured abolition as an instrument. Our first choice has always been the introduction of reforms that would enhance the Senate's democratic legitimacy.

The Senate certainly has an important role to play in our system. I believe that abolition would remove an important player in the parliamentary system and would leave a huge hole in the legislative process, and for no good reason. Those who know even a little about our system of government, just a bit, know that the Senate has an important role to play in our system, despite what opposition parties may have tried to claim. The Senate's role in the legislative review process is invaluable to our system. We need to continue to provide the Senate with the resources it needs to function effectively.

Of course, we expect the Senate to treat those funds with respect. There have been a number of rule changes designed to ensure that is what is happening. However, we cannot simply remove the entire allocation to the Senate. As I said, we have brought forward a number of suggestions and bills, both in the Senate and in this place, seeking to provide the reform, to create the democratic legitimacy, and to create the accountability that we believe is necessary in the Senate. As I have said, every single time, time and time again, those measures and those attempts to make the reform were blocked by the opposition parties. They would not support anything we tried to do in terms of reform. We brought forward a number of different proposals. We were willing to be flexible, we were willing to be accommodating, we tried different approaches, and we did everything we could to see that reform come to fruition, but the opposition parties refused to allow reform to happen, every single time.

As I have indicated, we understand that there have been some issues with regard to expenses and whatnot in the Senate over the last year or so. There is a need to address those issues and create better accountability. As I have said tonight, there have certainly been efforts undertaken in the Senate itself to try to accomplish those things, and we continue to encourage and support that. We know that reform is something that needs to happen some time in the future. Hopefully, we will get some recognition of that from the opposition parties at some point in time. We can keep trying and hoping, but what we cannot do is simply remove the entire allocation from the Senate and pretend it never existed, and that is what is being proposed here tonight.

I cannot support the proposal by the member for Winnipeg Centre to oppose this allocation of the resources to the Senate, which is clearly a thinly disguised attempt to abolish an institution that fills an important function in our legislative process.

[Marc Mayrand]

We prepared some very preliminary cost estimates when Bill C-43 was introduced. But I want to emphasize one thing: they were very preliminary. We estimated that implementation would cost between $100 million and $150 million.

[Warren Newman]

Well, it would be possible to have a bill that, as a vehicle--and it's been done in the past--proposes an amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867, that is textually, and also provides for other provisions.

In fact, if you were to look at the Nunavut Act, you would see that it has amendments that amended the Constitution Act, 1867 by adding a senator for Nunavut and representation in the House of Commons. Those were actual textual constitutional amendments. And then it went on to provide for the Government of Nunavut in the Nunavut Act.

So you can have a bill that's a vehicle for that. But this is not what has been attempted here, and I think the government's position both on this and on the previous bills, Bill S-4 and Bill C-43, is that these are independent legislative measures. They go towards a broader view of reforming the Senate, but they stand alone, and they stand on their merits to be voted up or down accordingly.

The Constitution Act, 2007 (Democratic Representation)

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have mixed feelings at the beginning of my speech on Bill C-22. On the one hand, I am extremely proud to rise and protect the representation of the Quebec nation in the House and express my total opposition to Bill C-22. On the other, though, I have a hard time understanding the Conservatives’ obsession with repeatedly returning with bills they think are democratic pseudo-reforms.

Earlier this week, we considered the Senate consultation bill. As I said, these bills are not really priorities in my view. In the case of the Senate, we should be talking instead about abolishing an institution inherited from the British monarchy and colonial times. Bill C-22, which we are considering today, is totally at odds with the House’s and Canada’s recognition of the Quebec nation. Instead of talking about this kind of thing, I would have preferred to be here debating a bill to increase the assistance for the manufacturing and forestry industries—something that our fellow citizens need much more urgently than some review of the representation in the House of Commons or an attempt to revamp an irrelevant and completely outmoded institution like the Senate.

We could have been debating the proposals brought forward by the Bloc Québécois over the last few weeks to establish a technological partnership. This program used to exist, but the Conservatives killed it. It could be a $500 million program to encourage technological innovation. There is also the $1.5 billion loan program to help companies procure new equipment, as well as the $1.5 billion investment in the employment insurance fund, especially to establish an income support program for older workers.

Last year, 50,000 jobs were lost in Quebec. Jobs were lost in manufacturing of course. Some 150,000 have been lost over the last five years, most of them since the Conservatives came to power. There is an urgent need, therefore, to debate this plan and implement it.

Instead of that, there are bills being put before us this week, as I said, proposing a pseudo-democratic reform. As I said, I am of two minds. I would have preferred to discuss a plan to improve things for the manufacturing and forestry industries. Now that we have to discuss Bill C-22, I am extremely proud to see that the Bloc Québécois members are the only ones in this House standing up for Quebec’s interests. Even the members in the other parties who come from Quebec are not taking that approach. I would not say they do not have that courage, because that is not their mission. They are here to stand up for Canada and not to stand up for the interests of the Quebec nation. It is unfortunate, however, to see that in this case they are living up to their reputation. The only ones who care truly and without compromise about standing up for the interests of the Quebec nation are the Bloc Québécois members. I believe that the debate on Bill C-22 will provide further evidence of the need for a party like ours here in this House. Its value is undeniable, since no one else here is standing up for the interests of the Quebec nation.

We may well look at Bill C-22 from every angle and every side, and argue about how the various provinces are to be represented based on the changing demographics of Canada, but one thing will remain: objectively, this bill would marginalize the Quebec nation in terms of its position in federal institutions, and in particular, in this case, in the House of Commons.

For example, with the proposal before us, we will in fact be preserving the 75 members for the Quebec nation in this House, but since the total number of members is being increased, the proportion that the members from Quebec represent will fall from 24.4% to 22.7%. Obviously, that will continue, because as we know there is an economic boom happening in western Canada that is attracting large numbers of people who are coming either from the other provinces or from outside the country. So today it is being proposed that we go a step farther, because there have been other steps taken in the past, to marginalize the Quebec nation in the House of Commons.

The House of Commons has recognized the Quebec nation. Canada and the Canadian nation have recognized that there is a nation that is called the Quebec nation.

We have to ensure that the political weight of the Quebec nation is preserved over time.

I would remind the House that in 1840 the Act of Union brought together Upper Canada and Lower Canada, even though Lower Canada had no debt at the time—as I recall—and was much more populous. Lower Canada and its representatives agreed that Upper Canada, which had a large debt that was absorbed and a smaller population, would have exactly the same number of elected members. The people’s representatives at that time believed that there were truly two founding peoples who were coming together in a union.

I recall the speech I have read in which the representatives of Lower Canada, while recognizing that the population of Lower Canada was larger, agreed, in order to create this common political landscape, that Upper Canada would have the same number of representatives as they had.

That is the spirit that should guide all the parties in this House. They must recognize that within the Canadian political landscape there are at least two nations. In fact, there are more than that because there are also our first nations and, in my view, the Acadian nation. At present, they are not asking for any representation. That is their problem. But we feel that it is necessary to ensure that the representation of the Quebec nation, regardless of the distribution formula that may be used, is not reduced and is maintained at 25%.

That is the gist of the remarks that we will be making in the next few days. We are not talking about a province. Quebec is not a province. The Quebec state and territory are the seat of a nation that must be heard in the House of Commons; that must also have a relationship of equals with the Canadian nation. That is the great problem of Canada. It is not relations between Quebec and Canada that are the problem. It is not Quebec that causes problems in Canada as a whole. The problem is that Canada was founded on the illusion that it was made up of 10 provinces that are all equal in law and all the same, which is not true.

Canada is made up of many nations within the Canadian political landscape. It is the lack of recognition of this multinational reality that has caused a crisis in Canada for at least 30 years. The proof is right here in this House. The Conservatives are strong in the west; the Liberals are strong in Ontario; the Bloc has represented the majority of Quebec for several elections—five, if memory serves—and the NDP is all over the map. But, there is currently no pan-Canadian party. There are regional parties that defend different realities.

Had we recognized the existence of different nations within the Canadian political landscape and tried to build a political structure around that, perhaps there would not be the continuing crisis, decade after decade. Now, it is too late.

There have been attempts to tinker with the system during recent years. I am thinking of the Charlottetown and the Meech Lake accords. Now, it is very clear to more and more Quebeckers that the future lies with sovereignty for Quebec; that is a 100% repatriation of our political powers. It is not enough to try to protect, as I am now doing, 25% representation in the House of Commons.

In the meantime, however, as long as we are within the Canadian political landscape, as long as we are paying taxes to the federal government, we must ensure that we are heard as a nation and that we have the necessary representation. In our view, 25% is minimal. That now represents more or less Quebec's population within Canada. Thus, Quebec would have the opportunity to have its say here.

This goes completely against the motion adopted here. In fact, I repeat, they are trying to address the question of electoral representation through the lens of 10 provinces that must have more or less equitable representation in terms of the ratio between the member and the population represented. That is not what we are talking about, nor what we should be talking about. Instead, we should be talking about ensuring that, within each of these nations, there is adequate representation to reflect the reality of all regions of Canada and Quebec.

In that sense, if certain regions of Canada ask to have greater representation because their population has grown, so be it.

We should redistribute the seats for the entire Canadian nation to reflect the current reality. Otherwise, if we increase the number of seats for western Canada or Ontario, we must ensure that the 25% Quebec representation is maintained and proportionally increase that representation. Any number of formulas are possible, but for us, this is non negotiable. As long as we are part of Canada, we must ensure that the voice of the Quebec people can be adequately heard. That means we need a minimum representation of 25% in this House.

I would remind the House that if the government, the Prime Minister and the other Canadian parties were to be consistent with the decision they made to recognize the Quebec nation, they would have no problem voting in favour of the bill introduced by my hon. colleague from Drummond, a bill that aims to ensure that Bill 101 applies to businesses in Quebec under federal jurisdiction. But no, it is beyond comprehension. Yet it is very simple and represents perhaps 8% of the labour force that, at present, is excluded from the application of Bill 101. This could give a boost to francization in Quebec, which has lost momentum in the past few years.

Today I introduced a bill to exempt Quebec from the application of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Its vision of integration, assimilation and the manner in which we receive immigrants is not at all shared by Quebec. Canada's approach to integration and immigrants is very Anglo-Saxon. In fact, Canada's model is exactly the same as Great Britain's. I respect that, if that is what Canada wishes to do. We are not interested in adding ethnic groups to the Québécois nation. On the contrary, we believe that every citizen who has chosen to come to Quebec has a contribution to make. This contribution must enrich the common culture and make it possible to forge a nation whose language is French and whose culture is Québécois. This culture consists of the contributions of all citizens who make up this nation, a specific history and a territory that belongs to this nation. We call this interculturalism. It is not the Anglo-Saxon model adopted by Canada. There must be respect for the fact that Quebec, within the Canadian political landscape, constitutes a nation recognized by Canada and by the House of Commons, and can adopt a different model, which will not be thwarted by this desire for multiculturalism, which has plagued Ottawa since the Trudeau era.

It is clear that Bill C-22 completely contradicts the interests of the Quebec nation and the recognition of the Quebec nation by the House of Commons, by the Canadian nation. It should be withdrawn altogether by this government, which is what the Quebec National Assembly is calling for. I will remind hon. members that on May 16, 2007, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion. The National Assembly is made up of federalists and sovereigntists—all people who fully recognize there is a nation. It is not like here, in Ottawa, where it is simply a symbolic gesture. The motion reads as follows:

THAT the National Assembly ask the Parliament of Canada to withdraw Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, introduced in the House of Commons last 11 May;

THAT the National Assembly also ask the Parliament of Canada to withdraw Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, whose primary purpose is to change the method of selection of senators without the consent of Québec.

Bill C-56, as the bill was known before the session was prorogued, is now Bill C-22, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation). We discussed Bill C-43 at the beginning of the week. Now, Bill C-20 would essentially change the method of selection of senators without the consent of Quebec.

In Quebec, federalists and sovereignists alike agree that Bill C-22 and Bill C-20 are not in Quebec's best interest and undermine the House of Commons' recognition of the Quebec nation.

Consequently, I will submit to the House an amendment to Bill C-20, seconded by the member for Terrebonne—Blainville, that reads as follows:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

This House decline to give second reading to Bill C-22, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation), because the bill would reduce the political weight of the Quebec nation in the House of Commons in an unacceptable manner and does not provide that 25 percent of the elected members of the House of Commons must come from Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I will table this amendment.

In conclusion, the Minister responsible for Intergovernmental Affairs summed up what all Quebeckers think about this when he said that as long as we are part of the Canadian political landscape—and this is a federalist talking—we must ensure that the Quebec nation has, at the very least, the minimum representation it needs to make itself heard by the Canadian nation.

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to open the debate on today's theme from the throne speech: strengthening the federation and our democratic institutions.

We have a great, united country whose foundation is a solid federation and a living democracy. In fact, federalism and democracy have gone hand and hand throughout Canada's history.

Our country's history is one of people joining together to achieve great dreams thought impossible by the pessimists, but it is also a history of people who, through accommodation and respect, build practical, workable approaches allowing remarkable progress to unfold.

The project of Confederation was about bringing together the different regions into a strong and united country based on democratic practices and the rule of law. Sir John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier and the Fathers of Confederation, through strong leadership united Canadians in a federal union which would deliver a future of security and prosperity for the country as a whole. Their vision was strong and enduring, a firm foundation on which successive generations have built.

Our government is continuing this nation building project today with our commitments for strengthening the federation and our democratic institutions. Strong leadership and a better Canada: that is our objective.

I would like to spend my time today discussing the progress we have already made in this area and highlighting our plans for this new session of Parliament.

Our government made a commitment to practise open federalism, and it is taking steps to ensure that our country is prosperous and united.

Our approach is not new, but it is based on the very principles underlying Confederation.

The union was based on a simple concept: the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. The objective was not to have a weak, passive federal government, but a government that would respect the provinces' areas of jurisdiction.

Provincial governments are closer to their citizens and are well positioned to determine local needs and aspirations. In contrast, the federal government is well placed to protect the national interest in pursuit of the common good of the country as a whole. As the project of our Confederation first became committed to paper in the Quebec Resolutions of 1864, this approach was clear:

In the Federation of the British North American Provinces, the system of Government best adapted under existing circumstances to protect the diversified interest of the several Provinces, and secure efficiency, harmony and permanency in the working of the Union, would be a general Government, charged with matters of a common interest to the whole country; and Local Governments...charged with the control of local matters in their respective sections.

The steps we have taken recently and the measures we plan to take to create a federalism of openness will produce unprecedented efficiency, harmony and stability in the union, as the Fathers of Confederation envisioned many years ago.

Our federalism of openness means respecting provincial areas of jurisdiction, and that, in turn, means two things. First, a federal government that shows leadership in its areas of jurisdiction. Second, a federal government that unites the country by introducing fair, respectful intergovernmental policies.

We have shown strong leadership in areas of federal jurisdiction, such as strengthening our economy by cutting taxes and helping families, in the process paying down billions on the debt and achieving the lowest national unemployment rate since I was a child; in international trade with the resolution of the softwood lumber dispute; in defence with our leadership in international aid efforts in Afghanistan; and in public safety and security with our agenda for making communities safer by tackling crime.

In the new session this leadership will continue with measures to strengthen Canada's economic union through internal free trade among the provinces; a commitment to action in protecting Canada's sovereignty, particularly in the Arctic; continued pursuit of a safer Canada beginning with the comprehensive criminal justice reforms in our Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act.

We have treated the provincial and territorial governments with respect, which has strengthened national unity. To restore the fiscal balance within the Canadian federation, we have increased the main federal transfers and introduced a new stable, reliable, fair funding formula. We have helped build a better Canada with our historic recognition that Quebeckers form a nation within a united Canada.

Our 2007 budget contained an unprecedented long term commitment to rebuild Canada's infrastructure, amounting to a total of $33 billion over the next seven years, the largest federal investment in Canadian infrastructure in over half a century.

During this session, we will introduce a bill to place formal limits on the use of the federal spending power for new shared-cost programs in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. This bill will formalize the commitments our government made in the 2006 and 2007 budgets, because it will specify the limits on federal power.

In keeping with how we see open federalism, our bill will also allow the provinces and territories to opt out of new shared-cost programs with reasonable compensation if they offer compatible programs. In addition to recognizing the provinces' and territories' ability to provide programs in their specific areas of responsibility, our bill will enable Canadians, wherever they live, to receive services comparable to those available under national programs.

Our diversity as a country serves as a source both of strength and innovation. Through our actions in open federalism, including equitable and predictable funding and clarified roles and responsibilities in our federation, we are offering a principles based approach on which all orders of government can continue to work into the future.

The vision of Macdonald and Cartier of a country united from east to west, of new Canadians and old, French and English, country and city, together dreaming great dreams and building a brighter future is alive and well and has a place deep in the heart of our government in 2007.

However, our Confederation must be more than the sum of its parts. The federal government must act as a leader in keeping the country strong and united and as a model for democratic values. To perform this leadership role, the democratic underpinnings of our government must be solid in order to continue to meet the expectations of the Canadians we serve. Our initiatives in the area of democratic reform demonstrate our government's leadership in this area. Nowhere is this more evident than our efforts to modernize our central democratic institution, a federal Parliament where the representation of both popular and provincial interests are united within the federal legislative process.

Since Confederation, Canada's Parliament has served the democratic interests of Canadians well, but the government must take action to ensure that this institution, which is the cornerstone of our representative democracy, remains strong, vibrant and adapted to the needs of Canadians in the 21st century.

Our bicameral Parliament includes two houses, the lower house here which is comprised of elected representatives of the citizens of this great country originally founded on the fundamental principle of representation by population, and the upper house which was designed to represent the regions of the country to act as a chamber of sober second thought.

However, in the contemporary era, the Senate has been unable to credibly fulfill its role as an effective representative of the regions in the federal legislative process due to fundamental concerns with legitimacy and effectiveness of that appointed and unaccountable chamber. As for the other chamber, this one, the distribution of seats in the House of Commons has shifted too far away from the principle of representation by population, resulting in the unfair under-representation of the fast growing provinces.

Our government has already taken measures to address this situation as we promised during the last election with BillC-56 introduced in the last session to enhance the principle of representation by population in the House of Commons and give fast growing provinces the representation that their population merits, and by Bills S-4 and C-43 introduced in the last session to begin the long overdue project of Senate reform.

I would like to spend a few moments discussing Senate reform. It is a priority of our government that is urgently needed to modernize our federal Parliament. We put forward an agenda for the Senate reforms that is practical and achievable. As stated in the Speech from the Throne, we will continue to pursue this agenda with the reintroduction of two important bills.

The Senate tenure bill proposed a uniform fixed term for senators of eight years. Rather than leave the length of tenure as long as 45 years, as it is currently, our bill proposed that senators be appointed to a fixed term of eight years. This is a change that would bring renewal and relevance to the Senate. This change would improve the effectiveness of the Senate. It would ensure that senators' terms were long enough for them to gain the expertise and independence necessary to act as a chamber of sober second thought, but at the same time it would ensure that the terms would not be so long as to undermine the legitimacy and credibility of the Senate as a modern institution in what we seek to declare to be a democratic country.

Unfortunately, the current unelected unaccountable Liberal senators spent over a year delaying this legislation before they finally took a decision to not take a decision. This action alone, or inaction more accurately, demonstrates clearly that the Senate must change. Its current form does not function well on this issue, or at all.

As I stated, our government intends to reintroduce the Senate term limits bill this session. I hope that the summer recess gave opposition senators some time for that sober second thought in relation to their position of inaction on this bill where they have refused to exercise their constitutional obligation to vote on the bill.

Our second Senate reform, Bill C-43, offered a means for democratizing the Senate by providing Canadians an opportunity to choose and advise who they want representing them in the Senate. It would provide for the first time an opportunity for voters across this country to have a democratic say in who sits in their Senate. This should hardly be a difficult principle to embrace in a 21st century western democracy. It would provide greater legitimacy and credibility to the work of the Senate as a democratic institution.

I was extremely pleased to attend the swearing in of Senator Bert Brown last week. He of course was popularly elected by the people of his province. I hope that we can look forward to the day when the Senate appointment consultations bill becomes law and all senators arrive in Ottawa with a democratic mandate.

As the Prime Minister has indicated, when the Senate consultations bill is reintroduced, we will be sending it to committee before second reading so that collaboration can begin on this important step toward a democratic Senate.

There are some who have suggested that governing parties of the past could maintain the status quo in the Senate out of self-interest, that we could benefit from the patronage appointments to be made and stack the chamber with partisans who would serve for decades. Our government believes that the Senate should be a democratically elected body that represents Canadians. So far, we have taken concrete steps toward that vision and they are steps that are achievable in the short term. What is more, surveys show that our agenda for term limits in a democratized Senate is strongly supported by Canadians. Surely in a democracy this above all should be a key indicator of what constitutes a good democratic reform.

The Senate must change. If it cannot be changed, it should be abolished. In its current illegitimate form the Senate does nothing to enhance our democracy, even as we aim at the same time to promote democratic values abroad.

I would now like to address a second element of the democratic reform program that we will continue to implement during this new session of Parliament: strengthening the electoral system.

A strong democracy requires both modern democratic institutions and an electoral process with integrity that inspires confidence among voters.

We have already introduced a number of measures that were passed in the last session to improve elections, which were broadly supported.

For example, Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act—the first legislative measure we introduced—fulfilled our campaign commitment to clean up political funding. We levelled the playing field by banning donations from companies and unions, as well as large and secret donations, so that ordinary Canadians can contribute to the political process knowing that their donations will really count.

Bill C-4 was the first bill passed in the last session. We acted quickly to ensure that the party registration rules would not sunset and that those registration rules would remain in effect at all times.

With Bill C-16, setting dates for elections, we have established a four year electoral cycle, preventing snap elections from being called solely for the partisan advantage of the governing party.

As a result, after this House provides a mandate to govern when it approves the throne speech on Wednesday, we can look forward to the next election, now set in law to take place October 19, 2009.

In Bill C-31, we implemented wide-ranging recommendations of the procedure and House affairs committee for improving the electoral process, including important measures for reducing the opportunity for voter fraud, such as a voter identification procedure for federal elections.

In addition to these bills, which are now law, we introduced additional election reforms that did not have an opportunity to pass before we prorogued.

Building on our political financing reforms in the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-54, our new bill to clean up campaign financing, proposed bringing accountability to political loans by eliminating loans as a means for circumventing contribution limits and establishing a transparent reporting regime for campaign finance.

Building on a number of measures for improving voter accessibility, Bill C-55, our expanded voting opportunities bill, proposed additional advanced polling days to enhance opportunities and encourage higher voter turnout.

During the second session of Parliament, our government will continue to strengthen the electoral process.

As stated in the Speech from the Throne, we will introduce measures that will enable us to confirm the identity of voters by requiring them to uncover their faces before voting. Like our other reforms, this concrete measure will improve the electoral process for all Canadians.

Public concerns raised about this issue during the September 17 byelections made it clear that we must act.

During meetings of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in September, all parties approved the decision to prioritize resolving this issue.

Our government will act quickly to resolve this issue, and I hope that I can count on the support of all members of Parliament to give Canadians the strong, fair electoral process they expect.

There is so much that makes Canada great. We are mindful of the valuable legacy bestowed upon us by the visionary leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier and the Fathers of Confederation when they rendered the blueprint for what has proven to be the best country in the world. But it is our strong foundations that enable us to continue building a better Canada that is a leader in the world.

Those foundations are our federal state and our democratic spirit, but we also know, as did those Fathers of Confederation, that as the world modernizes, so must Canada. That is in fact the spirit of Confederation. It is that spirit that leads us to seek ways to strengthen our democracy and improve accountability to Canadians. We must be a democracy worthy of that name in a 21st century world.

Our government has already put forward a full agenda to fortify and modernize our federation and democracy, and we will continue to do so this session. We invite all parties in the House to join us as we build a stronger Canada with a brighter future for the generations that will follow.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member say that from April 23 to May 4 we did not discuss anything of consequence in the House. I guess that includes the four opposition days, which she must consider inconsequential. I guess that includes Bills C-40, C-43, C-48, C-10, C-22, democratic reform bills, finance bills, Criminal Code bills, two justice bills. I guess in the hon. member's opinion none of these are consequential.

All those things are pretty consequential to the constituents in my riding who care about Senate reform, safe streets and finance bills. They are very important. Does the hon. member truly considers those things inconsequential?

Canada Elections Act

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the debate on Bill C-55 provides the opportunity for us to have a wider debate as well on democratic reform.

However we might support the bill, and I support it very strongly to give greater opportunities for individual electors to get to the polls and vote, there is a difficulty with the government's approach to democratic reform as a whole. This is one other example of issues being brought to the House in both a piecemeal fashion, instead of a comprehensive way, as well as in a way that has involved no consultation with the other parties, the provinces or the public in general.

It is passing strange that we have seen a series of piecemeal bills not dealing comprehensively with either Senate reform, electoral reform or parliamentary reform, but trying to nick them off one at a time. They are done in the name of greater public engagement, when the public, nor Parliament, nor the other parties and provinces are engaged in consultation beforehand to see what might be the best way to move forward to ensure that these various elements of electoral, parliamentary and Senate reform are going ahead in a comprehensive way that makes sense with each other and do not give rise to unintended or, even worse, intended consequences of the government.

Let us look at this approach with respect to other aspects of, in this case, electoral reform. Cooperation and collaboration is immensely important, especially in this complex federation in which are fortunate enough to live. We have many levels of government, constitutional divisions of power and high sensitivities to overlapping powers and impacts that actions and legislation in one level or order of government may have on another. That is why it is so important to have full consultation. Let me speak to a few.

Bill C-56 would attempt to better reflect the constitutional principle of representation by population by adding extra seats to British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. This sounds like, in constitutional principle, a very valid objective with which to go forward.

It can be said that this is something within the individual competence of the Parliament of Canada with which provincial and territorial governments do not have to give their consent. However, that completely misses the complex nature of our country and the need for collaboration among different levels of government to make things happen in a way that best reflects the interests of the whole country and does not lead to any unintended consequences.

Bill C-56 has been introduced and it sounds good. I am a member of Parliament from British Columbia and British Columbia is to get seven extra seats to bring it up to representation by population, as with the five extra seats in Alberta. However, almost immediately we get a unanimous vote in the motion condemning this by the National Assembly of Quebec. Within a week of that, we get both the Conservative leader in the Ontario legislature plus the Premier of Ontario saying that they are against it and are considering legal action on the basis that this is inappropriate.

Since the bill has been discussed, we have heard in the last two weeks concern expressed from members from the prairie provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They feel their relative influence in the House may be slipping even though their absolute numbers stay the same. We have also heard from MPs from Atlantic Canada who may be protected in certain ways from having their absolute numbers slip, but are worried about their declining influence in the House.

That is not to say they all have to be completely taken into full account. There may be, and obviously is in this case, some kind of negotiation and collaboration that has to go forward so the range of interests in the House, reflecting the interests of the different regions of the country, is properly protected and balanced. But that requires consultation.

That is why we would like Bill C-56 to go to committee before second reading, so there can be the fullest scope for the consultation to take place and that we in committee, as members of Parliament individually, can consult with the various provinces that have various information on it.

One of the most foundational issues of conflict resolution, and there seems to be conflict in this case, is that we involve everyone in the discussion who is affected by it. They will be interested in it and perhaps have the best information about it, without trying to prejudge that.

I raise that as an issue, as a bit of a paradox of putting forward legislation that is meant to make things more democratic, when in fact it is cutting off a prior consultation that would be effective in making the democracy more effective.

That takes me to issues of the Senate, and they were raised by the government House leader. He raised the issue of Bill S-4, which would limit the terms of senators. Let me take a step back and again reflect that this is piecemeal and without adequate consultation.

There is a complaint that this has been stuck in the Senate for a year. In fact, a very important motion was put before the Senate, which is very much related to this, by former Senator Jack Austin and the sole remaining Progressive Conservative senator, Senator Lowell Murray. It would look to the addition of seats to western Canada in the Senate, to bring some proportionality to the regions of Canada, which was intended by our founding fathers, the Fathers of Confederation.

That raises the issue of distribution again, which makes it very clear why piecemeal approaches to Senate reform, electoral reform and parliamentary reform are so inappropriate. If we look at the Senate, there are three critical areas of the other place that must be respected if we are to have change. I think we all agree, including members of the Senate, that a modern democracy should not have a legislative assembly which is non-elected. It is how we get there that is important. To get there, we have to deal with three things simultaneously in Senate reform.

One is the selection process, and that could be both the terms and the fixed dates that have been suggested in Bill S-4. It also could become the selection process and the consultative elections that have been suggested in Bill C-43. The problem is that this is only one of three categories.

Another category is the mandate of the other place. Is it to be, as it is now, a mirror image of the legislative authority, only altered by convention of this place, that creates the expectation of deference at some stage after full debate in both places, or is there to be something different?

If it exactly the same, and electoral legitimacy is equal by elected senators or consultatively elected senators, however Bill C-43 puts it, then we will risk gridlock and that we must avoid. To deal with that, we must have either different mandates or offset mandates or a dispute resolution clause to deal with problems that might arise between the Houses of Parliament. Therefore, a second stage is neglected in just dealing with Bill S-4 or Bill C-43.

A third area, and perhaps in many ways in terms of the health of our Confederation the most important, is the distribution of Senate seats across the country. I notice in Bill C-56 there is an attempt to arrange for better representation. I say attempt because, as I have mentioned, the government has not done the proper consultation to get the very best answer for that. There is no enthusiasm whatsoever to contemporaneously, in looking for Senate elections or Senate set terms, look at distribution, and most important, the extraordinarily inequitable distribution across the country with respect to western Canada.

It is hard to imagine that members of the government, who represent ridings in western Canada, could possibly be in favour, including the Prime Minister, of trying to give more status, more validity to the other place as a legislative body without first fixing the inequitable distribution across the west. That is passing strange, but it is another example of doing things piecemeal without proper consultation and without dealing with them comprehensively.

Let us look for a moment at electoral reform, because this is immensely important to members of the House. It is part of the old Bill C-55, which attempts to address a small corner of electoral reform.

We have a suggested consultative process by the government, which put out tenders to hire a polling firm and then hire, some would say, a think tank. In fact, it turns out to be Frontier Centre in Winnipeg, which has published works against notions of proportionality to amend, improve and reform our electoral system. It is to hold so-called deliberative, closed door meetings in a few centres in the country, which is somehow some kind of a substitute for a meaningful public discussion on the very desperately needed electoral reform in our country.

It is worse than that, because it is in the face of two other clear opportunities, one is an exercise and another is before us, to do this properly. Again, in reverse order, we do not pretend to consult and then bring in some kind of response to that without going to the people and to the opposition and looking to parliamentary committees and other expert bodies first. This is a jury-rigged, false consultation, which will do nothing for the health of our elective democracy.

Let us look at what the other options are. The Law Commission of Canada is highly respected internationally as one of the foremost law reform bodies in the Commonwealth. Its reports are watched and followed in many other countries. After extensive real public consultation and extensive research here and internationally on electoral reform, in 2004 it published a very thoughtful deliberative piece on a mixed member proportional system. This is an independent statutory body with the responsibility to consult, to do research and to report publicly to Parliament and the Minister of Justice. It reported more than three years ago now and there has been no response, no reflection of any attention being given to that good work.

In 2004 we also had the Speech from the Throne, which was amended in the sense of its application to include electoral reform as a prime objective of the 38th Parliament. Unfortunately and unnecessarily it was interrupted by an election that was commenced in 2005. The work of a special committee to do the proper consultation on behalf of all the House of Commons was cut short.

We should be working with the opposition parties, and I hope with the government, to have a legislative committee, perhaps the procedure and House affairs committee, hold those consultations, rather than the closed door, jury-rigged type of consultation that has been set forward. That is important. Let us have the House involved. Let us look to real public consultation and let us get moving on real electoral reform.

Maybe in the wisdom of that deliberative discussion with Canadians, we can reaffirm the first past the post system we have now, but let us do it when we know there are real strains and real non-representative aspects to it. Let us have that conversation and make it a real deliberative one.

Let me turn to another aspect of democratic reform. This is one about which we have heard so much rhetoric from the government, and that is the Federal Accountability Act, Bill C-2. It is almost Orwellian in the way that aspects of this act, and aspects that certainly this side of the House supported, are actually damaging and non-democratic.

I start with observing that Bill C-2, the accountability act, got royal assent on December 14, 2006. Members will recall that this was following a number of months of very careful deliberations and amendments passed by the Senate and then accepted by the House. I think there were more than 50 of them.

There was constant deriding of the other place for having delayed that important piece of democratic legislation and yet one of the absolutely most important foundational parts of the accountability act was the appointments commission. This would apply the same principles around public service appointments that the Public Service Commission applies: objective criteria, competitive processes, transparence, real accountability. That appointments commission which was part of the act in a form that in fact the NDP put forward, a form that I put forward as an amendment were not accepted. That was five months ago .

I will end with this reflection on non-accountability. After five months, there is no appointments commission and yet every week there are dozens and dozens and dozens of order in council appointments that should have been subject to that merit based, objective, non-partisan appointments commission. What kind of accountability is that? What kind of democratic reform is that?

While I have no difficulty supporting the idea of greater advance opportunities for people to vote to increase voter opportunity and therefore voter turnout, we have to look at the whole picture and, if we are to be taken seriously as a modern democracy, deal with this in a comprehensive way.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver Quadra for this very tempting question. Of course I have next door to me the member for Newmarket—Aurora and also, not too far away, the member for Halton. I am not sure if the member for Vancouver Quadra today raised in caucus his intention to offer to return them to this caucus. I can tell the member that the government side is not really interested in their return, so that is all right.

Fundamentally, the government is interested in seeing the voters' will respected. That is what we are trying to do. That is why, for example, as I indicated, the government has proposed Bill C-43, the Senate consultations bill, which I know the member opposite in the Liberal Party opposed. It actually proposes to ask Canadians who they want to represent them in the Senate.

We live in something called a democracy. At least, that is what we in our party believe it is. That is what we want it to be. Part of a democracy, I thought, or at least as I was taught in school, is the notion that we elect people to represent us. However, in our Parliament after 140 years, one of our two institutions, fully half of this building, is occupied by people who are appointed for 45 years, not elected.

We want to see them elected. We hear that is opposed by a Liberal Party that does not want to see any change in the Senate. That party does not want to see senators elected. It likes those privileges and it likes the Senate the way it is.

When it comes time to respecting the will of the voters and showing some respect for the concept of democracy, I suspect that in his heart the member for Vancouver Quadra sympathizes a lot with the notion of electing senators. I know that because he comes from a part of British Columbia where there is strong support for it. It is a place where there is strong support for the concept of Senate term limits. As the member has indicated in the past, there is strong support for our proposed bill on democratic representation. These are all things designed to improve the quality of our democracy.

I have a lot of sympathy for the member for Vancouver Quadra in trying to advance those notions in a party that is generally not supportive of them, but I thank the member for the opportunity to underline the fact that on this side we do want to see the voters' will respected, not just in the House of Commons but in the Senate as well.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

moved that Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to open debate today on the expanded voting opportunities bill.

The right to vote is our most precious and fundamental right. Each year about 150,000 people become new Canadian citizens. Most have come to our nation in search of freedom and they find that when they achieve Canadian citizenship, the right to vote, among the many rights and privileges they are conferred, is the most treasured privilege and duty that they do acquire.

Public participation in the political process, by exercising one's right to vote, is the cornerstone of our democracy. Voting validates the position of a responsible and accountable government. Of all forms of civic engagement, voting is perhaps the simplest and most important. By deciding to vote, Canadians have a say in what happens to their country.

By the very act of voting, they are playing an active role in the future of their country and their community, first by reflecting on the decision they must make and then by the decision itself. It is precisely for this undertaking that many people become citizens.

A deeper community and civic commitment is built on this foundation. It may lead to the creation of a minor hockey league for children, the organization of a tree-planting project or the cleaning of a ravine.

Unfortunately, voter participation in elections has been in decline over the years. In 1958, 79.4% of Canadians voted in that year's general election. However, that fell to 69% of eligible voters by 1993 and by 2004 only 60.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot.

Unfortunately, young people voted at even lower rates than previous generations. In fact, in the 2000 election, only about 25% of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24 bothered to vote.

It is undeniable that fewer people are going to the polls in Canada, yet we know that the one true method for citizens to hold their governments to account is through the ballot box. When voter turnout declines, it means that fewer people are holding their governments to account. The result is that our democratic system suffers.

We on this side of the House want to change the current situation. We want to see more people engaged in the political process and we want more people to vote.

A study led by Elections Canada indicates that many Canadians have trouble finding the time to go vote. Generally speaking, between work, studies and family, they do not have enough time to make it to the polls. I know that, on voting day, many people get up in the morning with the intention of voting, but because they have to work extra hours or because their kids have a minor hockey game that night, they do not find the time to exercise their right to vote.

At the same time, Canadians indicated that they appreciate the convenience of advance voting, and more and more voters are taking advantage of the opportunity to vote at advance polling stations. Indeed, voter turnout at advance polling stations nearly doubled between the 1997 election and the 2006 election.

Furthermore, the European example has shown that opening polling stations on Sundays leads to greater voter turnout. For instance, in the French presidential election held Sunday, May 6, voter turnout was 85%.

Therefore on May 9, 2007, we introduced the bill that we are debating today, Bill C-55, to increase voter turnout by giving Canadians more opportunities to vote.

The bill, which is part of our agenda to strengthen accountability and democracy in Canada, adds two advanced polling dates. One is on Sunday, the eighth day before election day, and the other is on Sunday, the day before election day.

The Sunday before election day will be a special advance poll. All polling stations used for the general voting day will be open on the last advanced polling day, not just a limited number of stations used for any other advanced polling days.

That means that Canadians will now have the choice of voting on election day, which is a Monday, or on Sunday, the day before election day or earlier at four other advanced polls.

This will mean all Canadians will have an opportunity to vote at an advanced poll right in their own neighbourhood on a Sunday which for many is a day without work or school commitments. This will make it easier for Canadians to vote.

With this increased convenience, we hope that families will bring their children with them when they go to vote, helping them to appreciate from an early age the civic duty and opportunity to cast a vote and to understand what it means to be a citizen in a free and democratic country.

These are lessons that if well taught last a lifetime, build stronger communities and make a brighter future for Canada. We know that engaging more Canadians in the electoral process through increasing voter turnout is good for our democracy and good for our country.

It is not just the government who is saying this. The expanded voting opportunities bill has also received the endorsement of academics and interested groups across Canada. For example, a group called Apathy is Boring, which aims at increasing youth voter participation, welcomes the bill. It said:

Apathy is Boring applauds the Expanded Voting Opportunities Bill, which makes a small but critical change to polling days. Accessibility is key to voter participation, and this bill will help ensure accessibility especially among young people.

Keith Archer, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, said, “My view is that this legislation is a thoughtful and constructive response to the decline in voter participation in Canadian federal elections, and is aligned with the evident growth in the desire of Canadians to avail themselves of the opportunity to vote in advanced polls...the government is to be applauded for introducing this legislation”.

Leslie Seidle, a senior research associate at the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said, “It ought to encourage more people to go to the polls by offering them additional time on what is a non-working day for most.

These comments show that the expanded voting opportunities bill is a modern, realistic and effective way to increase voter turnout in Canada. However, the bill is just one piece of our agenda to strengthen accountability and democracy in Canada.

Since coming into power, this government has made many efforts to develop concrete measures for democratic reform. One of these legislative measures, tabled in Parliament by this government, was Bill C-4 which led to a review of the rules governing the registration of a political party. And just before Christmas, we passed the Federal Accountability Act, which provides for new strict rules governing campaign financing. Loans by unions and businesses will be prohibited as will be anonymous contributions and trust funds, and the maximum annual donation to a political party is now $1,100.

These two legislative initiatives will help restore the confidence of citizens in the democratic process.

Next we introduced Bill C-16 to establish fixed dates for elections. The bill sets the third Monday in October, four calendar years after each election, as the date of the next general election. Under the legislation, which is now law, the date of the next general election will be October 19, 2009.

Fixed date elections take the guesswork out of the electoral process and level the playing field for the Chief Electoral Officer, for political parties and, most importantly, for voters. They also encourage participation in the democratic process by allowing Canadians to plan to participate in their nation's electoral process.

I am very proud to announce that Bill C-16 has received royal assent despite all the efforts of the unelected Liberal senators to block implementation of the democratic reform proposed by our government.

Next we introduced Bill C-43, the Senate Appointment Consultations Act. With this bill we have acted to strengthen accountability with legislation that gives Canadians a say in who they want representing them in the Senate.

The proposed Senate appointment consultations act recognizes that it is the citizens of the country, not big money or backroom boys, who are best qualified to choose who should speak for them in the Senate. The Senate appointment consultations bill is currently being debated at second reading and we are anxious to see passage of this groundbreaking legislation.

That brings me to Bill S-4, the legislation that proposes to limit Senate terms to eight years instead of the current 45 years.

Today just happens to be the first birthday of the bill to limit the terms of senators. It has been delayed and obstructed by the Liberal Senate for a full year now. Remarkably, even though the Leader of the Opposition says he supports term limits for senators, Bill S-4 has been ensnared in procedural limbo since May 30, 2006, thanks to Liberal senators bent on obstructing and delaying any meaningful democratic reform.

We hope the Liberal senators will give the House of Commons a chance to actually deal with this bill one day.

As you can see, these legislative measures, including Bill C-31, which provides for the improvement of the integrity of the electoral process, as well as all the other bills tabled last week, are modern, realistic and effective and will strengthen our democracy and restore the confidence of Canadians in our democratic institutions.

The bill on expanded voting opportunities provides Canadian workers with more opportunities to vote so that they can make their government accountable. This is an effective means of ensuring an increase in voter turnout and strengthening democracy in Canada.

Unless we check declining voter turnout, we run the risk of having an increasing number of Canadians becoming disengaged from their government.

The way public affairs are conducted could become less democratic and less responsible.

For democracy to work, it must be the property of all, not just a place for narrow interests to pursue their own agenda. That is why it is important for more Canadians to participate in the democratic process. Voter participation is fundamental to the health of our democratic institutions.

Canada's new government is doing all it can to encourage citizens to participate in the democratic process.

This modern, realistic and effective legislative measure represents a new stage in the ambitious action plan that our government has developed to improve democratic institutions and to strengthen the vitality of democracy in Canada.

For all these reasons, I urge all members of the House to support the expanded voting opportunities bill.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I would not do that.

Tomorrow is an allotted day.

Next week is constituent consultation week, when the House will be adjourned to allow members to return to their ridings and meet with constituents to share with them the activities of Parliament since the last constituency break.

For the interest of members, I will quickly review our plan for the context of our overall legislative agenda.

As he requested, this is currently strengthening the economy week, where a number of financial bills moved forward. The budget bill was sent to committee and, hopefully, it will be reported back tomorrow, or soon, so we can deal with it at third reading when the House returns after the break.

Bill C-40, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, was read a third time and sent to the Senate. Bill C-53, an act to implement the convention on the settlement of investment disputes, Bill C-33, the sales tax bill and Bill C-47, the Olympics symbol bill were all sent to committee and we all would like to see those back in the House for report stage and third reading.

In an earlier week, Bill C-36, the bill that makes changes to the Canada pension plan and the Old Age Security Act, was made into law after receiving royal assent.

Strengthening accountability through democratic reform week was a success with the consideration of Bill C-43, Senate consultation. We had three new democratic reform bills introduced that week: Bill C-55, to expand voting opportunities; Bill C-56, an act to amend the Constitution Act, democratic representation; and Bill C-54, a bill that would bring accountability with respect to loans. We hope to continue debate on that particular bill later today.

Bill C-16, fixed dates for elections, was given royal assent and is now law, which I think is the cause of the commotion now in all the committees where Liberals are using procedural tactics. Now they feel they can do it with a free hand.

Two other democratic reform bills are in the Senate, Bill C-31, voter integrity, and Bill S-4, Senate tenure. I really would like to have the term limits bill from the Senate for an upcoming democratic reform week if the opposition House leader can persuade his colleagues in the Senate to finally deal with that bill after 352 days. We may get 352 seconds in a filibuster, but they have had 352 days so far. They have been stalling for a year.

During the consultation week, I will be interested in hearing what our constituents think of the plight of Bill S-4 and the irony of those unaccountable senators delaying it.

We dedicated a good deal of our time focusing on making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on crime. Now that we have had the help of the NDP, we restored the meaningful aspects that the Liberals gutted in committee to Bill C-10, the bill to introduce mandatory penalties for violent and gun crimes. We are continuing to debate that bill today at third reading.

Bill C-48, the bill dealing with the United Nations convention on corruption, was adopted at all stages.

Bill C-26, the bill to amend the Criminal Code with respect to interest rates, was given royal assent.

Bill C-22, the age of protection, was given final reading and sent to the Senate, although it did spend close to, if not in excess of, 200 days in committee where the Liberals were obstructing and delaying its passage.

We made progress on Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation. We would like to see that back in the House.

Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment) and a host of other justice bills are working their way through the system.

Members can advise their constituents that when we return, we will be reviving two themes, back by popular demand. Beginning May 28, we will begin again with strengthening accountability through democratic reform with: Bill C-54, political loans; Bill C-55, additional opportunities for voting; and Bill C-56, democratic representation.

Up next is a second go-round on strengthening the economy week with Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill, which will be called as soon as it is reported back from committee.

In the near future, we will have the improvement of aboriginal people quality of life week with Bill C-44. This bill will grant first nations residing on Indian reserves access to the Canadian charter of human rights. They have been denied this right for 30 years. Unfortunately, Bill C-44 is being delayed by the opposition. This is another bill being delayed by the opposition in committee.

After Bill C-44, I intend to debate Bill C-51. The agreement establishes the use and ownership of land and resources and will foster economic development. This bill illustrates Canada's commitment to the North and to settling land claims.

I wish all members a productive constituent consultation week and look forward to more progress on the government's legislative agenda when the House returns on May 28.

Quebec

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this government claims that Bill C-56 does not threaten its relations with Quebec. However, it should consider the concerns expressed by the National Assembly, which yesterday introduced and unanimously adopted a joint motion calling on the Parliament of Canada to withdraw Bills C-56, which will change the number of seats in the Parliament of Canada, and C-43 on the Senate.

The National Assembly is so concerned over the latest events involving the French language that it adopted another motion reiterating the importance of defending and promoting French as an official language of Canada and calling on the government to take action in response to the latest report by the Commissioner of Official Languages.

The Bloc Québécois is here to defend the interests of Quebec. The Conservatives had better watch out, because we will always demand that the decisions of the National Assembly be honoured.

Canada Elections Act

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the Liberal opposition and address Bill C-54. I must say at the outset that the government House leader was not able or willing to answer my earlier question about the disclosure of the Prime Minister's leadership funders in 2002.

He did not address that topic, but I think this House needs to know that, particularly in relation to the comments that the government House leader made about the open disclosure of all loans, of all lenders and all amounts by the Liberal leadership contenders last year. Clearly they were acting beyond what the Canada Elections Act required, in good faith and with full disclosure. Everybody knows both what is going on there and the rules that apply to it.

As for the Prime Minister bringing forth this legislation, I think the government House leader suggests that he is somehow on the road to Damascus, leading this House in some epiphany in terms of loans and the way they are treated. Perhaps he was waylaid, misled or turned around and is actually on the road to perdition, because this bill of course has a perverse consequence. It is a non-accountability act. Again, it is Orwellian in many of the impacts that it will have. I will take some time to explain exactly why this will make democracy weaker in many ways in our country if it goes ahead as it is written, without amendment.

The Liberal Party is certainly very much in favour of transparency and accountability and will be looking toward a bill that properly and effectively tightens up the application and the use of loans in political financing in this country wherever it might be necessary. However, we certainly will also want to ensure that as the bill goes forward the proper amendments are made so that it does not, whether consciously or unconsciously, create a barrier to entry to the political process for those who do not have access to funds or friends who have access to funds, or to financial institutions that reflect their willingness to give loans because they realize that these people already have money, or they have people who will sign for them and back them up with money. We have to be very careful that this is not a barrier.

Let me go back to January 2004, when the former Liberal government brought in the most dramatic changes to electoral financing in this country's history with Bill C-24, and indeed perhaps the most dramatic change than had happened in any democratic jurisdiction in the world, which of course reduced the union and corporation donation limits per year to a mere $1,000. That is almost meaningless when we are talking about a nation this size. To suggest that a $1,000 donation by a corporation could buy favour across this country in an electoral process is beyond imagination. In any case, we effectively took that out and left the donations at a $5,000 level for individual members of the public, who are of course the basic building block and the basic unit of democracy. That is where it should be. That was an extremely important step. It was a dramatic step in the political history of this country.

Bill C-24 also did some other things. It introduced an aspect of proportional representation. I know that many members in the House in all parties are interested in seeing us proceed with consultations and consideration of that. However, when the private money was taken out to such a dramatic degree, Bill C-24 provided for public funding of electoral processes by providing $1.75 for every vote that any party received in the general election nationwide.

That allowed for a proportionality that corrected some of the difficulties with the first past the post process, where often the number of seats in this House achieved by parties bears very little relation to the proportion of the vote they get. As an example, the Green Party got 600,000 votes in the last election. Under that provision, it received over $1 million, which allows its members to express the views of the people who voted for them through the financing of their political activity, although not yet representation, across the country. That is a first tentative but important step. It was part of that groundbreaking electoral financing legislation.

Let me correct a perception that the government House leader gave, which was incorrect. He suggested there were no rules now covering loans and the disclosure of loans. In fact, the current statutory provisions require the disclosure of all loans. They require the disclosure of the lenders and the guarantors of those loans.

Another misconception is that there are no consequences if these loans can be written off. In fact, there are consequences. Those loans must be repaid within an 18 month period or they fall under the political contribution rules, which are very strict.

It is not a way to have money given. It is money loaned for a period during an electoral process, either a leadership process, as was involved last year with the Liberal leadership, or perhaps a nomination process where someone does not have access to party funds or riding association funds. If people were unable to take a loan, that might well be a barrier to entry into the political process for people who were not of independent means. There are consequences. Those must be converted and that is an important aspect to it.

Who owns the Prime Minister? The government House leader raised the issue of the Liberal leadership candidates and the influence of big money, but we still have not had an answer about who financed the leadership bid of the Prime Minister in 2002.

Why do we want to know that? We want to know that for the very reason the government suggests we need the bill. We already have provisions in the Canada Elections Act that cover both disclosure of loans and repayment of loans and consequence if we do not. In any event, why do we want to know? It is an immensely important question. Is it U.S. gun lobby? Is it big oil? Who made those contributions to the Prime Minister's leadership race in 2002? We will come back to that until we get a proper answer, until the Canadian people get a proper answer. These are important issues.

Let me talk about the name of the act, the accountability with respect to loans act. It could be called the new Conservative bank of Canada act. It is big money that would get more influence because of the way the act is written currently. We will seek amendments to ensure it does not simply limit the influence that can be exerted to those with money or have access to big money. Let me tell members why.

Financial institutions are the only ones that can make big loans to individuals. If people are maybe from a disadvantaged group or an under-represented group who have not been in politics before, who seek a nomination in a riding, those people do not have independent wealth, they do not have a riding association yet to loan them funds, as is allowable under this bill, and they do not have, perhaps, credit worthiness to go to a bank. What does that person do? The individual is left out. They simply cannot, effectively. With the limits under this, there is a barrier to entry into the nomination process.

If we look at the Liberal leadership process that went for nine months of fulsome discussion and debate across the country, presenting 11 candidates for scrutiny by the public in a highly open and democratic process, those were expensive. We cannot do that in a country the size of Canada without having some funds to expend for it.

Those should be under rules, and there are rules. There may be some tightening up that the bill can do, and that is fine. However, to say that people taking out loans so they can exercise their right to take part in the democratic electoral process for leadership, for nomination, is going down the wrong road.

In fact, the bill, as written, does not, as Bill C-24 previously did, take out corporate money and put in public money that was properly and evenly distributed according to the proportion of the vote achieved by each party that ran candidates. This cuts out the public and brings in the big money.

Who can get a loan from a bank, from a financial institution? It is someone with a lot of money or property to put up as collateral, or someone to co-sign or support the loan. Those are people of influence and money. This is letting the money in. It is not keeping the money out. That is what we will have to see. I look forward to working with members of the Bloc, the NDP and the government to see if we can get some amendments so we do not create a barrier to entry for people who have no means and are not yet part of the political process. That transparency is immensely important.

We have an organization called Equal Voice. All members of the House will be well aware of and knowledgeable about it. The organization seeks to encourage women to enter the political process so we can rise above the deplorable disproportion of men to women in the House of Commons, with 20% representation by women.

The leader of the official opposition, the leader of the Liberal Party, has pledged that in the next election one-third of the Liberal candidates will be women. We are well on the way in the nomination process to achieving that. This is a demonstrative move to try to get a proper proportion of gender equity into the House.

If this goes to committee, I am sure Equal Voice, representing all parties and all people across the political spectrum, will be very interested to come to talk the committee and to give evidence, as will many other groups who represent disadvantaged or under-represented sectors of this society. They will want to come and give their evidence on it. I hope we will take instruction from them as to how, perhaps unintentionally, the unavoidable consequence of this will be, to exert more power, not less, in those who have access to large amounts of funds.

This new Conservative bank of Canada act is interesting. It may tighten up the rules a little. It is not so that the Canada Elections Act now does not require loans to be repaid or be converted into contributions under the very restrictive rules. It is not so that contributors, lenders or co-signers do not have to be disclosed for political loans. They do have to be.

I am as anxious as anyone else in the House to see that this process is not abused, and if we can tighten it up, all the better. However, we have to ensure there are no unintended consequences of creating barriers to disadvantaged and under-represented groups.

The government House leader took some time to describe a number of what were called democratic reform bills, or statutes, in the House as brought forward by the Conservative government, and it is worth talking about a few of those.

One is Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. Members of the House and the committee of the House spent a great deal of time on this as did members of the Senate. In fact, unencumbered by a set deadline that was forced on the House committee in the House, the Senate put forward dozens of amendments through its careful review of that act, even under the constant shrill criticism of the government that it was slowing things down.

Regarding slowing things down, royal assent was given to the Federal Accountability Act on December 15, 2006. Here we are, almost five months later, and one of the central parts of that act was the appointments commission. Amendments by the NDP sharpened that up. We had two choices. The Liberal opposition put forward amendments. The NDP put forward amendments. All of them would have been effective, and will be effective, as it was finally passed, but all these months later, all of these appointments later, dozens of them, and we still do not have the appointments commission. This was one of the key things that was said by the government to be so important about the Federal Accountability Act. We do not even have a commission.

We continue without the proper controls. We had suggested that the Public Service Commission take over this role, that there be amendments to its mandate to apply the same rules, competitive process and objective criteria used in the public service for any order in council appointments, but we still do not have that.

I would be very interested to hear from the government when it is going to proceed with that important part of Bill C-2. There were so many complaints about it being delayed when in fact there were a very large number of responsible, thoughtful and careful amendments suggested by the Senate, and actually passed into law.

Bill C-16 deals with fixed dates. We supported that on this side of the House. There was no delay. There was careful consideration in the Senate. There was a thoughtful amendment put forward. It was brought back to the House with that amendment. We on this side offered the government, before the Easter recess, to pass the bill through all processes in the House, back to the Senate, hopefully, for royal assent in the day before we broke. That was rejected. We would have needed unanimous consent, but we did not get it from the government.

Bill C-43 was mentioned by the government House leader. It is not a Senate elections act; it is a consultation act, with provincial elections. It is being put forward as a great democratic reform. I think all members of the House believe, as do probably all members of the other place, that the Senate needs reform in becoming a fully democratic legislative chamber, and we should all work toward that. This is going at it piecemeal. We get criticisms of trying to block the incremental reform of the Senate, but the fact is it all fits together and it must be dealt with at once.

There are three critical aspects of the Senate that have to be considered together.

One aspect is the selection process, which could include elections or involve terms. The term limit is suggested in Bill S-4.

Another aspect is the mandate. In the future how does the mandate relate to the mandate of the House of Commons? Will it be a mirror legislative body with the same electoral validity that will then lead to gridlock. We have to do to deal with that area of comprehensive reform is to have some kind of dispute resolution mechanism whenever the legislative powers mirror each other in the House and the other place.

Then we have the distribution. We cannot do anything else with the Senate until we work out the distribution. It is amazing that the Prime Minister, and all members of the government, would consider doing something to give a greater validity, greater power to the Senate without fixing the very unfair, inequitable distribution of seats to western Canada, particularly to British Columbia and Alberta.

For all of us from British Columbia and Alberta, it is extraordinary that we might think of increasing the power of that body without fixing the horrible lack of fair distribution to western Canada.

Bert Brown has been mentioned in the House by the Prime Minister as being the senator in waiting, to be appointed sometime this summer. He has played a very important role in the political life of Canada. He did not play that role by plowing one E into his barley field or a wheat field. He plowed three E's into it. To try to deal with just one E at once in a piecemeal incremental way, as the Prime Minister says, is not in the favour of Alberta, from where that fine gentleman comes. Nor is it responsible reform in the comprehensive way to properly bring the Senate into the modern age of a democratic legislative chamber. We have to work together to do that.

We often hear about the ghosts of Meech Lake and the ghosts of Charlottetown. We also hear that we cannot go near the Constitution because, my goodness, we might all get distracted and not be able to do anything else in this country and we will never get anywhere. Thank goodness the Fathers of Confederation were not so shy about dealing with the Constitution. We should take on that responsibility ourselves.

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly interesting to hear what is projected for the House with this bill. I know Conservative Party members have problems because when they established themselves as the new Conservative Party, even within the Senate, some Progressive Conservative senators did not want to join the new establishment. So even within the Senate itself I know they perceive some problems with who they think supports them in the Senate.

I am a member from New Brunswick, a region of Canada which has 10 senators. We have to look back at the Constitution of this country whereby Atlantic Canada, the maritime provinces were provided with 24 senators, in other words at that time one-quarter of the Canadian Senate. Over the last 140 years numerous changes have occurred within Canada. We hear people speak about the need to make some changes to the Senate, but I have always been proud of the Senate. In fact when I went home this past weekend I heard as many people criticize this House as I went around the streets of my constituency as I did those who might want to criticize the Senate.

When we look at bills like this and the accountability bill that is tied in with this one, we have to wonder how accountable we are to the people of Canada when we spend the whole day talking about Bill C-43. It is 51 pages long and my impression is that I am disappointed if our justice department wrote this piece of legislation. If the justice department did write it, there certainly must have been a lot of instructions from somebody who had some very different ideas on how the future of our Senate should be determined.

The House of Lords in Britain at the present time is undergoing some changes. Certain restrictions are being placed upon the future of that house. Who should be members of the House of Lords in the future is a matter of great debate within the British parliament .

Two houses are part of our federal system. Each house reflects different ideas, different backgrounds, different concerns. When I heard today about setting up a consultation process, it is simply an attempt by the Prime Minister and the Conservative government to get around what really should be the Constitution of our country. They want to rely on a complicated system of people in an election giving preferences and a long list of who might be a senator in that particular province or region.

I have not heard, for example, a comparison to the United States Senate where each state has two senators. We should look at the costs of running for the U.S. Senate and what the people of Canada might spend on getting a consultation process that might be used for the Prime Minister to appoint somebody to the Senate.

We had a recent debate on justice and the appointments to the judicial system. Will the next step be to have elections of judges as they have in some countries, in fact in parts of the United States? Maybe that is the next step the government is considering.

In my own province recently, talking about the concept of offering party followers some of these appointments, we have had three judicial appointments recently. One was a former leader of the Conservative Party in New Brunswick. Another was the chief organizer for the government and that party in the last federal election. The third one has very close ties to a former member of Parliament.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me today to stand in the House to speak to Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act.

The most important thing about the bill is that it is about democracy, democratic reform, something of which we can all agree. I know the Canadian public agree that we could use a lot more in this great building. It is long overdue.

When we talk about democratic reform, I will give some examples. It baffles me why the opposition across the way have these cold feet and great fear of democratic reform. In an example that did not happen too many years ago, there were some changes made where senators were limited to the age of 75. Some other democratic reform was that they had to attend some meetings, instead of being in Florida or Mexico.

Rome was not built in a day and neither will some of the reforms we need in the country. This is just another one in a list of keeping that reform going.

The bill is also about accountability. It is about giving people a voice in selecting their senators. It is also something the government believes is a practical and very achievable step toward significant democratic reform.

In my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, 86% of people who responded to a question in one of my householders said that they wanted to see an elected Senate. There was also a number in there who wanted to see it totally abolished, but I do not support that. However, some people do because of some of the things that went on over the years. I figure if we get the right kind of reforms in this place and in the other house, we will go a long way to appeasing some of those people.

Although Bill C-43 is not totally about the election of senators, if passed, the bill will provide the type of democratic reform that is supported, as I said, by my constituents, and I believe most Canadians. Canadians will have a say in who will represent them in the Senate.

Bill C-43 is one of the reforms that can generate momentum on comprehensive change to the Senate. The bill does not require any constitutional change and political parties would have more of a limited in relation to the political financing of Senate nominees. Parties would not control the order of the candidates on the ballot, which is a good thing, and voting would also be for individual candidates.

Furthermore, the bill recognizes that citizens, not political friends or big donors to the prime minister are in the best position to advise the prime minister about the people who should speak on their behalf in this great institutions.

We know Canadians think it is time to act on this idea. Canadian voters would be able to indicate their preferences regarding which potential Senate nominees they would like to see represent their provinces or territories.

I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Crowfoot, for sharing his time with me. He spoke about the great Senator from Alberta. Albertans are away ahead of the rest of the country in electing senators and pinpointing who they would like to represent them. Every province and territory should have that same kind of process.

The single transferable vote allowed for in the bill would allow Canadians to rank their preferred Senate nominees in order of preference. They can rank them one, two, three or as many as they see fit. The system is very adaptable in that where there are many vacancies in a province, it provides proportionality in the results.

If there is only one vacancy, the system requires a successful nominee to receive a majority on the vote. How can we argue with that process? What is wrong with it? I cannot think of a valid reason why anyone in the House could argue that point.

Bill C-43 is about consultations and information gathering. The prime minister can consult anyone in making Senate appointments and the bill would provide him or her a mechanism to hold a consultation with Canadians.

Bill C-43 follows through on the promise made to the people of Canada by the government in the recent Speech from the Throne where it said,

—explore means to ensure that the Senate better reflects both the democratic values of Canadians and the needs of Canada's regions.

The bill would provide the country with a revised Senate, with a truly national democratic institution. There is no reason for this bill not to pass. In fact, it should pass unanimously.

I call on all members of the House to clear their minds of all partisan cobwebs and to support the bill.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to stand in the House again and support Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act. It is also a pleasure to split my time today with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

Our government is proposing to make a series of reforms to make the Senate more democratic and accountable. This bill details to Canadians how they would be able to play a role in selecting the senators who will represent them and their region. Senate appointment consultations would give Canadians a voice in representation and Canadians are asking for it.

We believe, and the people I represent in Crowfoot, Alberta, believe that this is a practical and achievable step. It provides significant and meaningful democratic reform. The type of reform, to be quite honest, that is supported by most Canadians and the type of reform that looking across is very much needed.

We promised in the last election and in the Speech from the Throne that we would take a step by step approach to reforming the Senate. We can take real action in improving the credibility and legitimacy of the Senate without embroiling this government and Canadians in constitutional negotiations.

Our approach includes the practical and meaningful steps of introducing term limits for senators, which is Bill S-4, and consulting Canadians about their preferences for who would represent them in the Senate, which is Bill C-43, the bill we are debating today.

As an Alberta member of Parliament, I can assure the House that we do know something about senatorial elections and something about the Senate of Canada. In 1989 Alberta first used an election to decide a Senate nomination. The prime minister of the day then appointed the winner of that election, Stan Waters, to the upper house in 1990. I was involved at that time and I can tell the House that Alberta was excited about Senator Waters coming to this place and representing Albertans. He represented all Canadians very well.

People in the province of Alberta, British Columbia, and in fact throughout all of western Canada, were very pleased by the way Senator Waters represented them. He toured all of Canada and told Canadians about the need for senatorial reform.

When the Liberal government returned to power in 1993, there was no more progress in terms of bringing democracy and accountability to the upper chamber. It came to a grinding halt with that Liberal regime.

Since 1993 the federal Liberal Party has named none of those Canadians who put their name forward for Senate elections or those who have been duly elected. This is a shame because provinces for the most part are willing to do the work to get better representation in the Senate. Average Canadians who are engaged in this discussion want to be involved in the process of who will represent them in the Senate.

In 2006 the Conservative Party of Canada came to power. This government has taken the first opportunity to appoint a senator endorsed by Canadian voters. Our Prime Minister announced that Bert Brown, a constituent of mine, would take a seat in the Senate when a seat becomes vacant this summer and become known as senator Brown. Albertans are pleased with that announcement. I had the pleasure of having dinner on Saturday evening with Bert and Alice, Betty Unger, and a number of others.

No Canadian has done as much to advance the cause of senatorial reform as Bert Brown. He has been a tireless advocate for the democratization of the upper house over two decades. He ran in three Alberta Senate elections and is the only Canadian to be elected twice as a senator-in-waiting.

In short, he is a very patient individual when it comes to becoming a Senator, but he is also a perfect role model for elected senators. Mr. Brown, 69, is a farmer from Balzac, Alberta. He is currently a Calgary area zoning and property development consultant. He is also a constituent of mine. That is why again I commend him and I speak about him with great fondness.

Over 300,000 Albertans voted for him in the province's 2004 Senate election. That is 300,000. More Albertans voted for Bert Brown than all Liberal candidates put together in my province in the last general election. Yet, the party opposite asks: which Albertans actually voted for him? Well, 300,000, which is many more than those who voted for all the Liberals combined.

The Senate of Canada was to be an upper chamber for regional representation. It used to be that the senators met in groups in the regions they represented. They would come together based on their region and they would have what we could call a mini-caucus meeting. There was no real special attention paid to a senator being Independent, Liberal or Conservative. Senators were more concerned about the region that they represented. They were concerned about working together to help their region.

Nowadays, the upper chamber is fraught with partisanship. Senators meet in political party caucuses each week. The Senate chamber is to a great deal about party politics. The Senate needs to be reformed.

The House of Commons is supposed to be political. Canadians hope that the Senate would become more independent, more perhaps intellectual, checking the work of the House and helping the House pass good legislation. Senators would actually ask how is this going to affect my region, not necessarily how is this going to play out in my political party.

For a long time, decades, the Senate has posed problems that the average Canadian voters wished that we would address and that we would fix. Canadians have been told that we cannot fix this problem. Canadians have been told by the Liberals and others that we do not want to touch it because we would have to change the Constitution and that we do not want to get into constitutional wrangling again.

Bill C-43 does not require constitutional change. It does not affect the Governor General's power to appoint. It does not affect the Prime Minister's responsibility or power to recommend senators. It does not create a process for the direct election of senators. It does not change the constitutional qualifications of senators.

In short, it does not affect any of the matters that are identified in the Constitution and so this is a process that is achievable. It is a small step. It is a first step and one that we should be grabbing onto.

Constitutional scholars agree that the government's approach is constitutional because we do not legally affect the role of the Governor General in making those appointments or the role of the Prime Minister.

Canadians may not know that our Prime Minister is allowed to consult anyone in making Senate appointments. Bill C-43 provides a mechanism for him to hold a consultation with the citizens of Canada and generally speaking in each province when a vacancy comes he can consult. The governor in council can make an order for a consultation which will be carried out under the direction of the Chief Electoral Officer. The order may specify the provinces and territories in which the consultation is to be held. The Prime Minister has the opportunity then to do this.

I see that you are telling me that my time is up, Mr. Speaker, so I will bring my comments to a close. Sometimes when we are elected to the House, we believe that we can come in and make major changes immediately. I think as time goes on we realize that we must become satisfied with small incremental steps.

I think this step will enhance the legitimacy, the credibility of the Senate. We have one party that wants the abolition of that. I think if the Senate became more involved in regional representation, it would help. I believe we need this process. I will always support Canadians making the decision as to who best represents them.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I look back with fondness to the days when the Reform members were actually civil in this House and not using a mob-like mentality.

I want to get back to the Senate. If we were to have elected senators with votes that mean a lot more in one province than say in Alberta, British Columbia or Ontario, that would undercut representation by population. However, beyond that, it would give the Senate the kind of power that it does not have now.

One can just imagine what would happen to this chamber of democratically elected members from roughly equal constituencies, and I say roughly because we have some changes to make, and all of a sudden we have these bogus re-elected senators, who would not truly be recognized in the Constitution, holding up a bill of the House of Commons and not backing off when the House of Commons sends the bill back for the second time. The institution of the House of Commons then must prevail.

I mentioned that because this bill does absolutely nothing to deal with that issue.

I want to talk about a possible elected Senate that is amended by the Constitution and what I could support. I could support an elected Senate that is dealt with by the Constitution but that the powers of the Senate and the House of Commons must be very well defined. The ultimate authority of the House of Commons must prevail.

We also need to find a way of reflecting minorities in our country who might not be represented in the House. We must ensure that the Senate has the kind of knowledge base that is not necessarily reflected in this House. We need people from the arts and people with great expertise from social services, social sciences and the hard sciences. We also need to ensure we have people like Senator Roméo Dallaire who has expertise in the military. Those types of people are very important.

However, when we put that package together we must do it within the confines of the Constitution. Otherwise, as the premier of the province of Ontario said, to do otherwise would have the province of Ontario calling for the abolition of the Senate which, in the end, would be a mistake.

I would challenge members opposite to go back to Alberta, to go back to their constituencies in Ontario or to go back to their constituencies in British Columbia and ask their constituents if they think it is fair that their province is under-represented. I do not think the members will be surprised by the reactions they get. I believe the people will say that they think it is unfair and that if we are to have elections, we need to have a Senate based on representation by population.

The Senate has worked well for the most part because it has tried to be non-partisan as much as possible given the fact that Brian Mulroney appointed 57 senators and given the fact that most senators are political appointments.

However, I can say that the decorum in the House of Commons could do well to look to the decorum in the Senate. The displays and discourtesies that we have in the House, such as those afforded by the member for Cambridge, do not represent the kind of behaviour they have in the Senate.

If we want a Senate that is partisan and a Senate that does not work as effectively and efficiently as it does now, then we would want to pass this bill. However, I think most Canadians, on a sober second thought, not a knee-jerk reaction to a particular poll that might be done in the same fraudulent way as the consultation on the Wheat Board was done, would want us to leave well enough alone.

I know former Premier Peterson of the province of Ontario quickly learned that Senate seats are not given away for the province of Ontario, particularly when it is under-represented.

We should not be having this debate because what we are debating is a way to go around the Constitution. The reason we have a Constitution is because we consulted widely with all the stakeholders. Constitutional change is not easy but if we are going to amend the Constitution of this country, we need due diligence and a comprehensive approach where the problems are thought out and term limits are actually looked at.

I know there is debate on having term limits of 8 years, 12 years or 15 years. If, at the end of the day, our aim is to make the Senate as non-partisan as possible, a Senate that manages from time to time to do great work, then we would not want a senator having to run in an election every eight years. We might want the appointment to be for a longer term of maybe 12 to 15 years. If we were to do that, then we would ensure that the people have the background, the expertise and the experience in the Senate to make it happen.

It should come as no surprise to the government that Bill C-43 will be defeated because it does not have the support of the House. I will be looking forward to voting against the bill when the time comes.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my thanks to the member for Simcoe North for sharing his time.

I am pleased to rise today, on behalf of the constituents of Fleetwood—Port Kells, to participate in the debate on Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

The bill establishes a mechanism for consulting voters with respect to their preferences for the appointment of senators to represent their province or territory. The bill sets out the guidelines for electing Senate nominees. While it is not the full-fledged reform that many Canadians demand, Bill C-43 represents a practical and achievable step that provides significant and meaningful democratic reform. It may only be a small step, but it represents real change.

For too long, Canadians have been forced to settle for the status quo. Senators appointed largely on partisan grounds lack legitimacy and fail to act as regional spokespersons. It should therefore come as no surprise that Canadians want changes to the Senate. In fact, in poll after poll Canadians across the country have confirmed their support for Senate reform, including the election of senators.

In spring 2005, the Alberta Senate Reform Task Force found near unanimous support for the election of all future members of the Senate. A 2004 CTV poll asked Canadians “Do you want to elect your future Senators, yes or no?” Over 80% said yes. After the last federal election, an Environics poll done by the CBC found 71% of Canadians wanted to elect senators. Nearly one year ago, in June 2006, Ipsos Reid conducted a poll on Senate reform. Among reform alternatives given a plurality of Canadians, 44%, backed an elected Senate. Among British Columbians polled, more than 50% backed an elected Senate over other alternatives.

Despite lengthy debates and various attempts at reform, the Senate has remained essentially unchanged since its first sitting in November 1867.

In the late 1970s there were a number of proposals to turn the Senate into a house of the provinces. Drawing on the model of the German second chamber, it was argued that senators should be appointed by provincial governments.

In its 1984 report the Special Joint Committee on Senate Reform concluded that direct election would best achieve its primary objective of strengthening the Senate's capacity to fill its role of regional representation.

Prime Minister Mulroney tried to introduce changes to the Senate through the 1987 Meech Lake constitutional accord, which would have required Ottawa to fill Senate vacancies from a list submitted by the affected provinces, and through the 1992 Charlottetown accord, which proposed to give all provinces equal seats in the upper chamber and introduce elected senators, either by the province's electorate or legislative assembly. Both attempts to amend the Constitution failed, and since then Senate reform has largely been ignored.

The Prime Minister has observed that the all or nothing approach of previous governments to Senate reform has resulted in nothing. This is precisely the reason that Canada's new government has taken a fundamentally different route. We are pursuing a staged approach that will provide practical, sensible reforms which will build a foundation for more fundamental future reform.

As a first step, the government introduced legislation to limit the tenure of Senate appointments to eight years, rather than the current provisions whereby appointees can retain office until age 75. Changing the tenure of senators to eight years would enhance the legitimacy of the Senate and accordingly, enhance its role in providing sober second thought. Eight year terms would also provide a renewal of ideas and perspectives on a more regular basis.

Taken together with Bill C-43, the government is proposing real reform to the Senate. These changes may not meet all expectations, but they are achievable. If implemented, the bill will provide concrete results.

We cannot adopt sweeping Senate reform without constitutional amendments. More comprehensive change that will make the Senate an effective, independent and democratically elected body that equally represents all regions will require the consent of at least seven provinces representing 50% of the population. That is because comprehensive changes would alter essential characteristics of the Senate. This will obviously take more time.

Critics of this proposed legislation, notably Liberal senators, contend it is unconstitutional. However, the experts have spoken. Pre-eminent constitutional scholars agree with the government. Provided changes do not legally affect the role of the Governor General in making appointments, or the role of the prime minister in recommending them. There is nothing unconstitutional about this endeavour.

Bill C-43 does not affect either of these roles. It does not create a process for the direct election of senators. It does not change the constitutional qualifications of senators. In short, it does not affect any of the matters identified in subsection 42(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 as requiring the so-called 7/50 amending procedure.

The prime minister is allowed to consult anyone in making Senate appointments. Bill C-43 simply provides a mechanism for him to hold a consultation with the citizens of Canada.

I applaud the government for taking this very important step to reform the way senators are chosen. It is an improvement that has the wholehearted support of my constituents. For far too long, Liberal politicians have told Canadians there was nothing that could be done to cure the democratic deficit in the Senate short of a constitutional amendment.

Canadians were not buying that excuse and neither are we. The government has taken a significant first step toward ensuring that this important democratic institution evolves in step with the expectations of Canadians.

The bill represents a significant improvement to the status quo and will provide a solid foundation for further reforms. I hope all members will support the initiative.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells.

I am pleased to rise in the House in support of Bill C-43, a new bill to implement and improve the way in which worthy citizens can be considered for appointment to the other place in this Parliament. This has been a subject of great interest to the citizens of Simcoe North. Each chance I get I speak with them and from time to time they make it clear to me that the government needs to move in a direction away from the notions of governance around elitists and the privileged.

This bill is the second installation of our new government's sensible and incremental approach to making the Senate more accountable and democratic. It follows Bill S-4, a bill to limit Senate tenure which was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs back in February.

The Prime Minister best expressed this initial two part process to improve our institutions in a speech he delivered in Ottawa on February 6. He spoke of Canadians' commitment to democracy being the wellspring of our success as a country. He reminded us that the scandals of the previous government had shaken Canadians' faith in our democracy. He expressed the hope that public apathy and cynicism should diminish as the memory of those scandals do also.

The Federal Accountability Act has already gone a long way to restoring public trust in Canada's government, but we know there is much more to be done. For our government that means modernizing the upper house by setting fixed terms for senators and by finally giving Canadians a say in who represents them in the red chamber.

It turns out that Bill C-43 on Senate appointment consultations, while separate and distinct, actually complements the aims of Bill S-4 in bringing practical and important steps in achieving Senate reform.

This sentiment was best expressed by the several witnesses to the Senate Special Committee on Senate Reform. In its first report in October 2006 the committee echoed the need for additional legislation on advisory elections to smooth and improve the effect of fixed terms for senators. This is a natural fit for the direction we are heading in to make the Senate more reflective of the will of Canadians, by allowing citizens to express their opinion for Senate appointments and by limiting the term for which senators would serve.

One of the witnesses to the special committee, Mr. Gordon Gibson, summed it up well when he stated that the Senate “would be unacceptable without term limits”, but that it was equally clear to him that term limits are “unacceptable without an electoral system”.

In the last 139 years there have been no less than seven different resolutions and proposed reforms to improve the process of selecting senators, the first as early as in 1874, only seven years after Confederation. Of course with the exception of the 75 year age limit that came in in 1965, all of those measures failed. The essence of these improvements was to recognize that modern democratic institutions must be products of the people they represent. In fact the notion of having important offices in our democratic systems remain appointed as opposed to elected is completely at odds with the contemporary understanding of governance and the democratic values of Canadians.

Witnesses at the Senate Special Committee on Senate Reform argued broadly that to be effective within a democratic process the Senate requires the legitimacy that would be provided by elections. One of the other witnesses, John Whyte, senior fellow at the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy, noted, “The case for Senate reform is overwhelming. Political power in legal democracies is accountable power”. He went on to argue that having unelected senators undermines the Senate in four ways. First, it does not reflect democratic choice. Second, it receives minimal public attention. Third, it exacerbates the confusion about who senators really represent. Fourth, it leaves senators unaccountable to Canadians for the work that they do.

We are proceeding prudently and sensibly without opening up an exhaustive and intractable constitutional negotiation. This is an achievable approach to meaningful Senate reform that can become the foundation for broader discussions on constitutional reforms to the Senate in the future.

On that note, I would like to remind hon. members that this bill does not require a constitutional amendment. It retains the powers of the Governor General to appoint, and the powers of the Prime Minister to recommend senators. However, the Prime Minister is allowed to consult in making Senate appointments, and who better to consult on this issue than Canadians themselves? The bill creates an objective and modern mechanism for the Prime Minister to do just that, to engage Canadians in consultation.

I would like to take a moment to point out some of the features that I think make this bill so relevant, flexible and practical. First, as I mentioned before, there is no constitutional amendment required.

Second, the voting procedure recommends that Canadians vote for senator nominees, likely during a federal general election, but the flexibility is there for a provincial election as well. This makes the process efficient and less costly.

Third, the voting for senator nominees is proposed to employ a single transferable ballot, also known as a preferential ballot, so the voters can express their first, second and so on preferences for Senate nominees.

This voting system has the added benefit of playing down the partisanship component of Senate nominees, leaving Canadians to consider not just the party affiliation of the nominee, but also his or her personal qualifications to fill that role.

We know the other place is supposed to be, as the preamble of the bill suggests, a chamber of independent, sober second thought, so Canadians expect the role of the parties to be less apparent in Senate deliberations. We also know that Canadians have expressed more than a little disdain at the Senate when senators take the partisanship arguments too far and ignore the will of the elected House of Commons. Regrettably we have seen too many examples of that, even recently, with Bill S-4, a two page bill which was adjourned and postponed day after day after day by the Liberal majority before it went to committee, I think some 260 days after it was first introduced in May last year.

This proposed consultation process speaks right to the heart of independent expression in the Senate. It will be a level playing field between independent and party sponsored senator nominees.

The fourth feature of the bill is the fact that this process adheres to the Canada Elections Act on the important tenets of financial administration, limits on advertising and the transparent reporting and auditing of financial records.

Of note is the upholding of an important standard that we adopted in the Federal Accountability Act to limit donations on election campaigns to $1,000 annually per individual and the banning of donations from corporations and unions. That said, and in respect to the expected costs of running a province-wide campaign, senator nominees will not be faced with an expense limit. This no expense limit feature, it should be pointed out, is still confined by the donation limit of $1,000 per individual.

This bill, an act to establish Senate consultations, call them advisory elections if you will, encompasses all of the right components to modernize our democratic systems in a practical and durable way.

The bill is separate but complementary to the aims of Bill S-4 to limit Senate tenure. It will strengthen our federation by making the upper house more accountable to the people and by enhancing the Senate's legitimacy and credibility as one of our cornerstone democratic institutions.

This bill delivers what is contemplated in its opening paragraph. It speaks to the importance of our representative institutions evolving in accordance with the principles of our modern democracy and the expectations of Canadians.

I want to close with just a few thoughtful words of one of our founding fathers, Sir John A. Macdonald, who, during the debates on Confederation, remarked on the Senate:

It must be an independent House, having a free action of its own...but it will never set itself in opposition against the deliberate and understood wishes of the people.

Bill C-43 delivers on the wishes of the people in a genuine and sensible way. Canadians finally will have a say on who sits in the Senate. I encourage all hon. members to support the bill.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

As my colleague said, this is strictly a one-man show.

This bill is designed to manoeuvre, manipulate and move toward constitutional change without doing it properly under the Constitution that was passed several decades ago.

We all know the Prime Minister likes to operate, as I said earlier, in a presidential style. We know he likes the system south of the border much better than this system. However, the system south of the border, in terms of its congress and senate, has checks and balances that our chambers do not have. If we are going to make those kind of changes and go in that direction, then we should do it all inclusively.

If the Prime Minister wants to go down that road and make the kind of changes that we know he is thinking about, then he should have the courage to put forward an all encompassing package that proposes the changes and sets in place the processes necessary to do it in a well-debated and well-balanced way.

I am very concerned about the process that the Prime Minister follows on a number of fronts but I will get to those a bit later.

I must point out that instead of saying what this bill would or would not do for democracy and in getting a more effective Senate, government members just attack the integrity of the Senate and follow the negative perceptions that are out there. I believe they do so in order to build and expand on those negative perceptions.

In a former life I was a farm leader and I had the opportunity to make quite a number of presentations before both the Senate and the House of Commons. From my perspective, the Senate usually did a more thorough job because partisanship was not at play. No political games were being played. The Senate does in fact do good work.

The parliamentary secretary who just spoke mentioned a Senate study that he is currently reading. I have a number of studies here that the Senate has done but one that is well worth reading, entitled, “Understanding Freefall: The Challenge of the Rural Poor”, was done by the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.

We all know the work the defence committee has done in terms of security at our borders. It is unlikely that same kind of report would have been done in the Commons because the Prime Minister would not allow his members to speak negatively about some of the things that could be happening at the border. However, the Senate is not afraid of doing that and it takes those kinds of positions.

In his remarks on April 20th, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform said:

This bill follows through on the promise made to the people of Canada in the Speech from the Throne to “explore means to ensure that the Senate better reflects both the democratic values of Canadians and the needs of Canada's regions”. More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy.

The House leader never went on to prove his point. He never elaborated in terms of how this would strengthen democratic values and meet the needs of the regions. In fact, it does nothing of the sort.

He went on at great lengths to talk about the importance of the vote, and I agree with him, but a vote must also mean something. However, in the way that Bill C-43 is written, a vote does not necessarily mean much at all. It is non-binding on the Prime Minister. It is piecemeal in terms of its approach. It does nothing to reflect democratic values or to enhance Canada's regions any more than is already the case with appointments.

I want to go back to the member's second point because I want to make a last line in the quote by the House leader. He said:

More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy.

Absolutely nothing is further from the truth. This bill does not strengthen the pillars of our democracy. In fact, it is a manipulation by the Prime Minister in trying to get around the Constitution. That is not strengthening our democracy. That is undermining our democratic values.

If anything, the Prime Minister should absolutely follow the Constitution and do the process in the proper form and in the proper way. The Prime Minister is attempting to get around the Constitution without really going through that necessary process to make constitutional change. In other words, the very process that the Prime Minister has chosen is against the foundation of our democracy, our Constitution.

I want to quote what the Library of Parliament had to say on the proper process. It says:

In 1982, the Constitution of Canada was patriated. It is now expressly provided by section 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982 that an amendment to the method of selecting senators must be agreed on by the Senate, the House of Commons and at least two-thirds of the provinces that have at least 50% of the population of all provinces.

That is the proper process.

The Library of Parliament goes on to say:

At present, members of the Senate are appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

It then talks about the premise of Bill C-43 and states:

The premise of Bill C-43 is that it does not, as such, amend the method of selecting senators and therefore does not require a constitutional amendment.

I will admit that is what the Library said. The Library goes on to say:

Instead, it establishes a list of selected nominees that reflects electors’ preferences.

What that really means is that the Prime Minister is making the change in a kind of a sneaky way. He is manipulating people, which is what he typically does. I will get to a better example later.

I want to mention one other thing because quite a number of people talked about the day of the vote, polling day. Many have said that it will not cost more because it will be done the same day as a general election, federally or provincially.

Let us think about that for a minute and look back throughout history. When Mr. Mulroney was prime minister there were quite a number of Liberals in the Senate. It balanced the power of this place. When Prime Minister Chrétien was first elected there were more Conservatives in the Senate and it balanced the power of this place again.

However, if there is an election and there is a sweep politically then we do not have that safeguard in the Senate. We no longer have that sober second thought because everybody will be taken. We all know that sometimes happens in elections. We are politicians. We saw it in 1993. If that sweep would have happened in 1993 with a Senate election, we would not have a Senate to give that sober second thought that is direly needed when some legislation is passed in this place.

Let me sum up a few more points on the bill as they relate to what I would call our constitutional avoidance Prime Minister. We believe in the Liberal Party on this side of the House in democratic reform, but the bill is not democratic reform. It allows Senate nominees to be elected but does not make the elections binding. This could lead to potentially wasteful elections that the Prime Minister could ignore at will.

I see some members looking surprised that the Prime Minister might ignore it. I do not think there was a prime minister ever in Canadian history who has broken as many promises at this one did, everything in terms of no appointments to the Senate, a senator sitting over there in the Senate not able to answer questions, his position on income trusts, his promise on the Canadian Wheat Board but not really having the authority to make that promise but still manipulated it to get his way, and the list goes on too long for me to elaborate.

The bill also ignores provincial and regional equity, weakening the voices of the provinces such as British Columbia and Alberta that currently have fewer senators than their population warrants.

The initiative will increase partisanship in the Senate and aggravate the problem of potential deadlock between the two houses of Parliament. As so often the case with this government no meaningful consultations were held with the provinces or Canadians. In fact, Ontario and Quebec are among those who have already spoken out against the idea of piecemeal Senate reform.

Senate reform should not be piecemeal. It must considered as a package: the critical issues of selection, process and term, mandate and fair distribution. Simply put, the Senate election bill tries to skirt around the Constitution and haphazardly elect senators while still doing nothing to improve the representation of British Columbia and Alberta in Canada's Senate. It also fails to provide any kind of dispute mechanism should there be a deadlock between the House of Commons and the Senate.

I want to come back to process. At the end of the day, the tactic of the Prime Minister is a process that implies democracy but really is anything but. No better example is the undemocratic process that the Prime Minister managed to follow on the Canadian Wheat Board file.

Let me make a point in terms of what the Prime Minister considers democratic. He initiated his constitutional process by organizing a secret meeting in Saskatoon on July 25, 2006, to which only declared anti-Wheat Board individuals--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act.

As members will note throughout my remarks, the intent of the bill and the way in which it was done is typical of the new government's approach to doing things. It has a nice sounding name with kind of an empty slogan. It has good optics but it is just a smokescreen because, at the end of the day, it is the usual charade from the Prime Minister as he tries to leave the impression that he is doing something progressive but, in essence, he is following his undemocratic ways of making government policy.

It is great in perception but it is poor in reality. I maintain that this approach is dangerous in reality. What the Prime Minister is attempting to do is to change the Constitution by non-constitutional means.

Constitutions are important and they are there for a reason. They are the foundation on which we do things as a country. What the Prime Minister is trying to do in this instance is to go around the Constitution by one, two and three small steps. However, at the end of the day we could have a country that we do not quite recognize.

We all know the Prime Minister's love for the presidential style. We see how he operates with his podium. He kind of likes the U.S. Republican kind of system but we have a representative democracy in this country. We are based on the British system. We know where the Prime Minister really wants to go.

We just heard a shout from the other side. It is rather interesting how government members tend to fall in line and try to build on the lack of understanding of the Senate to make their point.

I listened as the parliamentary secretary to the House leader spend a lot of his time this morning attacking the Senate. He did not give much information on Bill C-43 but he spent most of his time attacking the Senate and using examples such as the Senate is not passing Bill S-4. One the lines he used was that the bill was only 66 words but that it had taken them 12 months. I believe the point he made was that it was five words a month. What does that have to do with the issue?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Senate reform and there are two ways built into Bill C-43.

First, the political parties can have a role in the nomination of Senate candidates and parties that choose to do so can work toward involving more women in those.

I do not know of any nomination events in our party, for example, that have excluded women simply because they are women. However, nor should they be included just because they are women. I do not think Canadians want it to work that way. However, parties can take a role in encouraging, nurturing and providing opportunities and so on.

The other way, as I said in my remarks, is that at the end of Bill C-43 when we have implemented this approach, the prime minister still has the power to recommend to the Governor General whomever he chooses.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-43, the Senate appointments consultations act.

If people are from western Canada, they will know that there are lot of strong opinions about the Senate. I grew up there and I was influenced by many of those opinions. Like every member of Parliament, I try to keep in touch with my constituents and when I do, from to time I hear some pretty strong sentiments about the Senate of Canada.

I was at a home show this past weekend for 20 hours or so and talked to hundreds of people on a lot of different topics, but the they had opinions about the Senate as well. It is pretty clear, at least in western Canada, it has lost some credibility among Canadians.

There are a number of opinions in the House as well. We heard Bloc members speak, but I am not sure if they have a coherent opinion or view on what the Senate of Canada should do or whether it should exist or not.

The NDP's position is pretty clear, that it should be abolished. It seems to me that misses the point. I believe the Senate does do some good work. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, I follow the work of the Senate committee as well and appreciate what it contributes to our work in the House.

I am starting to read through a human rights committee report from the Senate called “Children: The Silenced Citizens”. I appreciate some of the insights it is bringing to this. I do not think abolishing it is answer.

The Liberal position is a bit fuzzier. In my opinion they favour the status quo. They talk about favouring some kind of comprehensive overhaul of the Senate, whatever that might look like. We realize that is a very difficult thing to do. I think they conclude that it is better to do nothing than to do something, which is what we are going to do. They prefer the system we have now where senators are chosen based on either the party's support or the prime minister of the day. I do not think Canadians prefer that approach, as my colleague, the member for Calgary East, has said so eloquently, and we need to change that.

Our position as a government is clear. We want to work toward an effective, independent and democratically elected body that equitably represents all regions. Bill C-43 is not the only part of our agenda in this regard. Bill S-4, a bill that is in the Senate, would put term limits on senators of eight years. The Senate has had the bill for almost a month, as has been said already in the debate, a bill that is a couple of paragraphs long, 66 words. We are having a hard time getting that out of there. However, it is an important part of the reform of the Senate.

The question before us as parliamentarians is how does Bill C-43 contribute to this goal of the government of an effective, independent and democratically elected body that equitably represents all regions?

Because I anticipate this question coming, let me say that we could achieve this goal through a major overhaul of the Senate. As we all know, subsection 42(1) of the Constitution Act makes it very difficult to amend the Senate. Seven provinces representing 50% of the population is needed to approve any amendment. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible to get there, at least in a very expeditious way. It requires a level of consensus that is very difficult to achieve.

What are our options? I suppose the options are to do what the Liberals propose, which is to do nothing. Our option is to take a practical, achievable step that will provide a solid basis for further reform so we can get all the way there.

We want to generate momentum. As the people who live in the provinces see how this works, that we allow a democratic process to be involved in who represents them in the Senate, they will recognize that we now need to take further steps to get where we need to go.

The bill gives Canadians a voice in choosing who represents them. The way that it works now, according to section 24 of our Constitution, is the Governor General from time to time summons qualified persons to the Senate, traditionally on the advice of the prime minister. In fact, it happens no other way.

As the member for Calgary East has said, it goes against the grain of what Canadians think should happen in a democratic system. In fact, it is unlike most other democratic countries that have a higher chamber. Most countries have gone to an elected body. Canadians want to have a say in who represents them.

This is just another in a list of Conservative democratic reforms. Under the government's leadership of Robert Borden, women received the right to vote. Under the government of John Diefenbaker, aboriginals obtained the right to vote. This is another step forward in having a more democratic Parliament.

The bill would provide mechanisms for consultations to be held in one or more provinces to seek the preferences of the electorate on individuals who offer themselves as potential Senate nominees. It is envisioned that this will happen usually at the same time as a general election, although there is a bit of flexibility built into the act so it could happen at the time of a provincial election as well.

The bill would provide for a single transferrable vote to give a certain element of proportionality. It is an important improvement to make it different from the House of Commons, which continues to operate with the first past the post system.

In my view, and I think in the view of constitutional experts, this does not require any constitutional change. It does not affect the Governor General's power to appoint or the prime minister's power to recommend. It is not a direct election of senators. It does not change the constitutional requirements of who can serve as a senator. Bill C-43 would simply provide a mechanism for the prime minister to hold a consultation with the citizens of Canada.

I have heard a number of objections already. One is that the Senate is a place where the representation of women and minorities can be more accurately reflected. If people were to take the House of Commons tour, as I have with constituents from time to time, and go to the other place, they will be told that the appointment of senators allows for more women and minorities. In fact, numbers have increased both in this place and in that chamber, but I acknowledge that there is more to be done in that regard.

The government is hopeful, as it starts down this road, that women and minority candidates will participate fully in this consultation process. I see no reason why that would not and could not happen. In fact, there still is a role for political parties to play in the nomination of potential Senate nominees, as here in the House of Commons, although a more limited role, which is as it should be in the Senate. Therefore, parties can take the initiative to work toward this as well.

In this bill the prime minister's prerogative to recommend qualified individuals remains. Should the prime minister felt it was necessary to take steps to address a particular imbalance, perhaps in one of these areas, he or she could continue to appoint a selected candidate to address the imbalance.

I am pleased to support this bill. Bill C-43 takes an important step toward improving and vitalizing the Senate as a national democratic institution. That is what Canadians want. They want an effective, independent, democratically elected body that equitably represents all regions. Bill C-43 takes an important step toward that goal.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his thorough coverage of this issue as well as some other important issues to Canadians that do not directly relate to Bill C-43.

I certainly agree with what the hon. member said about the need for a comprehensive reform of the Senate if we are going to make any changes at all. The built-in inequities that currently exist and the potential for a gridlock with the House of Commons could be exacerbated if there were elected senators without dealing with issues such as mandate and distribution.

On the issue of distribution, the hon. member mentioned the disproportion between Quebec and one of the Atlantic provinces, which he mentioned but which I cannot remember which one, that had a Senate seat for every 27,000 people. That is an extremely important comparison to make but only to give further emphasis to the discrepancy in representation for those in British Columbia where there is one senator for every 660,000 people. That is an extraordinary difference.

I am hopeful that the hon. member from the Bloc is suggesting that in any change to the Senate there would be a redistribution of seats so that British Columbia would enjoy the same representation as Quebec currently does. That would be an extremely important improvement.

My colleague raised the issue of Quebec not having been a signatory as a province to the 1982 Constitution. We know that is so and we regret that fact. I think all members of the House would like to have seen that happen. However, that raises an interesting situation. My numbers may be slightly off but the vast majority of federally elected members of Parliament from Quebec, I think it was 74 out of 75, voted with the Liberal government of the day to support the repatriation of the Constitution and the constitutional amendments, including the charter. Quebec has been a magnificent model for the rest of the country in terms of its charter legislation provincially and the jurisprudence that has come out of that.

If the hon. member does not think it is significant that elected MPs from Quebec supported the charter, I wonder what he thinks the significance is of his role as a federally elected member of Parliament in the Bloc. Does he then relegate the Bloc Québécois to insignificance in this chamber?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, taking part in this debate on Bill C-43, is a little like going to the dentist. Personally, it is the last thing I want to be doing, but what can I say, sometimes we need to go to the dentist. However, we never need to go to the tooth puller.

I truly think the bill before us is of absolute no relevance. It addresses a very secondary matter to the detriment of more pressing priorities than the proposed reform, and that the Conservative government should be concerned about.

Bill C-43 provides for the consultation of electors in a province with respect to their preferences for the appointment of senators to represent the province.

Part 1 provides for the administration of a consultation, which is exercised under the general direction and supervision of the Chief Electoral Officer.

Part 2 provides for the holding of a consultation, initiated by an order of the governor in council.

Part 3 provides for a process whereby prospective nominees may confirm their nominations with the Chief Electoral Officer.

Part 4 addresses voting by electors in a consultation.

Part 5 sets out the rules for the counting of votes pursuant to a preferential system, which takes into account the first and subsequent preferences of electors as indicated on their ballots.

Parts 6 and 7 deal with communications and third party advertising in relation to consultations.

Part 8 addresses financial administration by nominees.

Part 9 provides for the enforcement of the enactment, including the establishment of offences and punishments for contraventions of certain provisions.

Part 10 contains transitional provisions, consequential amendments to the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act, coordinating amendments and commencement provisions.

As I mentioned from the outset, the bill is irrelevant. First, it is quite clear to us that the government, the House of Commons, cannot unilaterally change the Senate without the Constitution being changed. Since the Constitution is a federal constitution, all the stakeholders, in other words, all the provinces, Quebec, the federal government, the parliaments of these different jurisdictions, have to take part in the reform process.

As I said at the beginning, we do not think this bill is appropriate because what we really need is something that includes a review of the Constitution. In the late 1970s, the Supreme Court of Canada studied Parliament's ability to unilaterally amend the constitutional provisions concerning the Senate and, in a 1980 decision concerning Parliament's jurisdiction over the upper chamber, decided Parliament could not unilaterally make decisions about major changes to the essential character of the Senate.

It is likely this legislation will encounter opposition from the provinces, including Quebec. Quebec is not the only province that does not support this government's approach in tabling this bill. The government is heading down a path that leads to the reform of an institution whose relevance is in doubt. Even so, the proposed reform is a minor one.

Do they seriously think that a constitutional negotiation process—which would be necessary, as I said—makes sense right now when the government and Parliament should focus their attention on far more important issues? Just consider reintegrating Quebec into the Constitution that Pierre Elliott Trudeau unilaterally patriated.

All of Quebec's governments, regardless of whether they were Liberal or Parti Québécois, have refused to sign the Constitution as it was patriated in the early 1980s. I would note that there is a three-party consensus on this in the National Assembly among the Liberal Party of Quebec, the Parti Québécois and the Action Démocratique du Québéc.

It is clear to us that neither the powers of the Senate, nor the senator selection method, nor the number of senators for each province, nor the residency requirements for senators can be changed without going through the usual amendment procedure set out in section 38 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which requires the consent of the Senate, the House of Commons, and the legislative assemblies of at least two thirds of the provinces, that is, seven provinces, making up at least 50% of Canada's population.

This is the famous 7/50 formula.

We can see that this bill is irrelevant and could even be harmful, setting in motion a round of constitutional negotiations on a relatively minor issue, as I said. On September 21, 2006, Quebec's intergovernmental affairs minister, Benoît Pelletier—who was recently reappointed—testified before the Special Senate Committee on Senate Reform, where he stated:

—from the Quebec government perspective, clearly any future transformation of the Senate into an elected chamber would be an issue that should be dealt with through constitutional negotiations and not simply through unilateral federal action.

He added:

If the Senate becomes a chamber of elected representatives, its original purpose would be changed. Whether this is achieved directly or indirectly, it becomes an extremely important change which must be debated within the framework of constitutional discussions.

So as I mentioned, Quebec's intergovernmental affairs minister, Benoît Pelletier, simply reiterated Quebec's traditional position to the senate committee by saying two things: first, that the federal government cannot reform the Senate unilaterally, and second, that the federal government cannot achieve indirectly what it cannot achieve directly. Clearly, introducing this bill is a way of doing indirectly what the government does not want to do directly.

As I said earlier, Quebec is not alone in its opposition to electing senators. The premiers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba have called on the government to abolish the Senate instead of trying to reform it. Even the premier of Ontario has expressed serious doubts, saying that electing senators would exacerbate inequalities, under the Senate's current mandate.

Electing senators indirectly would change the relationship between the House of Commons and the Senate and create confusion. I will come back to this. These changes cannot be made unilaterally without the consent of Quebec and the provinces, as Quebec is now recognized as a nation by the House of Commons. Everyone will appreciate that such a reform would be most unwelcome and would not be in keeping with the spirit of either the Constitution or what has been passed in this House.

I said that the first reason this bill is irrelevant is that it will inevitably lead to a round of constitutional negotiations, which do not make a great deal of sense, whether they concern the Senate or just the election of senators. Therefore, once again, if the government goes ahead, it will come up against this constitutional problem.

The second thing that, to me, makes this bill irrelevant, is that, even reformed by Bill C-43, the Senate is still an useless institution. Originally, the Senate was supposed to be a chamber of sober second thought. It was also supposed to protect regional interests. But when we look at the current makeup of the Senate, we see that the appointments were clearly partisan, which has distorted the nature or mandate of the Senate.

Introducing the election of senators will not resolve the issue, because senators will sooner or later have to affiliate themselves with a political party in order to have the necessary resources for the elections. So the Senate will become more partisan and we will depart even further from its original purpose, which, in my opinion, is no longer relevant in the 21st century.

As I was saying, the indirect election of senators would not improve this situation. On the contrary, the electoral process will tend to increase the role of political parties and indirectly elected senators could become concerned with things that now fall under the authority of the House of Commons. This would create a duplication, or, at the very least, confusion, at a cost of $77 million a year. We think this is an extremely high cost for an institution that is not only useless, but that , in the case of the proposed reform, would create confusion and a significant duplication of legitimacy.

It is important to note that because of the evolution of the democratic process in Canada, in the provinces and in Quebec, no province has had an upper house since 1968.

It is interesting to note that members of several provincial upper houses—unlike the Senate of Canada—once had to earn their election, for example, Prince Edward Island. Such upper houses have disappeared over the years, however. Quebec abolished its legislative council in 1968. That was nearly 40 years ago.

Furthermore, I feel it is important to point out another factor. Bill C-43 is irrelevant. Despite the amendments proposed by the bill, the Senate would not be truly democratic. The indirect election by Canadians would give the Senate a superficial democratic credibility. In many respects, the Senate would remain a democratic aberration.

First of all, public consultation is not binding. The bill provides for public consultation, but does not talk about an election, per se, in order to select senators. The Prime Minister maintains the authority to appoint or not appoint the senators chosen by the public and could therefore decide not to appoint a candidate selected in the election process. In one of the background papers provided by the government concerning this bill, it states:

The Prime Minister can take into account the results of the consultation when making recommendations to the Governor General regarding future representatives of a province or territory in the Senate.

Furthermore, how can we trust this Prime Minister, who did not hesitate to appoint Michael Fortier to the Senate, even though he himself criticized the Liberals' partisan appointments? We therefore see that this new Conservative government—which is no longer new, since it has been in power for 15 or 16 months—simply copied the Liberal method of appointing senators.

Also, I recall very well that, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to appoint only elected members to the cabinet. With that Senate appointment, he broke the promise he had made to voters during the campaign. During the next election, voters will be able to judge for themselves how well the Conservatives can keep their promises.

One more factor is very worrisome. Voters will not be represented equally in the Senate. For instance, in the case of Prince Edward Island, one senator will represent some 27,000 voters, while in other areas of Canada—particularly in Quebec—that proportion will be much higher.

There will be virtually no way to remove senators.

The bill provides for the consultation of the population for the appointment of senators, although it is not binding, as we have just seen. They will be appointed for one term. I realize that some say that the bill provides for a maximum term of eight years for senators, which could solve the problem. But it seems to me that presenting oneself to the electorate only once in eight years is far from a guarantee that these so-called “elected” senators will reflect the concerns of citizens of Quebec or Canada.

In addition, the Senate is an institution that was created a very long time ago, and I find it ridiculous that certain restrictions on presenting oneself as a candidate for the position of senator have been retained. At present, you must be at least 30 years old and own real property worth at least $4,000 in the province and the riding that the individual is appointed to represent. Hence, all those under 30 are excluded. I find that very discriminatory. The rule about assets penalizes a part of our population that might seek to be candidates for such elections. This additional factor demonstrates that the proposal before us does not address the root cause of the problem and that it even seeks to rehabilitate an institution that has lost credibility in the eyes of a good number of Canadians and Quebeckers.

Indirectly, the elected Senate would even undermine the parliamentary system. I will come back to that. As you know, in the British parliamentary system, the executive defends the confidence conferred on it by the House of Commons, which is also elected. Thus, the election of the Senate alone would undermine the preeminence of the House of Commons and would create confusion. The election of two Houses would complicate the issue of preponderance and consequently would weaken the parliamentary system.

The Bloc thinks that this is an ill-conceived and irrelevant bill. Moreover, there is no set spending limit for the candidates. The government says that the individual contribution limits and the transfer limits imposed on parties will be sufficient to limit spending. However, since there is an unlimited number of potential candidates and election spending is subject to partial reimbursement out of public funds, it seems unreasonable not to limit individual spending. Lastly, some seats could be vacant for four years, unless there is a reserve. If a senator left their seat for health reasons, if they died or left for some other reason, we would have to wait four years for a new senator. As I said, unless a reserve is created, the bill is ill-conceived from this perspective.

For all these reasons, we would have preferred debating another subject today. As I said earlier, I feel as though I am at the tooth puller instead of being at the dentist. I do not want to alienate my dentist or dentists in general. It is good to go to the dentist, it is even recommended. But it is not recommended to go to a tooth puller.

I think we should be addressing real problems and real issues, such as the fiscal imbalance. In the budget—we continue to support Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007—there is a partial financial correction to the fiscal imbalance, but the crux of it is not corrected. The federal government has too much revenue in relation to its responsibilities. Its transfers related to matters under provincial jurisdiction continue to keep Quebec and the other provinces at the mercy of unilateral decisions made here in Ottawa, even though those jurisdictions belong to the provinces. The Bloc feels that the tax base corresponding to the transfers for health, social programs and post-secondary education should, quite simply, be transferred to the provinces as tax points, whether through the GST or income tax.

Still with the fiscal imbalance, the ability to control or even limit the federal government's spending power should be a priority. The Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have repeatedly promised legislation to limit federal spending power. We are still waiting for this legislation. Such legislation would allow a province, such as Quebec for example, to withdraw from a program implemented, in a shared or unilateral manner, by the federal government in the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec. Quebec could opt out with full compensation and without condition. This is important for the people of Quebec and people who need a good health care system, a good education system and social programs that provide an adequate social safety net. For those people, the Senate is of little or no concern in their daily lives.

I would now like to talk about the environment. It seems to me that, ever since the plan was introduced by the Minister of the Environment, criticism has not stopped flooding in from all sides, including from scientists, environmentalists and industrialists alike. We just learned this morning about a poll conducted in Alberta that reveals that 92% of Albertans believe that the oil companies should make a greater effort to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Even more interesting, 70%—I am not sure about this percentage—of Albertans said that these reductions should be in absolute targets, and not intensity targets. What people want in the next few years is a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to what we have seen in recent years. They do not want to see merely a slower increase, which would still mean more in the end, even if we produce less per tonne. It is not only Quebeckers and the general population of Canada that are concerned about this. These are also the concerns of Albertans, who, as we all know, are closely tied to the oil and gas industry.

I would like to talk about foreign policy. This should have been a concern. We do not have a foreign policy statement. The Liberal government, before the election that brought its defeat, had introduced a foreign policy statement dealing with defence and international trade.

No one seems to know where we are headed with this, but we are still spending. The government has just announced the purchase of more tanks, but they were purchased on the sly. International cooperation, however, has not seen much development.

Lastly, employment insurance, assistance programs for festivals and exhibitions, the Saint-Hubert airport, these all deserved greater attention, but that attention has been diverted to Bill C-43.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague's speech and a few things puzzle me about his speech.

First of all, we have perhaps the first and second actions of the Prime Minister on taking office which are: first, appointing someone, a former financial supporter from Montreal to the Senate, which he said he would not do; and second, he put that person in the cabinet as Minister of Public Works. The two first decisions of the Prime Minister regarding the Senate go against his election promises and go against what he says he is trying to now rapidly run backwards and trying to fix with Bill C-43.

Let me ask the hon. member a question because it is another would-be senator that is of interest as well. We have Mr. Bert Brown, the senator-in-waiting, for supposedly the same principles that are enunciated in the bill, taking the consultative referendum or preference given by a province or territory.

I would ask my hon. colleague to consider and recall how many Es did Bert Brown plough in his barley field? It was not one E. There were three Es: equal, elected, effective and comprehensive. It is not done piecemeal. There is no room for what the hon. member calls baby steps.

Canada is a big country. Let us have the constitutional courage of the Fathers of Confederation, and open it up and do it properly if we are going to do it. We should not say we are going to do one thing and do another as with Senator Fortier. Then, of course, even worse, trying to do it piecemeal.

The most extraordinary thing is that this hon. member pretends to represent people from British Columbia, the most disadvantaged people in the country, by giving more validity, more credibility, and elected status to a senator when the distribution is so clearly against the equal distribution for the west and British Columbia.

I would like to hear the hon. member explain to his constituents and my constituents in British Columbia why this could possibly be a good thing, entrenching and amplifying the distribution that is so much to the disadvantage of British Columbians?

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about something that is very near and dear to the constituents of Kelowna—Lake Country. I know that when the Prime Minister campaigned in the riding at the end of 2005, there was incredible support from my constituents as soon as anything was mentioned about reforming the Senate. It is near and dear to the folks out west.

All Canadians need to have a real awakening. They have seen the reformation that needs to take place. In fact, we have an institution that has been around since 1867, since Confederation. There has been absolutely no reform or change of the Senate other than the provision in 1965 for mandatory retirement at age 75 from the previous appointment for life.

The government is determined, and based on its promises to Canadians, that at least some first steps should take place and to date there has been no progress whatsoever. I know the members opposite, the interveners earlier, were talking about it being piecemeal, that it is just trying to circumvent the constitution.

The reality is that they had 13 years to come up with some sort of concrete democratic reform and nothing took place. Working together in a minority government, we are trying to work in a compromise manner and in increments. I think the government approach is a really achievable, positive and practical step that makes a lot of common sense.

I really find it difficult that specifically my colleagues from British Columbia could vote against this bill. This is one step in the triple E Senate that we are looking at reforming.

I had the opportunity last week to meet Mr. Brown from Alberta. Since 1989 Albertans have been voting for senators-in-waiting and he is the second such individual in Alberta. Mr. Waters was the first, but he unfortunately passed away after a short term in the Senate.

Mr. Brown is ready, willing, and able to step in when the time is appropriate. I think that speaks volumes of the government for listening to not only Albertans but all Canadians, and the hue and cry that has been coming forth, that we need to reform the Senate. Introducing this bill allows the consultation with constituents from sea to sea to sea.

The fact that senators are not elected is seen by many as contrary to the democratic values of Canadians and a major reason why the legitimacy of the Senate is often called into question.

I have the opportunity occasionally to take guests from the riding to the other house. An individual, a page, there does an excellent job. I had a chance to speak with Brad Ramsden a couple of times and he has enlightened me as to the role that the Senate plays.

I think that it does have a value in our constitutional role and our government in Canada. I value its input, but the fact is that today the 105 members, less the vacancies, who are appointed there have been appointed based on patronage, favouritism, and I think that does not speak very well for our democratic system. We live in a country that has a fundamental freedom of democracy. I do not think that there is any greater right than giving people that freedom to consult and select the individual who they want to represent their community.

The government has also introduced the bill because it reinforces, revitalizes, and modernizes long held Canadian values and most importantly the full right of Canadians to be able to choose those who will govern them.

This fundamental value has historically been enhanced and expanded by previous Conservative governments and the present Conservative government is simply continuing that tradition. I think of the statue of Robert Borden that we all walk by just outside the West Block. He led the wartime government that gave the right to women to vote. I think of Mr. Diefenbaker who gave that right to aboriginal people. These are some of the legacies of previous Conservative governments. They were excellent prime ministers and leaders such as the Prime Minister we have today.

Listening to the debate over the last few weeks there have been interveners who asked why the bill was introduced in the House of Commons rather than in Senate.

Bill C-43 authorizes the expenditure of funds related to the implementation and ongoing administration of the consultation process and pursuant to the Constitutional Act, 1867, bills that require the appropriation of funds must be initiated in the House of Commons.

At present the Governor General has the power to summon individuals to the Senate pursuant to section 24 of the Constitution Act, 1867. It states:

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;--

In my mind the word “qualified” is a very serious word that we need to stop and take a look at. What does qualified mean? It is up to the individual Canadians in each of the provinces and territories to decide who they feel is most qualified to represent them, not somebody who has given the Prime Minister or the leader of the government of the day the most money or helped them out the most to get them into power. We have seen this in the past, no matter which political party.

From a non-partisan perspective, we all need to take a step back and realize this is a very positive way. It is a legacy we can all be proud of in making a positive change in the Government of Canada.

The only difference today is that Canadians now have the opportunity to express their preferences for Senate nominees to the Prime Minister before he provides his advice to the Governor General. Looking at this process since 1989, Albertans have been providing that opportunity for their residents to vote and then give that name forward to the Prime Minister to make that choice.

The challenge of opening up the Constitution, as the Liberals have specifically indicated, is that it is a seven-fifty amending process formula. That means that seven provinces representing 50% of the population have to be in agreement, and we know how difficult that will be. It has been very difficult. Our Minister of Agriculture has been working with all the provinces to revitalize our CAIS program, helping our agricultural community and working tirelessly, and that is a very challenging perspective, getting all 13 voices together.

We need to take this in baby steps. It is a stepped approach. It is common sense, realistic and achievable.

Paragraph 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982, requires a seven-fifty amending process for an amendment to the Constitution to alter the method of selecting senators, but the Senate appointment consultations process does not change the method of selecting senators provided in the Constitution. Therefore, there is no requirement for a constitutional amendment and no need for a Supreme Court reference.

The opposition members have to get it through their heads that this does not require a Supreme Court or a constitutional amendment, and I am opening the whole debate. This is an achievable approach. It is realistic and we need to hammer that home. We are standing up for Canadians and asking the 308 elected members in this House to do the will of Canadians.

The Governor General currently has the power to summon individuals to the Senate on the advice of the Prime Minister and this will continue after the passage of the bill. Basically nothing will change. The people will vote and through their local provinces or territories, the names will come to the Prime Minister. In reality, I cannot see any Prime Minister not accepting that person's name if he or she is qualified. The Prime Minister will do that. I know our Prime Minister has firmly said that he will be doing that as the opportunity presents itself.

Basically, this bill provides a mechanism for consultations to be held in one or more provinces to seek the preferences of the electorate on individuals who offer themselves as potential Senate nominees. Anyone who is 30 years of age right now can get into the Senate, except it is for 45 years. With our 66 word bill that is still floundering around there in the other place, we are trying to get a term limit through, whether it is 7, 8, 10 or 12 years instead of the 45 years. We are trying to have two accountable houses and an open, transparent government for Canadians.

The Prime Minister will still have the discretion to decide in which province or provinces the consultations will be held, how many places in the Senate are subject to the consultations, and in fact whether the consultations will be held for current vacancies only or current vacancies plus future vacancies, or just future vacancies.

The process is not triggered automatically by vacancies and there will not be Senate byelections. Consultations will normally take place at the same time as a federal general election, so there is no real additional cost to Canadians. It is included in the process. They will go to the ballot. They will choose the party member that they want to select, and check off the name of the individual, the party, or someone who is running under an independent banner for the Senate.

Consultations will be smooth. The bill provides for some flexibility though, allowing that the consultations could be held at the same time as a provincial general election if an agreement is in place with the province. We are working together with the provinces and territories. I know that is something we always have to keep in mind, that we are partners in government and we work together.

This bill provides for consultations to be carried out with the use of a preferential voting system known as the single transferrable vote. In contrast to the voting system used for the House of Commons elections, electors will be able to rank their preferred candidates on a ballot.

Candidates receiving a defined quota of votes will be included on the list of selected Senate nominees for the Prime Minister's consideration. Should a selected nominee receive votes in excess of the quota, those votes in excess of the quota would be distributed to the electors next preferences. The vote transfer process will continue until enough nominees are selected for the number of places subject to consultation.

It is a privilege and an honour as the member of Parliament for Kelowna—Lake Country to stand here in the House today and speak about a bill that is helping to bring reformation to the other place in this Parliament that is long overdue.

I thank the members opposite for their attention. I hope they will give due consideration for this incremental step that I have said is common sense, reasonable and achievable.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it appears that the other parties are not interested in speaking to this bill.

I would like to answer a question from one of my colleagues earlier about what the Liberals did in the last 10 years with respect to democratic initiatives. I guess the member forgot that his own party appointed the member for Newmarket—Aurora as the minister for democratic reform. However, regrettably, the member did not win through the democratic process to the level she wanted and resigned. So, they did do something.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Brandon—Souris.

I am standing today on behalf of my constituents, the good people of Cambridge and North Dumfries, who actually support improving democracy. They like the idea of giving some of the power back to the people. They do not like the backroom deals that we have come to know from the Liberal Party. They do not like when the Liberals keep doing that, as they just did by making Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, an honorary member.

People in my riding of Cambridge do not like the political stacking, the partisanship that takes place, and the personal gains that are made for political purposes all the way up to the Senate. Specifically, the people in my riding of Cambridge do not like the favour the few kind of attitude. They like politics to be played out when it favours Canadians.

In particular, my riding of Cambridge is now suffering from some bad decisions made by the provincial Liberals. They have taken back money that has been promised to the hospital in my riding for many years. The only logical reason for that is that the Liberal support is collapsing in the riding of Cambridge and North Dumfries. Constituents do not want more growth in the area of partisanship by anybody here in Ottawa.

Constituents in my riding of Cambridge and North Dumfries are an honest group of people with the foundations of hard work and entrepreneurship. They go to work every day for the most part. They work hard, long hours and pay their taxes. They do not like paying as much tax as they pay and we are responding to that. They are an extremely generous group of people not just with their money and donating to the hospital but with their time. It is a very intelligent group of people. They want an increase in democracy. They want democracy to change for the better, not for the worse. They see that as a good thing.

They want to eliminate any bit of partisanship or preference to a political party or any decision making in Ottawa that favours a certain group, in particular a political group or individual, or the spouse of a campaign manager. They do not want that any more. They are tired of that kind of stuff. They see the effect of that over time and it is not a good thing.

The people in Cambridge and North Dumfries want the House of Commons and the Senate, not just when it is convenient or before an election, to put them first always, and they should be. They do not want anyone in Ottawa working for members of Parliament in Ottawa. They want us to act in the best interests of Canada and Canadians, not the best interests of the future of the Liberal Party, as dim as that may be.

That is why people in Cambridge did not like the sponsorship scandal. They did not like it. They did not like the sponsorship scandal because it actually favoured a few people for political gain. They prefer that we work for them.

They are happy that we, the new Conservative government, have found creative and innovative ways to change democracy and put them first, not continue to put ourselves first and look out for our futures. We are here to look out for their futures.

Bill C-43 does take one more step forward. It is part of this government's obligations and our commitment to put Canadians first. It is good for Canadians, good for Cambridge and good for North Dumfries, and therefore I intend to support Bill C-43.

It is great to be here on this side of the House and be a part of the new, fresh Conservative Government of Canada. I will tell members why. This government is focused on putting Canadians first. On our crime and justice agenda, this government has brought forward a dozen crime and justice bills, if members can believe it , one dozen, which all the parties supported during the election.

Of course that is what those parties do when they look out only for themselves, but this government made promises during the election and here we are in government moving forward on our promises.

Yet the opposition is now opposing our crime and justice bills. Let us imagine that. These are political flip-flop games that the opposition members play at the expense of people in my riding, at the expense of safety in my community and at the expense of safe streets.

As well, the Liberals pretty much destroyed our environment when they were in power. They did absolutely nothing. In fact, it became an embarrassment. Canada became an embarrassment on the world stage. However, as we know, they promised to do it time and time again and asked Canadians to give them another chance. Canadians did so because Canadians are good people. We gave them another chance. They still did nothing. Now we know, from various statements made by those members, that they had no intention of doing it.

This new Canadian government, this new Conservative government, is here for the people of Canada. We have brought forward a number of environmental initiatives that will work both to clean up the environment, with technology that we are going to share around the world, and to maintain the health of Canadians, not just their physical health and mental health, but the health of their economy.

One of the first things this new and fresh government did was bring out the Federal Accountability Act, which of course the opposition changed a hundred ways from Sunday. Let us imagine taking money for a political campaign from children. That is definitely not for Canadians. That is for personal political gains.

I am absolutely thrilled to be part of this new and fresh team that comes up with creative and innovative ideas and actually puts Canadians first. Bill C-43 is a perfect example of that. I just hope it does not get stuck in the Senate, because there are a lot more words in this one than the 66 words in Bill S-4. I think that is at about five days for each letter now, a difficult bill that the Liberal-dominated unelected Senate has been struggling with for some time now. I sure hope this bill does not become another example of that kind of democracy.

Let me explain what Bill C-43 is all about.

Very basically, it says that we have a couple of vacancies for the Senate in a particular province and the bill allows the people in that province to put names forward through an election process run by the Chief Electoral Officer. How innovative. That list of names goes to the Prime Minister. He then selects the names. He may in fact infer that the aboriginal communities should have better representation there. Maybe a province has selected five people for three positions and the Prime Minister thinks we need more women in the Senate. Those are decisions and powers that remain. Ultimately, none of this is going to affect the Governor General's authority because the Governor General still maintains the ability to do the appointment.

Here is what people in Cambridge did not like either: they did not like it when they heard the leader of the official opposition say that the Liberals had to get back to power as quickly as possible. But here is what people in Cambridge like: as Canadians, they want be restored to power. Bill C-43 restores just a little bit more of the influence that Canadians have on the Senate. For that reason, on behalf of the good people in Cambridge and North Dumfries, I am going to support Bill C-43.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to ask what we are debating. We are supposed to be debating Bill C-43. Have we changed the debate since I came into the House?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

First, I want to comment on a couple of things. I want to congratulate the Senate for its work on bills as was just mentioned. A bill, no matter how short, can be bad and should be improved and dealt with. The senators should not be bullied into pushing forward a bad bill. I congratulate the senators for their work.

A Conservative member asked about democratic reform in the previous government. The point was made that during the previous government the biggest changes perhaps in history, but at least in modern history, were made to advance democratic reform in the House of Commons. Great credit has to go to the member for LaSalle—Émard who made those changes. I will mention three of them.

First was the increased funding for the Library of Parliament to help members of Parliament to have substantial research input into bills.

Second was the election of committee chairs. This might have emanated from the opposition, but the last government brought it forward. It is distressing that the new government has taken a backward step in democratic reform by revoking that, at least within its party in not allowing elected committee chairs. The democratization of that process was done by the member for LaSalle—Émard.

Probably the greatest reform that really changed the dynamics of the House at the time was the bringing in of the three line whip. It allowed members to take their own positions on a large number of items, confidence motions as they always were, budgets, throne speeches, these types of bills, on which the government has a position. Unfortunately, we have not seen that recently from the government side, but we have certainly seen that democratization on this side of the House with significant input for members to represent their ridings.

Now I would like to get back to Bill C-43. As has been clear on this side of the House, I and other members are definitely in favour of appropriate, rational and comprehensive Senate reform. That is not the issue. Once again, if there is a bad bill, one that does not do the job, obviously we have to either amend it or defeat it.

I am not sure what the Conservative member who was complaining about the stalling of bills has to say about this, but it is surprising that this bill was tabled four months ago and it is only now before us. Why was it sitting around when it could have been brought forward a lot earlier?

The Liberal position is to have full scale comprehensive Senate reform. If we are to reform a body that is complex and which interacts in the legislative process with other bodies, obviously we have to put it all together for it to make sense. When a Ford truck is broken, we do not drop in a Volkswagen engine and assume it will fit and that the truck will start. It will not fit. It is air cooled. We will burn the engine out. We cannot try to make a change to one part.

In this particular case, it is not a change that will be effective. We should not try to make a change which would make the whole system fall apart. It would create more problems than if we looked at the whole situation and how all the parts are interrelated. I will give some examples later in my speech that outline how the different parts of the system would be negatively affected by tinkering with one part without considering the ramifications on the other parts.

It is astonishing that the Conservatives would put forward a bill that would hurt Alberta and British Columbia so much, that would decrease their representation in Canadian affairs. I am sure some Conservative members did not realize this because the individual members did not write the bill, but it is still a fact. We would never, on this side of the House at least, approve a bill that would hurt Alberta and British Columbia so much without making the appropriate adjustments to make sure they were represented.

Some references were made in previous speeches to the Law Reform Commission. This commission did a remarkable study on electoral reform and I will quote from Hansard what was said about the report. One would hope that any bill on electoral reform would look at that expert information and refer to it.

It was stated in Hansard:

The report is perhaps the finest treatment of the question of electoral reform in a modern democracy that has ever been written.

When the official opposition critic asked if any members of the government had read this report, not one member stood. If would seem that if we were designing a bill, we would look at all the intelligence available, especially at the best report ever written. Hopefully, before this debate is over, a Conservative member will stand and say that he or she has read that report and, more important, that it had an effect on this bill before us that has been criticized so much.

Can anyone imagine having the Law Commission of Canada Act, an act of Parliament, disrespected by the government? There are statutory responsibilities under that act to perform services for Canadians. By law, the government must do things for Canadians but the zero funding in the budget is very questionable in relation to the proper functioning of democracy.

Another issue that has been raised in the debate about the bill is, as the deputy House leader from the Conservatives said, that it skirts constitutionality. It may be constitutional and it may not. If the bill gets to committee, we will certainly want to hear from experts on both sides of that issue, to be fair, as to whether changing one piece of a complex system would be constitutional. As all members of the House know, there are certain changes to the Senate that cannot be made in this manner or by simply bringing a bill before the House of Commons.

The other major point is that the bill would not do anything. What would it achieve? The prime minister can already appoint members. In fact, this morning one of the opposition members, in response to a question, made the point that in 1998 Prime Minister Mulroney appointed Stan Waters.

I think westerners would probably be appalled if they knew that the prime minister would not need to follow the results of these elections. If westerners elect someone the prime minister does not like, he would not need to make that appointment. The decision would still be up to him.

Let us be frank: the Conservative government does not really want to change Bill C-43. It just wants to keep an old Conservative promise to its electoral base without really taking the time to reform the Senate. Once again, it is a shame that this government is pursuing its own political agenda at the expense of real reforms that would benefit all Canadians.

I now want to try solving the perplexing question as to why the government would put forward a bill that, as I have outlined, does not change anything and, were it to change anything, it would cause all sorts of other problems.

The reason that has been hypothesized by a number of speakers so far is that the government is trying to appease its western Conservative base which it has upset so much. People might ask why the Conservatives are angry and why they are hastily bringing forward a bill with, as people have outlined, all the flaws to appease that base.

The first reason is that right after the election the Prime Minister appointed Senator Fortier after saying that all appointments would be made on merit. This came as quite a shock to Conservatives across the country but they gave them a second chance. However, it did not last very long.

The second reason is that after speaking adamantly against floor crossing while in opposition and after 40 Conservative members voted against floor crossing in a bill, the Prime Minister appointed a Liberal as a minister before a number of Conservatives who had worked hard for the party. I am delighted that we have a Liberal in cabinet but I think a number of Conservatives were upset about that appointment.

The third reason is the fact that the government has become a huge spender. After telling people for years and ranting against the NDP and others who would spend a lot of money, the Conservatives brought in the biggest spending budget in history.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

This is what I find really interesting. Whenever we have this debate, we hear nothing but chirping from the other side because we touch a nerve. The Liberals know what I am saying is right but they just do not like it. They do not like to hear the words which exhibit the type of favouritism and patronage they exhibited during the many years they were in government.

Again, I go back to the fact that if they truly believe what they are saying about accountability and democratic reform, why can they not support a bill such as Bill C-43? It is the height of hypocrisy and sanctimony. They say on one hand that they want democratic reform, but that they do not like this. They like the current system where they can appoint their friends to the Senate. It comes down to that.

Senator Jim Munson, who was the former director of communications to Prime Minister Chrétien, was appointed. Why? I suggest because he was a loyal soldier to Prime Minister Chrétien and was rewarded, when Prime Minister Chrétien left office, by getting an appointment to the Senate. Francis Fox is another example. There are many. It should not be allowed to happen. What is the problem with allowing individual citizens to comment on who they would like to represent them in the Senate?

I also want to point out that this concept of having the people engage in a consultation process before senators are appointed is widely supported by Canadians across Canada. There will be some, such as our friends in the NDP, who do not want a Senate at all. They want the Senate abolished. Therefore, they would not support a bill of this sort.

Some years ago I would probably have put myself in the category of those who wanted the Senate done away with. I did not really see the need for a Senate at all times or at any time. I have since changed my view on that. Since I have been in this place, I have seen, from time to time, the upper chamber actually perform the service it is intended to perform, and that is to be the voice of reason or the voice of sober second thought.

From time to time, pieces of legislation have gone from this place to the upper chamber and brought back with meaningful, realistic and important amendments that make a bill stronger. That is an important function. However, what I cannot abide by are bills like Bill S-4, which would purport to put a term limit on senators, unduly and purposely delayed, obstructed by the unelected senators in the upper chamber simply because they do not want the system to change.

It has been said in the House before that under the current system senators can serve their terms for up to 45 years. They can be appointed at age 30 and serve, as it stands now, until age 75. Bill S-4 would set a term limit of eight years so any senator, after being appointed, would only serve for a term of eight years.

I understand that the leader of the official opposition has taken several positions on this bill. I understand he supports it in theory. He has said from time to time that he supports terms limits anywhere from six to eight, to ten to twelve, to fourteen or fifteen years. I do not know what is going to happen when the Senate finally gets around to dealing with the bill. Regardless, it is one step in Senate reform to have term limits set upon senators who are appointed to that place.

This is another important step because it allows individuals to comment and express their opinions on who they wish as their appointed representatives. What could be fairer?

We have a democratic system in our country right now where all members of this place are elected. Would anyone suggest that we go away from that system and have members of Parliament appointed? Of course not, it makes absolutely no sense. One of the basic tenets of our democracy is the fact that elected representatives are just that: elected by the people they represent. Yet in the Senate, it is just the opposite.

We have senators in my province of Saskatchewan and in Ontario and in every province who are supposedly there to represent the people of those provinces, but were not elected by the citizens of those provinces. Where is the fairness in that? Where is the accountability? I would suggest there is none.

The bill would address that flaw in the current system. It would allow individuals across the country to cast a vote, to voice their opinion on who they wished to see as their senator in their region. Who can argue with that basic tenet?

Apparently Liberals can because they are voicing their opinion today in this debate. I certainly suspect that when it comes time for the bill to be voted upon, they will voice their opinion by voting against the bill, but I cannot understand why. How can they say they are in favour of democracy and then vote against the system that would allow democracy to take place?

There are a few aspects of the bill that are worth noting as well. The first one is the method in which voting would take place during the consultation process. Currently, as everyone here knows, to be elected as a member of Parliament, we go through the first past the post electoral system. In a federal election in our home ridings, if we get more votes than any of our opponents, regardless of the percentage of that vote, we will be elected to this place.

When I was first elected in 2004, I was elected with receiving just above 33% of the vote. I won by 122 votes. This means at that time roughly 67% of the people in my riding did not want me to be their representative, but they got me anyway. In the second election luckily I was able to increase that amount to about 43% or 44%, but it still was not the majority. The majority of people in my riding voted for someone else. We suspect that even though this system seems to have worked well over time for the members of Parliament, we should enact a different voting system for those people who cast ballots on the consultation process for senators. Why? For a couple of reasons.

The primary reason is if we had the same voting system for electing members of Parliament, the first past the post system, we might end up with the same results. I am not saying that is necessarily a bad thing. What I am saying is if we had a different system of voting, it might be able to properly reflect the wishes of the majority of people in that region who are expressing an opinion.

Therefore, contained in Bill C-43 we have a provision that would allow for preferential voting, or at least a preferential voting system, the single transferrable ballot, to elect members.

How that works very simply is this. There may be a number of candidates who are putting their names forward for senators. The individuals who wish to express their opinion cast ballots marking their preference, either one, two or three. If there were three candidates, they would mark their first choice, second choice and third choice. If there is no majority on the first ballot, in other words if none of the candidates receive over 50% of first ballot support, we would then go to a system where we start counting the second ballots and add that to the total.

At the end of the day, those people who were selected or at least elected at the consultation level would have at minimum 50% plus one vote of all those who cast ballots. By the time the prime minister got around to appointing the individual to the Senate, he or she could be absolutely assured that the individual had the majority of support of the people within their province.

We do not have this system in the lower House, but it is one that I believe is a very necessary and a very democratic method. That is why I believe this bill, through all the various aspects of the bill, is something we should support. Again, it allows for accountability. It allows for the senators, who are appointed, to be accountable to the people who cast ballots for them, rather than being appointed just because of who they know in the PMO. It also ensures that we have some democratic rights at the provincial and territorial level. Finally, it allows the assurances of the prime minister that the majority of people in the province actually voted for and wanted the senator who ultimately becomes appointed.

I look forward to taking questions from the members of the opposition.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very great pleasure for me to stand in this place today to speak in favour of Bill C-43 on Senate consultations.

Let me say at the outset that this is only one bill in a suite of legislation that the government has been bringing forward on democratic reform.

We have seen Bill C-16, which is a bill to set fixed dates for elections. It received royal assent just recently and will come into effect. It states, of course, that outside of a non-confidence vote, which may bring the government down at any time, the next election will be held on the third Monday in October 2009. It is a very important piece of democratic reform that is overwhelmingly supported by Canadians.

We also have Bill C-31, which is currently in the Senate. It is moving its way along through committee. It deals with voter integrity and trying to eliminate voter fraud. I am quite confident that this bill will receive royal assent before the House rises for the summer.

However, we also have another bill in the Senate, Bill S-4. We have spoken many times on many occasions in this place about Bill S-4, but I have to say that frankly I cannot fathom why this bill has taken as long as it has in the Senate. For the benefit of those Canadians who may be listening, Bill S-4 is a 66-word bill that has been before the Liberal-dominated and unelected Senate for close to one year now. In fact, May 30 will see the one year anniversary of the bill being before the Senate.

This is a 66-word bill that has been there for close to 12 months. By my rough math, that is a little over five words per month that these primarily Liberal senators have been examining in regard to the bill. All this says to me is that either the bill contains some really big words or there is a second agenda at hand, and that agenda is that the Liberal senators do not want to see Senate reform. They do not want to see Bill S-4 pass.

I have examined the bill and I can assure members that the words are not so big such that it would take five words per month to examine the bill, so I have to go to my second assumption, that is, the Liberal senators truly do not want to see any real and effective Senate reform. Why else would they keep a bill that is so short, so succinct, so precise and so to the point locked up in the Senate for close to a year?

If nothing else, that bill in itself speaks to why we need Senate reform. It speaks to why we need a bill like Bill C-43, which allows the process to be taken away from the prime minister of the day in regard to the appointment of his hacks and flacks to the Senate and allows individual Canadians to express an opinion on who they would like to see represent their region or province in the Senate.

I can think of no greater example than the travesty of Bill S-4 for supporting this bill, yet I hear nothing but opposition from members of the official opposition party, members of the New Democratic Party and members of the Bloc Québécois, who are saying they will not support Bill C-43, consultations that in effect would allow a prime minister to listen to Canadians before he or she makes an appointment to the Senate.

If we truly believe in accountability then we must support Bill C-43, yet I hear nothing but opposition from members opposite, and again, that confuses me. On the one hand I hear members opposite talk about the need for Senate reform, for accountability and for regional representation, yet I hear nothing but opposition to a very good piece of legislation that we have put before the House for discussion and debate.

Bill C-43 deals with a very important conception of ours, which is that all members, whether in this place or the other place, should be accountable. There is only one way to deal with true accountability. That is to allow the individual citizens of this great country of ours to have a say in who represents them so that in fact the representatives then would be accountable to the citizens rather than those who appointed them.

That is the essence of Bill C-43. It is to allow consultations to take place at a provincial or a territorial level. Those consultations, in which the will of the people would be expressed, then would allow the prime minister of the day to appoint the individual to the Senate. In other words, it does not in any way take away from the constitutionality that has been in question from time to time during this debate. In fact, it accommodates the Constitution.

I take some difference of opinion with my hon. colleague the deputy House leader who said that the bill would allow us to skirt the Constitution. I do not like that choice of language. I choose to say that the bill would allow us to accommodate the provisions contained within the current Constitution, and those provisions say that only the Governor General can appoint members to the Senate. The current convention is that the Governor General, before making that appointment, would take advice from the prime minister of the day, and only the prime minister. That would still be in effect. Therefore, the constitutionality argument is really mute.

The prime minister would still appoint senators to the upper house, but only after the prime minister listened to the expressed will, through a consultation process, of the citizens in various provinces, territories and regions. What could be fairer and more transparent than that? What could be more accountable than that?

We on this side of the House say that we have to get away from the process that has occurred for the last 100 years where, for strictly partisan reasons, members of the upper house have been appointed. In all fairness, we have seen time and time again appointments made on a partisan level regardless of political affiliation and regardless of which party happens to be in government of the day.

We have seen time after time Liberal prime ministers appoint Liberal senators for no other reason than the fact that the person has been a good, loyal political partisan soldier to the Liberal Party. We have also seen that happen when Conservative governments have been in power. Conservative governments have appointed Conservative senators because of their loyalty and partisanship to the government of the day. My point is that should not be allowed to happen because there really is no accountability to the people. There is only accountability to the party of the day, or the prime minister who made the appointment.

We need to get away from that method of appointing senators. We have to allow Canadian citizens a voice in who they wish to see represent them in the Senate.

The bill deals with that in a very precise, succinct and fair manner. Consultations would be taken during federal elections at the provincial level. Should the citizens of a particular province decide they wished to see a certain individual represent them in the Senate, that would allow the prime minister to advise the Governor General of his will to appoint that person.

We do not have a constitutional argument here. We have a fairness argument, and it absolutely works.

Many times we have seen appointments made to the Senate which, under normal circumstances by anyone's standards, would not be considered to be fair and would not be considered to be representative of the people of that province. I want to draw to the House's attention only a couple of those examples.

In my opinion one of the most egregious uses of this appointment process happened with a current senator by the name of Art Eggleton, a former mayor of Toronto, a former Liberal member of Parliament and a former Liberal cabinet minister. Most Canadians will recall the disgrace in which Mr. Eggleton was dismissed from cabinet. He was found guilty of awarding untendered contracts to one of his former girlfriends. What was his reward? His reward was an appointment to the Senate. That, under normal circumstances, would never happen.

I am sure if we took a look at some of the other names of current senators in the upper chamber, we would find that the reason those people were appointed was because of the loyalty they exhibited to the party. They were appointed not because they were deserving of representing the people, but only because they curried favour with the prime minister of the day or the government of the day.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

One of the reasons I am interested in being here today is that in a previous life I was parliamentary secretary to the minister responsible for democratic reform. I also sat with the previous hon. member on the procedure and House affairs committee where I had the opportunity to travel with Ed Broadbent to several countries in Europe to establish a process on how we could study democratic reform here in Canada. It, therefore, is something I am very interested in but I also feel that the bill could be entitled “how to fulfill your electoral promises while not engaging in any of the significant constitutional changes that you promised”.

Before going further, let us start by understanding what the Senate does. To function well, any independent state needs a system of checks and balances, mechanisms to ensure that all political decisions are in the best interests of the population and all citizens.

The Canadian Senate is our checks and balances. Senators are there to provide sober second thought on the work done by the House of Commons and, since senators are not subject to the vagaries of elections, they can track issues over a longer period of time than can members of Parliament. Canadian senators can contribute to indepth studies by Senate committees on public issues, such as health care in Canada, illegal drugs, deregulation of the Canadian airline industry and urban aboriginal youth.

Furthermore, the wide range of experience of Canadian senators, who include former Canadian provincial premiers, cabinet ministers, business people from many Canadian economic sectors and respected Canadians from all walks of life, provide substantial expertise to these investigations. Senators also represent regional, provincial and minority interests that tend to be overlooked in the House of Commons. Therefore, the Senate is like the watchdog of Canadian politics, but it is a lot more than that.

I will attest to that from my own personal experience. When I first came here as a member of Parliament some five years ago, at my first meeting of the northern western caucus I had an opportunity to meet Senators Dan Hays, Jack Austin and Jack Wiebe from Saskatchewan. I had the preconceptions that probably many Canadians have, that senators are not necessarily that useful and are not doing much of a job. However, after that first meeting with them, my whole concept of the Senate and the quality of the people completely changed.

What I found with the people I just named and those with whom we share the second House is that they have a huge passion for their regions and provinces. Members of Parliament obviously do but our knowledge is limited to our ridings. However, I do not believe we could find better people who have a better understanding and a better perception of what is going on in their province or region as a whole than those senators.

I would like to name a few people and talk about the actual work they have done on certain files. In Manitoba, for instance, Senator Carstairs is now one of the world authorities on palliative care. She is asked to speak everywhere in the world. I know she travels a lot and is asked to go all over Europe to speak on palliative care. It is very important for us to have people like her representing Canada. When she is out there, she is speaking on behalf of the Canadian Parliament and we are very proud of that.

I look at Mobina Jaffer and her fight for Darfur. It is extremely important to have Ms. Jaffer representing us on Darfur.

I think of Roméo Dallaire. Can anyone think of a better person to have in terms of someone who knows about genocide and about the tough areas in the world? He has been a wealth of information. His credibility on the world stage is second to none. Those are the kinds of people we have in the Senate who are providing leadership and advice to both Houses.

On the cultural side, we have people like Andrée Champagne and Viola Léger who have contributed incredibly on the cultural side. We also have Hugh Segal and Norm Atkins. I could go on forever. The quality of the people in the Senate is varied, it is solid and they make a very strong contribution to Parliament as a whole.

For decades, discussions have taken place and studies have been undertaken on the need to reform the Senate. Some have simply asked for the total abolition of the Senate, pleading that the Senate accomplishes nothing. The leader of the Reform Party, Preston Manning, campaigned for a triple E Senate: effective, equal and elected. Many asked for a better representation of British Columbia and Alberta in the Senate.

Canada has undergone many major demographic shifts since the 1970s and it is easy to understand why a major reform of the Senate is needed. However, let us face it, as we say, “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. If the government is not willing to fully go ahead with a true, complete and real reform of the Senate, which requires wide consultation with the provinces and the ever perilous road to constitutional amendment, then it should not try to use smoke and mirrors to project the image that it does care about Senate reform, as it is trying to do with Bill C-43.

When I was referring to our study in Europe on democratic reform, my Conservative colleagues who were with me will certainly confirm that nobody thought we should be doing democratic reform on a piecemeal basis. Every country we visited told us that whatever we did we should ensure to analyze everything because by changing one thing we could affect another. That is extremely important to note and that is one of the reasons we think this legislation is not very serious.

Our government structure is based on the British parliamentary system and if we were to take one piece away, it would affect something else negatively. I am not sure all the repercussions have been examined and explored. We live in a very successful democracy right now. Our system does seem to be working fairly well. Is there a better democracy in the world than Canada? Someone would need to name them because I think we have been very successful over our last 125 to 130 years as a country.

The reality is that Bill C-43 contains no real reform for the Senate. The bill is full of flaws and has an extraordinarily high potential to create awkward, bizarre situations. Even from a Conservative partisan perspective, the bill is far less than what the Conservatives promised and it actually creates more problems than it solves.

Let us be frank. The Conservative government is not really seeking reform with Bill C-43. It simply wishes to keep an old Conservative promise made to its political base without taking the time to truly reform the Senate. Once again it is unfortunate that this government is putting its own election platform ahead of real reforms that would benefit all Canadians.

Once again it is a question of perception.

It reminds me of the Federal Accountability Act. The Conservatives have been talking about the accountability act as the best thing since sliced bread.

In fact, when we start looking at the details and we start at looking at what is going on within the accountability act, we are finding certain things. For instance, part of the backbone of the accountability act was the public appointments commission. It would be a commission with people and guidelines in place to make sure that when we nominated people to certain appointments, it would be a fair, just and transparent process. But in fact, literally hundreds of people have been named over the last little while and there is no public appointments commission yet.

When we ask the President of the Treasury Board why that is so, he will just say that it is a complicated issue and it takes time. But Canadians are not fooled by that. They know that the Conservatives need to bring in their 300, 400 or 500 Conservative crony appointments before they can do this. That is what is sad. It is all about smoke and mirrors when they do this kind of thing. But the Canadian public is getting wise and they are seeing that this accountability act is not real .

I think we are seeing similarities here with Bill C-43. The Conservatives always speak against the Senate, that the Senate is not effective, that it does not do its job. But in fact when it serves their purpose, all of a sudden the Senate is allowable. Mr. Fortier was brought in as a minister through the Senate and all of a sudden that is acceptable and that is okay. So, there are certainly some major double standards here.

Bill C-43 is about trying to deal with constitutional matters without touching the Constitution. It cannot be done, clearly. Bill C-43 will not do it. In fact, some might even question the constitutionality of this proposed bill. I know my colleague asked that exact question a few minutes ago. I am sure there are experts right now who are not sure if this bill is constitutional.

Even if Bill C-43 is adopted, the Prime Minister will have full power to appoint whoever he wants to the Senate, as we saw last week. The Prime Minister is already choosing senators based on public consultations, as he did last week by appointing Bert Brown. I know my colleague spoke to that a few minutes ago.

This is nothing new or revolutionary. Almost 20 years ago Brian Mulroney appointed Stan Waters based on the result of a public consultation in Alberta. So, clearly, there is nothing new in Bill C-43 and it is not what it is all hyped up to be.

With the adoption of Bill C-43, the government would consult the population with regard to Senate candidates, but it would not make these consultations binding, like true elections. There is always a condition there and that has a lot of people very upset. Again, it is about smoke and mirrors. It is about the perception that the Conservatives are making real changes but in the end the Prime Minister will have the final decision as to who gets named.

This means that if the Prime Minister disagrees with the winner of one of these Senate consultations, he could technically ignore the result and appoint whoever he wants. This is not how democracy works. This is not a true elected Senate. Even more troubling is that it could create awkward situations where an elected senator is not appointed to the Senate by the Prime Minister. But for the government it is about, again, smoke and mirrors, making people think that they are making meaningful change, but it is not reality.

Do not get me wrong. I fully support reforming Canada's Senate. But on this side of the House, we believe true Senate reform needs to reflect some public policy while respecting the Constitution. The Liberal Party believes in democratic reforms. We believe in concrete, complete and real democratic reforms. It is just unfortunate that Bill C-43 is not such a reform.

Once again, I refer the members to the study we did, I believe it was last year. Half of the procedure and House affairs committee travelled to Australia, I believe, and the other half to Europe. I was on the European trip. The advice we had from people who had done some major democratic reform was not to do it piecemeal. We were told to ensure that it is very comprehensive. I am very concerned. My Conservatives colleagues who were on that trip with us heard that as well and it seems to me that they are not listening to the advice that we received from a lot of experts.

If this government truly wants to reform the Senate, my party would be happy to collaborate and ensure a real and complete Senate reform is put forward. But true Senate reform needs to address a number of issues that are totally ignored by Bill C-43.

I believe the Senate needs to represent all provinces and territories and give a voice to those who do not have one. Regional representation is extremely important, but the process of electing senators, particularly in large provinces, would be unwieldy and would give unprecedented influence to large urban areas over small communities.

In the United States, senators such as Patrick Leahy of Vermont and the late Edmund Muskie of Maine have clearly shown how regional representation is important. Although they have come from tiny states, they have had a voice in the American senate.

Unfortunately, Bill C-43 totally ignores provincial and regional equity. It weakens the voice of provinces such as British Columbia and Alberta, as those two provinces currently have fewer senators than the population warrants. It seems that this would be a major concern to some of our current Conservative colleagues from western Canada.

Alberta and B.C. have been growing disproportionately and we now have an inequity when it comes to representation in the Senate. It seems to me that this is the kind of thing that should be included in any change that we make. We cannot just leave that aside and deal with one issue when the other one is brewing as well. That is what we are talking about when we say that we are not dealing with the whole issue.

Perhaps more troubling is the fact that no consultations with the provinces and territories were held prior to the introduction of Bill C-43. So far both the provinces of Ontario and Quebec have already come out against the idea of piecemeal Senate reform and so did Yukon. I am sure that is why my hon. colleague from Yukon is here sitting beside me. He wants to make sure that his territory is well represented in the bill.

When the government does not have the approval of Ontario and Quebec, those are substantially big provinces that are missing. When such considerable changes are being contemplated to the way that Parliament functions, we would think that there would be a buy-in from the big players. Actually, the government should have it from all the players, if possible, but when Quebec and Ontario say that they do not agree, then the government has a problem.

In addition, provincial Senate elections would be very detrimental to candidates from minority groups. The issue is very important and particularly disturbing for Manitoba. My province has a large number of anglophones and francophones are a very small minority. If senators are elected for the entire province, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Franco-Manitoban senate candidates to get elected. It will be almost impossible, given their numbers, to get an Acadian senator elected in Nova Scotia, for example, or in Alberta.

Since Confederation, Manitoba has had a francophone senator. For the Franco-Manitoban community, this has been vital. There is usually only one francophone MP and rarely are there two. There is usually one francophone MP serving all of western Canada. At present, we also have Senator Chaput from Manitoba and Senator Tardif from Edmonton. These additional representatives are of extraordinary assistance in supporting the efforts of francophone communities and francophone MPs from the west, who are attempting to support all their fellow citizens but who nevertheless have large francophone communities in their ridings.

I am thinking of Gildas Molgat, former Speaker of the Senate. He was one of the longest-serving Speakers of the Senate, and an extraordinary person. His term was renewed. I think he was the only person who served two terms, but I am not positive. He was well respected by all his colleague in both Houses. Mr. Molgat came from the small town of Sainte-Rose-du-Lac. With a small francophone minority, it would have been very surprising for him to have been elected. We believe that we would lose out on having people like Gildas Molgat.

I would like to come back to Claudette Tardif, former rector of Campus Saint-Jean and a invaluable asset to the Senate. If the Senate wants to really fulfil its mission and represent all regions of the country and all communities, all Canadians and official language minority communities must be represented in the Senate. The situation is not exclusive to the country's francophones. It would also be the case for the Métis, aboriginals and representatives of cultural communities, not to mention people from rural areas, who, statistically speaking, have fewer candidates in elections.

Senators from the Northwest Territories and Yukon sit on our northern and western caucus. They represent their region and represent, for example, the interests of Inuit, aboriginal, first nations and Métis people. If we had an elected Senate, these elements could disappear, and this is very worrisome. I think going from the current Senate—which is regional and representative of Canada's cultural diversity—to a more or less male and homogenous Senate, as the House of Commons now is unfortunately, would not necessarily be a step forward.

As for limits to senators' terms, I support maximum non-renewable terms. This would still enable the Senate to benefit from the wisdom and experience of seasoned senators while ensuring a good flow of new ideas and vision from newly elected senators.

There are many flaws in the bill and important items completely left out from Bill C-43. In some, the question we must address today is how to reform the Senate.

The Conservatives are proposing a piecemeal deal that will actually aggravate the problem of potential deadlock between the two houses of Parliament while increasing partisanship in the Senate. I really do not think they thought this scenario through.

On our side of the House in my party what we want and what we stand for is real Senate reform that would consider a wide number of critical issues: first, selection process and term; second, mandate; and third, fair distribution. We support Senate reform that would actually resolve problems instead of creating new ones. We support a reform that would better Canadian politics, not create deadlock between the House and the Senate.

This Prime Minister thrives on division and discord, not unity and harmony. This is but another example of that. Once again, the government is standing up for a partisan perception and image, rather than for a fairer and better Canada for all its citizens.

Unfortunately, Bill C-43 is just one more example of the government spending months taking its right-wing base of support for granted, and then trying to please it to keep it on its side.

Before tabling an act to provide for consultation with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, I suggest the government consult with the provinces on their preferences for Senate reforms. Perhaps this way we could see the Conservatives introduce real, concrete and complete Senate reform, rather than the piecemeal bill we have before us with Bill C-43.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not mean to be difficult but was the hon. member referring to Bill S-4 or Bill C-43?

The House resumed from April 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today and tomorrow we will continue our focus on making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on crime.

This morning we completed the debate at report stage on Bill C-10. That is a bill to introduce mandatory penalties for gun related crimes and other violent acts. Our government proposed amendments at report stage to restore what the Liberals had gutted from the bill at committee, mainly those aspects that will ensure violent criminals actually serve time in jail. We will be voting on these amendments next week.

We will continue this afternoon with Bill C-22, which is the age of protection legislation, followed by Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation that would require criminals who are convicted on two separate occasions of a violent crime to prove to the court why they are not a danger to the community.

Next week will be strengthening accountability through democratic reform week. It effectively kicked off today when Bill C-16, the fixed dates for elections act, received royal assent.

On Monday we will resume debate on Bill C-43. That is the bill that proposes to give Canadians a say in who they want representing them in the Senate.

Our government will be introducing a number of new measures in the House of Commons next week, which I will address at the appropriate time.

Of course, we still have Bill S-4, the bill to establish Senate term limits, which has been languishing in the Senate for almost a year now. It would be nice if the Senate passed that. It would be nice if the Liberal senators could get on with it, so that we could actually have that bill here in the House of Commons as part of our focus on democratic reform next week.

Tuesday, May 8 and Thursday, May 10 will be allotted days.

Pursuant to Standing Order 66 I would like to conclude debate tomorrow on the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and I would like to conclude debate on May 11, 2007 on the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Subject to an agreement with other parties, there may be interest in concluding debate at second reading of Bill C-33, the income tax bill, as early as tomorrow.

On the question of Bill C-30, we see elements of that legislation that we brought forward that are very valuable relating to biodiesel, alternative fuels and so on, and we will seek ways of introducing that in the House of Commons. However, we have absolutely no intention of bringing forward the Liberal carbon tax plan, which is now at the fore of that bill, which would establish an unlimited right to pollute for polluters. All they would have to do is pay and they would have an unlimited right to pollute. That is not our approach. We are bringing in regulations to achieve real reductions in greenhouse gases. That is our approach.

Electoral Reform

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate on Motion No. 262, which proposes two initiatives in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The motion proposes that we strike a special committee of the House of Commons to make recommendations on democratic reform. The motion also proposes the creation of a citizens' consultation group to report on the matter.

This is the type of motion the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London made at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The member proposed to do a study on democratic reform. What I find interesting is that the member's proposal was voted down by the committee, which included the NDP member on the committee at that time.

I am curious as to why the NDP member would bring forward Motion No. 262 at this time, based on the fact that this was something that one of our members had earlier proposed. Also this is an initiative that as a government we have been looking at as well. Therefore, I find that the motion is redundant.

I appreciate what the member for Vancouver Island North is trying to do. I think we all agree that it makes sense to look at the democratic process from time to time and see if there are ways that we can change it to make it better.

It is for all of these reasons I will not be supporting the motion. Certainly, as I have said before, it is very worthwhile to look at ways to make the democratic process better, but the government has already taken action. Our government has already initiated a process to start looking at this issue.

The previous government did not do a whole lot about the democratic process over the 13 years that the Liberals were in power. They certainly talked about doing something about the democratic process, but unfortunately it never materialized under the previous government.

One thing our government has definitely been looking at is how we consult with Canadians and how we can do a better job on democratic reform issues. With that in mind I would like to talk about what the government is looking at doing over the next little while.

We certainly want to engage parliamentarians. We have initiated a number of legislative issues. Public consultation is also very important to make this process work. We should engage all Canadians.

The work the government has been doing has been noted by other members, but it bears repeating.

The government enacted Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. This is one of the most notable things this government has done. The act bans union as well as corporate donations, and limits contributions to $1,100, and makes sure that no cash donations are accepted. In terms of the democratic process we have seen what happens in other parts of the world where there is not a limit on donations. People seem to have more influence with the more money that they are able to spend on elections. Limiting the amount will work in our democratic process. It is important regardless of where Canadians come from that they be able to have a say in government and not just be able to influence the government with money.

Bill C-16 was introduced by the Conservative government. The bill looks at establishing fixed election dates. The bill passed unanimously by the House. The Senate recently attempted to add an amendment that the government rejects. We are hoping that the Senate will move forward and put the bill back to the way it was originally.

What is important with fixed election dates is that we would not just worry about what is going on in the polls. Whatever party was in government would have an opportunity for more stability. People would know that every four years an election would be held on a certain date. This has worked in some provinces. This is something that we could look at federally as well.

The third initiative that the government has introduced in terms of legislation is Bill S-4 which was introduced in the Senate. That bill limits the terms for senators. It would eliminate the current situation where unelected and unaccountable senators can sit for up to 45 years. An eight year term would allow senators to get the kind of experience they need when looking at legislative initiatives and ensure they would get new perspectives.

Even though that bill was introduced in the Senate, we are stuck. It has been sitting in the other place for almost a year now, which is kind of surprising. It may be a bit of a concern if a bill was introduced to limit a term from 45 years to 8 years, but we would encourage that unelected, majority-driven Liberal Senate to pass that bill.

There are also other areas that we have looked at. The government introduced Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act, which we will be debating next week. This bill would enable us to talk to people about how senators should be appointed.

These are all great initiatives that will help make the democratic process better.

We have also introduced Bill C-31 which looks at a number of different measures in terms of the electoral system and voter ID. This is important based on all the recommendations that were contained in the 13th report of the procedure and House affairs committee. The government is looking for a way to implement those recommendations through Bill C-31. We are trying to make the electoral system more fair. We are trying to reduce fraud. The bill has the support of all parties and we are certainly hoping that it will be passed very shortly in the Senate.

The second issue that I would like to address today is public consultations. It is important that not only elected representatives participate in the system, but individuals from across the country participate as well. The government is already engaged in this. We started the process back on January 9.

We want to set up citizen forum groups across the country, so we could deal with all the provinces and territories. We are midway in this process. We have been able to talk to people. At each of these forums somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 to 50 individuals have represented the Canadian population. We are hoping that when we are done with this process, we will have spoken to some 400 or 500 Canadians.

In this way, we really believe that we can get some impartial views. One of the members talked about the fact that certain parties were already leaning toward one certain system. In this way, we have a chance not to bias the process but give Canadians an opportunity to participate. So far the participation and the response has been very enthusiastic. This is good to see as we look at a whole range of individuals from different parties, from across all electoral systems, as well as the House of Commons, the Senate and citizens.

We are also looking at a youth forum that would take place in Ottawa. This forum would try to establish why there is such low voter turnout among young people. We realize that young people are disengaged and sometimes frustrated with the system. It is important that we look at ways to engage young people, so they can be part of the political process and look at making a difference.

We are also looking at sending a survey out across the country. This could be part of our final report.

We have consultations going on with members of the House and with the Senate. We have surveys, citizen groups and youth forums. All of these things will be important as we look at delivering the final report some time in June of this year. I certainly look forward to seeing it.

As we look at introducing legislation in the House, it is important that we consult with people. This gives us a better understanding obviously as we look at different parts of the country with different needs. I have sat in on a few meetings of the procedure and House Affairs, and I know there are concerns given the fact that we have large urban ridings and rural ridings. Because of the uniqueness of this country, I believe this consultation process is important.

Once again, I am going to urge all members to vote against this motion because of what we already having going on in the House. I want to thank parliamentarians for their participation in this process.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Motion No. 262, which proposes two initiatives in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. First, the motion recommends that a special committee of the House of Commons be created to make recommendations on democratic reform issues. Second, it proposes that a special committee look into creating a citizens' consultation group and to report on this matter within six weeks.

I intend to oppose this motion for reasons I will make clear in my remarks today. I would also encourage other members of the House to oppose it.

There appear to be some fundamental inconsistencies in the NDP's approach to electoral reform and public consultation on democratic reform and electoral reform in particular. In this regard I noticed that one of the opposition day motions put forward by the NDP is that we should move immediately to implement electoral reform but that we should implement a specific type of electoral reform, that of a mixed member proportional system.

At the same time the NDP is putting forward Motion No. 262 to study our electoral system, it is also suggesting that we immediately reform our electoral system, and not necessarily in a way that reflects what the Canadian public may wish, but rather in a way that reflects the interests of the New Democratic Party. We can, therefore, all be excused for being confused about what exactly is the plan of the NDP with regard to democratic reform in general and electoral reform specifically.

Does the NDP want us to move immediately to implement a mixed member system, as it has stated on many occasions, or does the NDP want us to consult Canadians on electoral reform in advance, as suggested by Motion No. 262, and find out whether Canadians believe electoral reform is an issue they wish to pursue?

It seems that the NDP has not only prejudged the need for electoral reform, but is also prescribing for Canadians exactly what type of electoral reform Canadians should pursue. I find this interesting because there are a number of electoral systems that could be pursued should it be decided that reform is an advisable course of action.

Personally, I do not believe it would be advisable to barrel ahead to change our electoral system and change it to a specific electoral system before we even have any indication from Canadians that this is what they want.

I note that the sponsor of Motion No. 262 in the first hour of debate made it quite clear that she wanted the consultations to focus solely on electoral reform. From her remarks it did not seem that she and indeed her party had anything but a narrow focus on one single issue.

The question again is, does the NDP want to hear the views of Canadians on electoral reform, or does it want to prescribe for Canadians the type of electoral reform that it has apparently already decided on without consultation?

The actions of this government in the area of democratic reform stand in stark contrast to those of the NDP. We recognize that democratic reform is not a single issue. It is not just about electoral reform, as the NDP would have everyone believe.

Democratic reform encompasses a wide range of issues from political financing to improvements to our electoral system and the modernization of our democratic institutions. This was a fact that was recognized in the 43rd report, which was released in June 2005 but not acted on by the previous government.

The report's conclusions underline a whole range of issues beyond electoral reform that should be the subject of consultation. We need to be clear about the conclusions of the 43rd report if we are to act on them.

Let me read for members exactly what the report said. The report states that a citizens' consultation group along with the parliamentary committee should:

--make recommendations on the values and principles Canadians would like to see in their democratic and electoral systems.... [This] would take into account an examination of the role of Members of Parliament and political parties; citizen engagement and rates of voter participation, including youth and aboriginal communities; civic literacy; and how to foster a more representative House of Commons, including, but not limited to, increased representation of women and minorities, and questions of proportionality, community of interest and representation--

My question would be, why is the NDP focusing only on one aspect of democratic reform when there are so many other equally important issues?

For our part, this government is taking a much different approach. First, rather than just thinking about a consultation process as suggested by Motion No. 262, we have actually taken action to implement a process as the government announced it would do in January.

As a result of the government's actions, a citizens' consultation process is under way. The process consists of two key parts. The first is a series of 12 deliberative forums, one in each province, one for the territories and one youth forum, each with a participation of 40 to 50 citizens who are roughly representative of the Canadian population. The second part is a telephone survey on a range of issues related to our democratic institutions.

The deliberative consultation process is well under way. Consultations have already taken place in British Columbia, Alberta, the territories, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

In contrast to the process recommended by Motion No. 262, the government sponsored process is consulting citizens on a broad range of issues. Each forum is addressing a common set of topics, including political parties, the electoral system, the House of Commons, the Senate and the role of the citizen. It will be noted that this is very similar to the recommendation of the 43rd report. Unlike the NDP approach, we are not focusing only on a single issue and we are not prejudging the views of Canadians on these issues.

Once the process is over, a report on the process will be prepared for the government. The government intends to take the results of these consultations very seriously and parliamentarians will continue to be engaged on these important subjects.

It appears that the government is pursuing a much more comprehensive approach to consultation than is proposed in Motion No. 262. Since the process is well under way, Motion No. 262 has become redundant and has been for some time now.

Apart from the consultation process, the government has engaged parliamentarians on a wide range of important democratic reform initiatives, as we indicated we would do in our electoral platform. I dare say that no other government in history has accomplished so much in this important area. Allow me to review some of the initiatives we have taken so far on this issue.

First, we passed Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, which provides for some important political financing reforms, including a ban on corporate and union donations, and the reduction of contribution limits to $1,000. This will ensure that money and influence are not the determining factors in financing political parties and the parties can operate on a level playing field.

We have introduced practical and achievable legislation in the area of Senate reform, including Bill S-4, which would limit the tenure of senators to a period of eight years, and Bill C-43, which would establish a national process for consulting Canadians on their preferences for Senate appointments.

Of particular interest for this debate, the consultations proposed in Bill C-43 would not be carried out by means of a first past the post system. Rather, elections would be conducted using a proportional and preferential voting system called the single transferable vote, or STV system. It will be interesting to know the ultimate position of the New Democratic Party on Bill C-43 since the bill is proposing the introduction of a proportional electoral system which the NDP has been advocating for the House of Commons. Bill C-43 is an important initiative because for the first time Canadians will have the opportunity to have input into their selection of senators.

The government has also moved forward on an important initiative to improve the integrity of our electoral system. Bill C-31 includes important provisions to combat electoral system fraud, in particular through the introduction of requirements for voter ID. If passed, I believe the bill would make a tremendous contribution to ensuring that no election was tainted by the possibility of voter fraud.

The government is taking steps to increase electoral fairness through the introduction of Bill C-16 which establishes fixed dates for federal elections. If passed, this initiative would ensure that elections occurred once every four years and not just on the whim of a prime minister who might choose to call an election on the basis of whether or not his or her party was high in the polls.

The government has demonstrated a tremendous commitment to electoral reform. We are well on our way to meeting the commitments that we made to Canadians.

To conclude, I must encourage all members to vote against the motion for the reasons I have stated. Given that the government has already taken action to implement a public consultation process, Motion No. 262 is redundant. Not only that, but the government's process is much more comprehensive than was recommended by the NDP. It will not be focused only on electoral reform, contrary to the desire of the sponsor of the motion. It conforms largely to the recommendations of the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The New Democratic Party has already decided prior to consulting with Canadians that the mixed member proportional system is the way to go. This government does not want to prejudge the views of Canadians on this important matter.

Might I add that the previous speaker made mention of several changes that she feels need to be made to the way that Parliament works. It is important to point out that the previous Liberal government was in power for 13 years. The Liberals moved forward on none of these provisions. I find that extraordinary.

Quite frankly, as someone who has had a lifelong interest in democratic reform, I am proud of the initiatives that our government has launched. I encourage all members of all parties in the House to support them when they come forward.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate today on Motion No. 262. The motion proposes two initiatives in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

First, the motion proposes that a special committee of the House of Commons be created to make recommendations on democratic reform issues and, second, that a special committee look into creating a citizens consultation group and to report on this matter within six weeks.

At the outset, I want to make it clear that I will be urging members to vote against this motion, not because involving parliamentarians and citizens in discussion about democratic reform is an unworthy exercise, but because the government has already taken such clear action in this important area and it will continue to do so.

After the 43rd report was released in the last Parliament, nothing happened in the area of democratic reform, consultations or otherwise. This stands in sharp contrast to the actions of this government. We have engaged and continue to engage parliamentarians in a number of important democratic reform initiatives. We have already started a process to consult Canadians on democratic reform issues. In short, I will demonstrate today that the motion before us has been overtaken by events.

First , in the area of engaging parliamentarians on democratic reform issues, I am confident in saying that this government has done more than any previous government in bringing forward democratic reform initiatives for consideration in Parliament. Parliament adopted Bill C-2, the Accountability Act, which included a number of political financing reforms, most notably a ban on union and corporate donations, a contribution limit of $1,000, a ban on cash donations and a ban on trust funds. These measures help to eliminate the perception that only those with money have an influence on politics. This, in turn, enhances confidence in the political process.

The government also introduced Bill C-16 to establish fixed dates for federal elections. This bill was passed unanimously with all party consent in the House. More recently, the House of Commons adopted a motion to reject an unnecessary amendment adopted by the Senate. We are hoping t the Senate will now accept the now twice expressed will of the members of the democratically elected House of Commons regarding this bill. The Senate should recognize the legitimacy of the House, in particular on matters relating to elections, and pass this bill as it was originally intended.

The implementation of fixed dates for elections will greatly improve the fairness of Canada's electoral system by eliminating the ability of the governing party to set the timing of a general election to its own advantage.

The government has also taken important steps in the area of Senate reform, with the introduction of practical and achievable measures. Last May, the government introduced Bill S-4 in the Senate, which would establish a term limit for senators of eight years. The adoption of this bill would eliminate the current situation where unelected, unaccountable senators can sit for up to 45 years.

An eight year term would allow senators to gain the experience necessary to fulfill the Senate's important role of legislative review, while ensuring that the Senate is refreshed by new perspectives and ideas. Despite widespread support for this initiative, the bill has, unfortunately, been held up in the Senate for almost a year now.

Also in the area of Senate reform, the government introduced Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act, which would provide a process whereby voters may be consulted on potential appointments to the Senate in their respective provinces. Debate on this bill began last week. For the first time ever, legislation will provide Canadians with a voice on who represents them in the Senate.

The government has also introduced Bill C-31, which includes a number of initiatives aimed at ensuring the integrity of the electoral system, including a new system of voter identification. Bill C-31 would implement most of the recommendations of the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The passage of this bill will reduce the opportunities for fraud and promote fairness in our electoral system. I hope Bill C-31 will soon be passed in the Senate.

In summary, this government has demonstrated the most extensive commitment ever to the modernization of Canada's national democratic institutions.

In the area of public consultations, we are not just looking into the issue, as proposed in Motion No. 262, we are acting.

On January 9, 2007, the government announced that it was launching a public consultation process on democratic reform issues. In particular, the process would engage Canadians in a dialogue to identify the priorities, values and principles that should underpin Canada's democratic institutions and practices.

The process consists of two main elements, both organized by independent contractors.

First, there is a deliberative process to consult Canadians in 12 citizens' forums, one held in each province, one in the Territories, and also in one national youth forum. The process is more than half complete, with the forums in British Columbia, Alberta, the Territories, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island already completed. Each forum includes approximately 40 to 50 citizens who are roughly representative of the Canadian population.

In that regard, it is worth noting that by the time we are finished approximately 500 Canadians will have participated in the deliberative discussions, all of them giving up a few days of their time, not to mention studying the issues in advance.

The response so far has been very enthusiastic. Participants are examining a whole range of issues, including: political parties, the electoral system, the House of Commons and the Senate, and the role of the citizen.

In the youth forum, which will take place in Ottawa, participants will take a close look at why there is low voter turnout among Canada's youth and why a significant number of young people appear to be disengaged from the political process.

The second element is a large scale national survey that will be administered to a representative sample of Canadians across the country.

We will learn in the forums and the survey and they will be combined into a final report that will be ready by June of this year.

I very much look forward to the report and what it will tell us about the views of Canadians and our democratic institutions and practices. The government intends to take the results of these consultations very seriously.

In conclusion, I urge all members to vote no on Motion No. 262. While the member undoubtedly had honourable intentions in bringing the motion forward, passing this initiative would not serve any useful purpose. The government has engaged and will continue to engage parliamentarians on democratic reform issues; witness the extensive legislative agenda we have introduced in this important area.

The comprehensive process to hear the views of Canadians on democratic reform issues, which we announced in January, is well under way. We will be listening to the views of Canadians and deciding the next steps in the reform of our democratic institutions.

Parliamentarians will play a role in that process. Having the information from the consultation process will mean that parliamentarians are better informed when considering further improvements to our democratic process.

Public Accounts

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I want to get back to the issue I raised earlier with the member for Charlottetown.

We are left to guess why the member for York West would move this concurrence motion on a Friday afternoon if it were not the case that the Liberals do not want to discuss and debate the legislation we are here to debate, which is Bill C-43, the reform of the Senate, long overdue reform I might add.

I would like to pose a question to my colleague. This report was tabled on March 27 and the Liberals, as other did, had 12 sitting days when they could have called concurrence on this issue and discussed the report. I am left to ponder.

I take the member for York West at her word. When she made her remarks earlier today, she said how important this issue was, how critical and crucial it was that we have a good, fulsome debate about the committee report. I do not disagree with that, but I am left wondering.

Given that the Liberals had 12 days and if it were that critical, why would they not have brought it forward?

If they are really serious about this issue, why would they have only notified their own colleagues? The member for Charlottetown said that he cancelled his flight home for the weekend so he could stay here to debate this issue. We are fortunate that my colleague, who just spoke, happens to sit on that committee. We had no prior knowledge of this so we could ensure that the government members, who sit on the public accounts committee, would be here to participate in the debate.

We are left to really question, along with the viewers watching this at home I am sure, how serious the Liberals happen to be about this debate.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I can see why the chief government whip wants to debate Bill C-43. The Conservatives are trying to go beyond democratic means and change the Senate without really doing it constitutionally but through the House.

One of the things the member for Charlottetown said really worries me. He said that there was concern that if the report of the committee were not passed it would mean that the Privy Council Office takes more control, and that worries me.

Could the member elaborate a little further on the Privy Council Office taking more control so that members of Parliament do not really matter? We know with the current Prime Minister that it is absolute dictatorial control. Government members never speak out and cabinet members never speak out. Would we end up with a PMO and a PCO running things? Is that what the member's concern is all about?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I can repeat what I said. I was planning to return to my constituency last night but yesterday afternoon I was informed by the member for York West that she would be moving this concurrence motion. I was not prepared to debate Bill C-43. The member is quite right, I did not know that Bill C-43 would be debated today but I certainly wanted to be here when this concurrence motion was debated.

I could spin this all day but I cannot answer the question as to the agenda of the House. I was informed that this concurrence motion would be moved and, as chair of the public accounts committee, I felt that I had to speak to it, which is why I am here to speak today.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier I posed the question to the member for Charlottetown, that despite the importance of this particular issue that has been moved by his colleague, whether this is a delaying tactic yet again on the part of the opposition to prevent the House from dealing with and debating Bill C-43, a very important piece of legislation that, I would argue, is long overdue to make some incremental changes to the other place.

Mr. Speaker, through you, with the greatest of respect, if I heard the member for Charlottetown correctly, and I want to give him the opportunity to correct the record if I misheard him, he stated that despite being in the House today and prepared to debate this particular concurrence motion, that he had no idea what the House would be debating today. Did I hear him correctly?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I will give a very brief and simple answer.

I chair the public accounts committee and yesterday I heard that this motion would be moved by another member of the committee. I had planned to go back to my riding last night but I postponed that because I thought it was important that I speak to this extremely important concurrence motion, which goes right to the very heart of why we are here.

I really did not know it would be debated this afternoon. I take the hon. member's assertion that it was to be Bill C-43. However, I am not in a position to answer about the agenda of the House or why certain things are debated or why certain things are not debated. However, I do submit this is an extremely important matter for the House.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from across the way and his intervention on this particular concurrence motion. While I would agree with him that the subject matter is one of great concern, the whole business about accountability as it pertains to the public accounts act, the whole issue of accountability is one that we on this side of the House take very seriously.

My question for my colleague is relatively simple. It seems like every time we start to debate Bill C-43, the legislation that we were debating today dealing with Senate selections, in other words, to reform the other place, that one of the opposition parties, in this case the Liberal Party, takes it upon itself to get us off the agenda. I wonder why it is that those members do not want to discuss the reform of the upper chamber.

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had actually hoped to ask the hon. member for Ottawa Centre a question but maybe after my speech he will want to intervene during the long period for questions and comments.

I had wanted to ask the member if we remembers his predecessor, Ed Broadbent, a man I liked and admired and still do. I wonder if he remembers that Ed Broadbent and I had a difference of opinion in the procedure and House affairs committee concerning a report, to which he is referring, about changes to the electoral system and that the process for searching out this change existed. Mr. Broadbent advocated a system very similar to the one the government has actually implemented. Conservative members actually advocated a much broader consultation but, when we pushed hard on it, Mr. Broadbent organized a walk out from the committee to deny us a quorum and then raised the matter in the House.

What I am getting at is that there has been a reversal of position here and I think everyone should be aware of that. I would like the member to comment on why the New Democrats, or at least he, have now switched to a position of favouring narrowing consultations, although he says that he is now in favour of a citizens' assembly as well, which they opposed at the time. I am actually a little unsure of which particular iteration of the changing position he is on at the moment. I will leave that thought with him. This is not strictly relevant to Bill C-43 and the Senate, which is the subject to which I will now turn.

When the end of the government comes, be it soon, be it off in the distant future, the bill and the work we have done on democratizing our Canadian institutions, this bill and other bills along the same lines, will be regarded as the greatest accomplishment of the government unless they are totally blocked by the other parties, in which case they will be regarded as the greatest missed opportunity that this Parliament had.

I just want to go through and mention some of the legislation we have put forward, of which Bill C-43 forms a package. We have Bill S-4, which would create fixed terms for senators, and it is in the upper House. That bill has been executed, not as part of a grandiose single package but as a separate piecemeal, to use the word that the member for LaSalle—Émard, the former prime minister, used to use, or incremental reform. The adoption of that bill is very important if we are to move to electing senators so that we are electing people for fixed terms.

The advisory consultations or informal elections that would take place for senators is another step in that package, and that is what Bill C-43 is all about.

We also have Bill C-31, which is designed to reduce to the extent possible electoral fraud throughout the country. We have also moved to change electoral financing rules. This would be very significant in reducing the influence of corporations, unions and non-voters in the financing of our elections and, therefore, the manner in which our decisions take place.

Those are all substantial moves forward. However, what is of particular importance is the work we are doing on the Senate. I am surprised at the way this gets belittled by some members of the House. This is an extraordinary measure. Canada has had an unelected chamber as its upper House for over 100 years. We are not quite unique in the world but we are getting closer and closer to being unique in the world in having an unelected upper House with full powers. It is an equal House to this one, with the exception of its inability to create money bills, and yet it is completely unelected.

This was a model that was considered by the Australians when they were designing their Senate over 100 years ago and rejected as being antiquated. They opted for an elected Senate.

We are looking at the replacement, in the member's words, incremental replacement, but we are looking at the replacement of an antiquated way of doing things with the modern and democratic way of doing things.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the things I think are important. Let me begin with a really basic one, which is the need for bicamerals and the need for a federation like Canada to have a bicameral system as opposed to a unicameral system where there is one chamber. This is a matter where I respectfully disagree with the position of the hon. member's party.

I would just point to the examples of federations in the world. Many countries claim to be federations but many of them are not real federations. For example, the Comoros Islands claim to be a federation but it is not a real federation. However, there are several long lived and successful examples of federal systems. Canada, of course, is one and Switzerland, the United States and Australia are others. We can also look at Germany and Austria. What we see in all of these cases is that they have, through one means or another, an elected upper chamber. In particular, the examples that are closest to Canada would be Australia and the United States but they have elected upper houses.

There are a number of purposes for having two chambers. One is to allow, and this is using the language of the Fathers of Confederation, a chamber of sober second thought, a place where decisions that may be taken in haste in this House can be examined, perhaps improved and sent back to us. As we know, the Senate is not shy even now about sending back measures that have been passed in this House for reconsideration.

Unfortunately, sometimes I think the Senate does so excessively on the basis of the interests of the partisanship of the party that put the senators there. That is a long term history. If we go back and look at the appointed Senate, it has either acquiesced completely to the government in power when the majority in the Senate reflects the majority in the lower house, or it has been unnecessarily obstructionist. That is a fundamental flaw with an appointed Senate, appointed effectively by the prime minister because the Governor General always takes the prime minister's advice on Senate appointments.

A significant change and improvement would be to move away from a Senate that is, depending on the moment, either a lapdog or excessively aggressive to one that gives considered sober second thought. That can be accomplished by an elected upper house. All we need to do is look at the examples that I have cited of other mature, responsible federations to see how this can work.

The other thing about an elected upper house is that it will tend to be elected on a separate mandate, both geographically and in terms of the electoral system we propose and also, to some degree, in terms of timing from the lower house that provides a different cross-section of Canadian public opinion and public sentiment over a broad period of time. The classic federalism theory is that we ought to have counterbalancing mandates for the upper and lower houses.

I want to turn now to the question of incremental reform, that which the former prime minister and now the hon. member for Ottawa Centre have derided as piecemeal reform versus wholesale reform. We have an unhappy series of experiments in our recent history with attempts at mega-constitutional reform. They have not been successful. I am thinking here of the Meech Lake accord and the Charlottetown accord. We are trying to move away from that.

The simple, practical reason for moving away from that to incremental reform is that it works. Incremental reform, making changes that are possible, does not involve hanging us up the way the country got hung up on the Meech Lake accord in which the part of the accord that had the highest threshold for approval became the standard by which everything had to be dealt with, which effectively guaranteed that it would be impossible to get it through.

The problem with wholesale reform is that in order to change the terms of senators and the way in which senators are selected, and to move from an appointed to an elected or an advisory elected system, and the changing of the regions and the representation by regions would involve, by necessity, moving to the seven-fifty amendment formula, which means having the approval of seven provincial legislatures representing 50% of the population on the very sticky issue of who should get how many senators.

While I would certainly agree that British Columbia is very underrepresented, which I think we can all agree on, we may discover, as we try to put in more seats for British Columbia and other provinces, that we may not get a national consensus on that. It is easy to say that we should get a consensus, but I would encourage the hon. member, if he gets a chance to stand up, to perhaps provide the percentage, the number of seats he would offer for each province and see whether he would get the support of all provinces or even of his party in all provinces on this subject. There is not a national consensus on this point. We can throw the baby out with the bathwater, which was the approach of the former prime minister, and say that since we cannot get to perfection from here we cannot go anywhere.

However, I still advocate perfection, an unspecified kind of perfection, but I advocate it, or we can work on practical piecemeal incremental reform. This is the route to success. I invite all hon. members to look at the history of elected upper houses in the federations that most closely resemble our own, the Australians, the Swiss and the Americans. What everyone will notice is that in each case they went from much less democratic institutions to much more democratic institutions: to equal, elected, effective senates by means of incremental reform.

For example, 101 years ago was the anniversary of the election of the first American senator. It was an informal election held in the state of Oregon in 1906. Prior to that date, state legislatures had appointed senators. The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1850s were not debates between two men seeking direct office. They were seeking to cause people to influence their votes for the state House of Representatives, which would then choose which of those two people would go on to the senate.

That changed through the action of one state. Once that state acted, other states began to act the same way. There was a popular groundswell in support of elections and by 1913 the constitution was amended. In short, piecemeal reform produced a breaking of an impasse that would have continued to exist had there been an attempt of wholesale reform.

Australia moved from a first past the post system for its upper house, which was its initial system, to a proportional system. Again, that was done incrementally through piecemeal constitutional reform.

If I have time I will return to this. I note the system we have proposed in the upper house does involve a system of proportional representation known as a single transferrable vote. It is the same system, with some improvements, that exists in the Australian upper house and a number of other countries, including Ireland and Malta. It is a great success in producing more proportional representation.

I mention this simply because part of the critique raised by my predecessor, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, was that the government was doing nothing on electoral reform. I suggest that moving from completely unelected partisan appointments by the prime minister to a system of proportional representation in the upper house is the greatest move toward any kind of proportional representation we have seen anywhere in this country's history. It is a great accomplishment.

I have mentioned how we are moving in this direction incrementally.

I point out that not only do we require the 7/50 amendment formula, which I would suggest is practically impossible, to move to a different representation province relative to other provinces in the upper house, we require the same thing to abolish the Senate.

While there are people who support abolition of the Senate, in fact the hon. member's whole party would support that, it requires the support of seven provinces with half the population. I think we will find that is just as difficult to attain as a process for changing the proportional representation of the provinces in the upper house. In practice, it is as Utopian as the other suggestion and leads to the fundamental problem of essentially leaving us with the status quo.

The Prime Minister is faced with a choice of attempting to act incrementally, as he is doing, or simply going to direct appointments based upon his own preferences, which might be wise or might be entirely partisan, who is to say, but they would not be democratic by definition.

The problem here, constitutionally, is that there is a section of the Constitution, specifically section 42(1) of the Constitution Act, which deals with and explains our amending formula as it relates to, among other things, the amendment of the Senate. The following categories of rules regarding the Senate are constitutionally protected and cannot be changed without the 7/50 formula.

The Governor General's power to appoint senators cannot be changed without the 7/50 formula. That is why the law is structured as it is. It is a Senate consultations act. It is not a Senate elections act because these are formally consultations. In Canada it is the convention. We have come to understand that the Governor General's power to appoint means in practice a prime minister's unfettered right to advise the Governor General and to expect his advice to be taken without question.

That cannot be changed except, as we are doing, through a law that effectively creates a convention. To those who object to the idea that we should move incrementally and use conventions for our Constitution, I point out that so much of our Constitution is conventional, such as the notion of a prime minister at all. The prime minister is not mentioned in the Constitution. He is purely a convention. This is a very honoured place in our system. In fact, I do not think our Constitution could function without conventions having a central role.

The constitutional qualification for Senators is one cannot become a Senator in Canada unless one is 35 years old. I do not think that is terribly fair, although I feel it is a bit fairer than I did when I was under 35. However, we do not have the power to change that provision, without the 7/50 formula, much as I would like to see that change. Perhaps that can be a non-controversial amendment in the future that all members could support.

I note that constitutional scholars over the years have been clear that the government's approach would not constitute a breach of the relevant sections of the Constitution. It can be done through non-constitutional means.

What we see here is the way mature federal systems act. If we take a look at other federations, one of the things that distinguishes their constitutional history from Canada's recent constitutional history, not Canada's entire constitutional history, for the last say 40 years is this.

In countries like Switzerland, Australia and the United States we see small incremental constitutional amendments discussed, sometimes accepted and often rejected, but never by means of attempts to create vast new edifices, dramatic changes. We see reasonably regular changes to their constitutions. Whereas in Canada we have developed this idea that we must always act as we did in 1982, with the constitutional package that changed our amending formula and introduced the Charter of Rights and so on, but also caused some other problems. As we know there are many Quebeckers who feel greatly dissatisfied with this arrangement and with the fact that their province and their legislature did not sign on to it.

As we did in the Meech Lake accord in 1987 through 1990 and as we did in the Charlottetown accord, attempts were made to create vast new changes, to essentially pull the system up by the roots to examine it and see if it is still growing. These other countries have acted in piecemeal manners and the result is they have gone further in changing and modernizing their constitutions than we have done.

Therefore, it is precedented. It speaks well that we are acting this way through our maturity as a country. It also reflects a part of our constitutional history that gets forgotten, and that is the fact that we actually have had successful piecemeal changes to our Constitution in recent years in areas that were for some mystical reason not seen as being part of a vast edifice.

I think of things like the Prince Edward Island bridge amendment. We had to amend the Constitution to allow a bridge to be constructed to Prince Edward Island. We had an amendment dealing with Newfoundland schools. We had an amendment to change the name of the province of Newfoundland to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We also had an amendment on the Quebec schools system that moved to a non-confessional system.

All these amendments have been done successfully, as were some others as well. They were all piecemeal and they all dealt with specific problems.

The attempt here, because we cannot deal through the Constitution, is to step aside, deal through a convention effectively with this law and thereby deal in the same spirit in the same way, which has brought success to our country and other countries, in order to achieve a mature bicameral democratic and, to a greater degree than ever before, a proportional system of democracy in the country.

I am excited by this. I think when the time comes in the future, all Canadians will look back at this move forward as one of the keystones in our country's democratic development.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. member brings it up because in the contract the government assigned to the Frontier Centre, it is actually talking about democratic reform, so I might table this later so the hon. member can have a look at it. It actually questions later on table 5, about how to reform the Upper House. So, I think it is entirely relevant and I will provide a copy to the hon. member.

I brought this up because it is related to Bill C-43. The government has introduced a bill to deal with the Senate. On the other hand, it is out there hiring friends of the government to talk to Canadians about democratic reform.

I want to explain that initially Conservatives hired a group that went out to find participants for this consultation and sadly, the group they had subcontracted to did not really know what they were doing. They phoned Democracy Watch and asked if it could provide participants for their consultation. Duff Conacher was none too pleased when he found out that Democracy Watch was being asked to provide participants for everyday Canadians to speak on democratic reform. So Democracy Watch was fired and another group was hired and now we have this flawed process in front of us.

We see in chapter 4 of this public consultation, which is again a bit of an oxymoron because no one can actually get the document, where it talks about Canada's Senate today, and it talks about what this group believes should be done and asks what Canadians, through its hand-picked group, what they think about it.

I bring that up because it is very important that Canadians know the agenda of the government. The agenda of the government is to pretend to be doing democratic reform. If it honestly wanted to engage in democratic reform, it would support the motion the NDP is going to put forward to do what the previous Parliament, through the procedure and House affairs committee, had committed to do. That was to have a parallel process of a parliamentary committee speaking to Canadians about democratic reform. It could engage this place and the other place, and leave it up to Canadians to decide. It could have a citizens' consultation that would be a little less biased than the Frontier Centre.

If we look at Bill C-43, it actually tells Canadians already what they should be doing. They should be supporting the government's idea of a plebiscite with the Prime Minister appointing.

Just to recap, constitutionally going back to the Quebec conference and looking at what exactly the Fathers of Confederation envisioned, because it was all men at the time, and what they thought the upper house should be doing, they said it should not be elected at the time. Even the reformers at the time agreed to that.

We are now in 2007. Most people would believe that the process, and we see it with the House of Lords in England which is being challenged right now to reform itself, needs to be more than just a half measure, more than just a plebiscite so the Prime Minister can appoint. What we need to have is real reform.

I want to emphatically underline the fact that the government is on the wrong path for democratic reform and remind Conservatives that it was one of the predecessors of the now Conservative Party who talked about a triple E Senate. Two Es have fallen off the table with their intent now.

They think that they can fool Canadians by telling them they have had real Senate reform by having a popularity contest and a rubber stamp from the Prime Minister. Canadians will not be fooled. Our party will not be fooled. This place, I am sure, will not be fooled when we hear from the other parties.

However, the issue of democratic reform should be put in front of Canadians genuinely. Our party has said we believe that the mixed member system is a good idea and we have done that deliberately because we need to have a debate in this country about democratic reform.

The Reform Party, to give it credit, believed in a triple E Senate and put an idea forward. We are not sure where the Liberal Party stands on it and I am not sure the Bloc really has an idea on the issue because it is an issue for all of Canada.

What we need is to have ideas put forward in front of Canadians, so that we can have a genuine debate. Bill C-43 does not do that. It is simply saying to let us have an end run around the Constitution, let us have a half measure and say that we have done something.

I think that would be a disservice to Canadians and even to the Fathers of Confederation, the founders of the country, because they would have wanted, and I cite George Brown from the debates during the Quebec conference, genuine reform, not this tinkering and saying that by way of a plebiscite with the Prime Minister having the ultimate power, that this would be real reform. He would be flipping in his grave right now if he say the government putting this forward and calling it real reform.

I will sum up by essentially giving our party's position. We will not be supporting the bill. It is a half measure. It does not deal with real democratic reform and does absolutely nothing to deal with the issue of the roles and responsibilities of the other place.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order which is perhaps irrelevant now, but I was going to ask the hon. member to refer to Bill C-43 as opposed to electoral reform and the process for looking at the lower house.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

I want to begin my comments with a historical perspective. It is interesting to go back to the beginning of our country and the constitutional debates in Quebec at the Quebec conference and the debates around the Senate. In fact, those debates were some of the longest debates, and some would say they were controversial, about what should be done in terms of that new idea, the new formation called Canada.

There had been a consensus about reforming and having responsible government. Indeed, after the rebellions in 1837, we saw it in 1841. The concept and the idea of responsible government had been born. The rebellions built on Upper and Lower Canada had taken place. In 1841 we saw the idea of responsible government after the Durham report, with all its ills, but there were some good things in it, and then in the Quebec conference in the discussion around what should be done in terms of a new country and the formation of a confederation.

In those debates, there were discussions among the reformers at the time, who were very different from the reformers of more recent times. The Browns, for instance, actually believed that an elected Senate at the time would be problematic. That is interesting to note because at the time Brown and his movement, the reformers of the time, were laying down the markers for what they believed would be more responsible and more representative government.

Yet there was a consensus at the time, after much debate, as I have said, to have an appointed Senate. The reason people gave was that they believed the two houses had to be given certain jurisdictions and responsibilities. There was a concern at the time that one house should not have dominance over the other house, notwithstanding the obvious submission of people who saw a democratically elected house as better than an appointed one.

These people shared some concerns. Many of the reformers at the time trumpeted the comments of John Stuart Mill, who said in 1861:

An assembly which does not rest on the basis of some great power in the country is ineffectual against one which does.

People consciously knew that by way of agreeing to an appointed Senate the upper house would not trump the House of Commons. They were very deliberate, because they did not want to see the quagmire. They saw the upper house as a check.

They were concerned about the experience in the United States at the time. We have to recall our history. The American civil war had just happened. People were very conscious of it. One of the reasons Confederation came together, notwithstanding the Fenian raids, was due to the concern about the Americans' creep north, so to speak.

They wanted to get it right. They wanted to make sure it was different. They wanted to make sure there were proper checks and balances. They subscribed to the idea of an appointed house.

I will go back in history to re-Confederation in terms of what the debates were at the Quebec conference, because it is very important to understand our history in order to understand where we are now and to understand this bill.

In essence what the reformers of the time were saying, Macdonald and others, was that we needed a balance. They wanted to make sure that the upper house was not going to trump the lower house, so that, as John Stuart Mill said, we would not have one “assembly which rests on the basis of some great power in the country”, i.e. the people, and one that would cause a disproportionate balance.

Because, if we look at the structure of the Senate, we see that there were senators appointed. We have to recall that it was the east and west, and the Maritimes were still discussing whether there would be a maritime union. Senators would not be appointed based on representation of exact population. It was very important that it was going to be an appointed Senate.

Delegates at the Quebec conference believed that to have responsible government, the principle that was fought for in the rebellions of 1837 and the act in 1841, there had to be responsible representation by population government in the House of Commons and oversight from the Senate.

If we fast forward to where we are now, this bill is not proposing an overview of what the Senate's roles and responsibilities are. It does not take into consideration, in my opinion, what the initial debate was in this place with the former Reform Party about the so-called triple E Senate. It is not a discussion that really deals with what the Senate's role and responsibilities are. It is simply a way to get around the obvious problem of having an appointed body in 2007. We have not evolved to having a body that is actually democratically respected and responsible.

The fundamental problem with this bill is that it is a half measure. It says that we can have a plebiscite. We have not quite decided yet how that is to be done, but let us say it is in a federal election. The plebiscite goes forward and the person who is nominated goes to the Prime Minister, who makes the appointment.

What it does not do is deal with the whole quagmire of the role of the upper house. That is fundamentally what should be dealt with. That is really what Canadians want. It is what many people believe the former Reform Party really wanted to deal with.

This bill skirts the Constitution because it does not open the Constitution to deal with the problem. It is simply a plebiscite of sorts to find out who is the most popular person to be appointed by the Prime Minister. That might sound good to some people. I am sure the governing party will say that it is a great thing, that it would be a step in the right direction and an incremental and positive step. We may see that as being the case, except when we look at what the government has done in the area of democratic reform and judge it on its record to date.

One bill that the NDP subscribed to and supported was Bill C-16, a bill that would fix election dates and will hopefully be enacted very soon. It was an idea that our party came up with. My predecessor, Mr. Broadbent, put it forward in his ethics package before the last election. The government then took it off the NDP shelf, put it into its platform, brought it before the House and everyone agreed to it. It made sense.

We agreed that we should not open the Constitution for that particular bill. We did that because it was something that could be done without affecting the structure and functions of our Parliament. It was a process in terms of how election dates are set and it did not deal with undermining the whole idea of a minority Parliament and confidence. It was fine.

This bill is a sidestep on the Constitution. For that reason alone, personally I cannot support it. If we continue to skirt the Constitution, I think we are going down a dangerous road. I submit that the government has to understand that the Constitution is not a suggestion list. It is not something for which we say, “Maybe we would like to do this”. It is a fundamental foundation of our country and of the structure of this place and obviously of the other place.

If we are going to talk about substantive change and real democratic reform, then what we need to do is have an honest debate in this country. To be fair, the former Reform Party tried to do that. It attempted to have a so-called triple E Senate.

However, the Conservative government simply wants to do an end run around the Constitution and say, “Here, we have a plebiscite, we will rubber stamp the plebiscite choice, and the Prime Minister will appoint the person”. It does absolutely nothing to the roles and responsibilities of the upper house.

In fact, we will have a house that will have some people who are deemed to have been chosen by the people and some who are appointed, those who are flying, so to speak, on different octane, and people will ask who legitimately speaks for the other place. Is it the person who is there by way of plebiscite or the person who is appointed? It creates a quagmire for the upper house and therefore for this place.

On those points alone, I believe we cannot support the bill.

I want to now turn to where the government is on democratic reform. It is very sad to see that the government has decided not to embrace what the previous Parliament put forward through the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which was to go out to citizens and have a citizens' engagement on democratic reform and also have a House of Commons committee going out to Canadians to speak on democratic reform and find out what Canadians' ideas are.

Sadly, what the government came up with has been a disaster. The government will not admit that, but I know it has been a disaster. The government has had to backtrack and reassign contracts. It has gone to so-called “non-special interests”, which is laughable, and I will tell the House who it is, to go to Canadians and have a focus group on what they believe democratic reform should look like.

The paper that has been put out is called “Public Consultations on Canada's Democratic Institutions and Practices”. I have the participants' workbook here. I did not get it from the government website but actually from a participant who recently went through the process and procedure.

Mr. Speaker, you will know the group because it is out of Winnipeg. It is the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. I will not say anything too negative about the Frontier group, but what I can say genuinely is that it is not an objective think tank. Some have said that it makes the Fraser Institute look left wing, but I will not subscribe to what those others have said.

On its website, the Frontier group says it fundamentally does not believe in ideas like proportional representation. This is the group that the government has hired, with taxpayers' money, to talk to Canadians about democratic reform. So when the government presents a bill, Bill C-43 on Senate reform and change--

The House resumed from April 20 consideration of the motion that Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue debate on an opposition motion.

On Friday, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C-43, the senate consultations bill. That is the bill to strengthen accountability and democracy by giving Canadians a say on who they want representing them in the Senate.

Next week we will focus on making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on crime. It will actually kick off tonight with the Prime Minister's address to the annual police appreciation night in York region where I live. Getting tough on criminals is the best way parliamentarians can show our appreciation for those brave men and women who put their lives in danger every day while protecting and serving their communities.

Our plan for next week's focus in cracking down on crime will begin with Bill C-48, the bill dealing with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. There will hopefully be an agreement to pass that bill at all stages.

Following Bill C-48, we will consider Bill C-10. That is the bill to introduce mandatory minimum penalties for gun and violent crimes. Our government will be proposing amendments at report stage to restore the meaningful aspects of the bill to ensure that violent criminals actually serve time in jail, all of which was gutted by the Liberals in committee.

Bill C-22, the age of protection bill, was reported back from committee and will be considered at report stage and third reading.

Following Bill C-22, we will move on to Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation, which would require criminals who are convicted, for example on three separate occasions of a violent sexual assault, to prove to the court why they would not a danger to the community.

Tuesday, May 1 shall be an allotted day.

If time permits, we will seek to call Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill.

With regard to the question on the environment, our government is taking action on the environment. Later today he can look forward to seeing a cornerstone step in taking action to reduce greenhouse gases with the environment minister's announcement, action that has never been taken by another government and more action than any government in the world is taking.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-16.

I want to start my comments by recognizing my predecessor, Mr. Ed Broadbent, who brought forward an ethics package before the last election. The ethics package he proposed was to clean up politics and some of the ways we might do that.

Interestingly enough, one of the proposals Mr. Broadbent put forward in his ethics package was for fixed date elections. The NDP is happy to support Bill C-16 because our party put the initiative on the table. It was an initiative we took to propose ideas rather than just oppose ideas. That is very important. I believe our role as responsible parliamentarians is not just to oppose, which is certainly necessary when in opposition, but also to propose. We felt it was very important to propose fixed date elections. Of course we support Bill C-16 since it was an NDP proposal before the last election. This is not something that we proposed in the midst of an election. It is something we actually presented to the last Parliament because we thought it was very important.

Mr. Broadbent also had in his ethics package, which our party was happy to put front and centre in the last Parliament, his ideas to clean up politics and the need to deal with things like floor crossing. Floor crossing is still rampant in this place and it must be dealt with.

The idea of fixed date elections is very important to the NDP. It is a good idea. There were consultations with people who have fought for fair elections, people in the large community of democratic reform. Fair Vote Canada is non-partisan and many parties are represented in that body. Mr. Segal, Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Broadbent are involved. I am not sure if any of the Bloc members have signed on with Fair Vote Canada, but I encourage them to do so. They may want to look at Fair Vote Canada's ideas and tenets that all votes should be fair votes and that the system be fair. Part of that is fixed date elections.

When the bill was before committee we proposed amendments to it to clarify things like confidence. We put those ideas forward as something to consider.

Bill C-16 is not long. It does not deal with constitutional change. We thought that was reasonable. Mr. Broadbent put forward the same proposals, that we did not need to open the Constitution to make this kind of change, which in effect is a practice in what we are doing. It still gives Parliament the option of removing confidence from the governing party which would then trigger an election.

We believe that this was a pragmatic and reasonable thing to do. We had seen the abuse by governments before that would use the date of an election simply to make sure that it had the upper hand on the other parties. In the end what the government was doing was trying to have the upper hand on Canadians. We saw that as a manipulation of the government's responsibility and power. If the government thought it might be favourable to call an election, it would do the polling. The government would probably do cross-tabulation, where a couple of ideas are taken from different regions and put together to make sure that the government would win a majority. Inevitably, the cash would be distributed throughout the land and would fall off wagons everywhere. Money would be given to areas where the government of the day needed to shore up support.

This is clearly anti-democratic.The fact that a governing party can manipulate the date of an election for its own benefit is anti-democratic. Sadly, that has been the case with previous governments. It happened in the last majority Parliament. The Liberals saw an opportune time and called an election in order to get another majority.

In the bill we should not only address fixed date elections, but also the way in which the votes are counted. It is important to note that in the majority governments of Mr. Chrétien, notwithstanding that he had the most votes, a disproportionate number of seats were allotted to his government.

I say that not just to point to Mr. Chrétien and the Liberal Party. The same thing happened at the provincial level. I can think of the NDP winning a certain percentage of the vote and a disproportionate number of seats. Therefore, it is not about partisanship but it is a reflection of the people's will.

The fact that a fixed date election was something we could do without opening up the Constitution was fair. It is a little different than what we will be debating later today, Bill C-43, which is the idea that we can have plebiscites on who should represent citizens in the Senate and still skirt the Constitution.

I think we have pretty much tested the limits of how far we can skirt or go around the Constitution and practice with Bill C-16. I know that members of all parties agreed that Bill C-16 made sense, that we did not need to open up the Constitution. I would challenge that, though, on Bill C-43 which we will be debating later.

Juxtaposed to Bill C-16, when we look at having plebiscites to have people decide which person they want representing them in the Senate and then go to the Prime Minister, and then the person would be appointed, it skirts the Constitution a little too far. In fact, it says that is about as far as they will go because they do not want to touch the Constitution.

The Constitution is not a suggestion list. It is a fundamental foundation of how our country is to operate. I would suggest that Bill C-16 is a practice in terms of how the government could operate in setting an election date versus the bill we will be debating later, Bill C-43, which actually goes too far in terms of avoiding the Constitution simply because they do not want to get into the muck of a constitutional debate.

If we are serious about real, democratic reform and Senate reform, then we need to address it and not run from it. Bill C-16 gave us the opportunity to take away the potential abuse of governments to use an election date for their own political partisan advance.

When we looked at the act we proposed amendments and the Bloc proposed some amendments. We have heard some dates from Bloc members for the fixed election date. However, I concur with other members who suggested that having it in the spring was not doable and having it at certain times in the fall was not doable.

The timing we came up with is perfectly reasonable to compromise in terms of meeting the needs of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast, be it those who live in rural areas or in the north. I think the timing of having it in the fall makes perfect sense, particularly for our farming communities that need time to bring in the crop and the harvest. Having an election after that is what we have in front of us.

I want to turn my attention now to the amendment that came from the Senate. As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre suggested, we do take issue with the author of this amendment and where it comes from. However, it is important to look at the amendment. It is not a long amendment. It simply brings up a point that, quite frankly, was not debated extensively in committee. It was to take a look at the religious significance of a provincial or municipal election, or a federal, provincial or a municipal referendum, and that the chief electoral officer may change the date of the fixed election.

Therefore, it still ascribes to the chief electoral officer the fact that he or she must follow the actual fixed election date calender generally but if these circumstances occur, there is the option that he or she may, not must, change the date.

Particularly for my friends in the Bloc, I would like to think of a circumstance where there is a referendum at the provincial level. Quebec has had this experience more than any other province in Canada. Would it make sense to actually have a fixed date for a federal election set, and at the same time there is a provincial referendum? As we know, a referendum in Quebec often does not just take the attention of Quebeckers. It often takes the attention of the whole country, as it should. It is about the federation itself.

It is reasonable for the chief electoral officer to look at the election date and, if he or she sees a conflict, he or she may decide that we should not have a federal election on the same date as, for example a referendum in Quebec on something as potent as whether Quebec remains in the federation. That is an example of why we should look at this.

This amendment would not change the spirit of the bill. It is simply a what-if scenario. As I have already mentioned and underlined, it would give the chief electoral officer an option. As an officer of Parliament, the chief electoral officer has certain key responsibilities, one being that he or she is accountable to Parliament and must abide by legislation of Parliament.

Bill C-16 , which is in front of us, has been agreed to and passed. The chief electoral officer would need to abide by it as a responsible officer of Parliament. It would simply provide the chief electoral office with the opportunity, if there is a conflict, to deal with it.

As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre said, notwithstanding that we have some problems with the messenger, although we will not shoot the messenger, in this case the Senate having sent it to us, the message is something that we certainly can live with. For that reason, we will quietly support the amendment. It is common sense but it could probably have been done by giving the authority to the chief electoral officer at another time. However, it is in front of us now and that is why it is important to acknowledge it and take a position on it now.

I want to move now to what the bill will mean, when it is passed, in terms of Canadians' confidence in our electoral system. Many more things need to be done in terms of real democratic reform to ensure every vote counts. I submit that at this point in the history of our country we do not have a system where every vote counts. However, at least this will be an opportunity to let Canadians know that, in this case, the next election will be in 2009.

We only need to look at the past couple of weeks where, sadly, the discussions and discourse in the House and around the country have been all about whether there will be an election, yes or no, and whether the government is in a position to get its elusive majority.

On the weekend, CBC had an interesting comedic overview of that. A skit was conducted as a sports broadcast and people were doing a comedy of what it is like when discussing politics. One asked, “Jim, do you think there is going to be an election?” The other responded no and they decided to discuss it the next day. They would act out the following day and have a commentary on whether there was going to be an election.

It is certainly an interesting conversation for some of us but for most Canadians it is an incredible waste of time, not to mention ink, airwaves and electricity. We should be spending our time talking about what we can do in Parliament, not speculating about when the election will be.

Canadians did not send us here to talk about when the next election will be and it is incumbent upon all of us to keep that in mind. When I go door to door and talk to my constituents about what concerns them, it is not about when the next election will be. When they do ask me whether there will be an election, I respond that 2009 is what is in that legislation and that as far as I am concerned that is when the next election will be.

That is why it is incredibly important that we support this bill and that it goes through as quickly as possible. Therefore, I do not think it is plausible or possible to support the government's motion to send the bill back to the Senate and get into that game of Ping-Pong. We need to pass the bill now so Canadians know there is a bill that has a fixed date for elections and that any manipulations or strategic moves by the government will be seen as just that because its own act will be in front of us saying that the next election is in 2009.

The bill is important because it gives us predictability and the government would not be able to manipulate the calendar. Canadians would know that, notwithstanding all the conversations that people have had in the political chattering classes, the next election will be in 2009. The whole gamesmanship of deciding when the time has come to get a majority would be put aside and we could get on to issues that matter, like the environment, the prosperity gap and ensuring that Canadians' health system will be there for them when they need it.

At the end of the day those are the issues that matter to Canadians, not whether the government can pull the plug, call an election and get a majority to do whatever it plans to do. I have some concerns about what the present government would do if it had a majority but I will not go down that path.

I was on the committee studying Bill C-16 and we looked at other jurisdictions. Ontario now has fixed date elections and it has been the practice in many other countries. Some people had concerns that this would mirror the American political model. I would allay their fears because we have other jurisdictions in Europe and elsewhere with Westminster traditions that have fixed date elections and it works for them.

When we do have fixed date elections we need to ensure there is no manipulation of the public purse. What I mean by that is if we had taken the suggestion of the Bloc to have fixed date elections in the spring, we could have seen the government come out with a budget with all sorts of goodies, which kind of sounds familiar, like the last budget we saw here to possibly manipulate citizens so it could get a favourable return on its investment, in other words, a majority government. Having the fixed date election in the fall makes sense.

Some work should be done on when political parties are allowed to spend money in order that we do not have a largesse of spending that benefits one party or another, whichever has the most cash in the bank so to speak. We also do not want perpetual elections like some people were concerned about with this legislation. That just requires us being responsible as parliamentarians

As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre just mentioned, we need to look at election expenses and the rules around election expenses and we need to tighten that up. My colleague put forward amendments to Bill C-2 to tighten that up so people would not have an advantage of playing around with finances to benefit them. When we get this bill passed, and I hope it is sooner rather than later, we will need to keep our eye on that. As with any legislation, once the legislation is passed, it inevitably changes the way things are done. We will need to look at the effects the bill might have on things like election expenses.

We hope people will not get into the habit spending a lot of money before a writ as well as during a writ because they know an election is coming, or we have candidates who are playing around with loopholes in the Election Expenses Act, like loans from someone with deep pockets and who owns a fairly large multinational corporation. We saw that in certain leadership contests where they did not pay back the loan and it is no problem. We must plug that loophole but there are others, people who own car dealerships, et cetera.

Work still needs to be done to make things fairer but this bill is a good start. Canadians will now know exactly when the next election will be. We need to focus on the bill, on what it sets out to do and on what all Canadians believe it should do, which is to give us a fixed election date. The government would no longer be able to play around and try to orchestrate its own defeat. We have responsible work being done in the House and taking away the government's ability to manipulate the date of an election will bring more fairness to the system.

We will talk at another time about what we can do in terms of reforming our democratic system but this is the first start. The NDP is proud that the government adopted our idea and we support it fully.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset that the official opposition in the House of Commons supports Bill C-16. When it was before this House earlier, we supported it wholeheartedly and spoke energetically in favour of it.

Repeatedly the House leader of the government speaks of irony. In fact, I think the walls of this extraordinary chamber are dripping with irony after his speech. However, he speaks of irony in the sense of delay, and of course the delay is on the part of the government on this unnecessary challenge of that minor amendment today.

Let me look at the other initiatives around delay. The House leader speaks of Bill C-43 and the delay there, but we started that last week. The government waited four months after tabling Bill C-43, the election through consultation of senators, to bring it forward. Why not four months ago?

He talked about Bill S-4, the bill on fixed terms for senators, and the fact that it has been held up in the Senate for over a year. This has not been held up in the Senate because of Bill S-4, because there is agreement on that. What there is not agreement on is that we should have the election of senators through consultation with the provinces, or whatever, before we redistribute the seats of the Senate fairly across this country.

How can any member of this House, and particularly of the government, support Bill S-4 without first supporting the other Senate motion to redistribute seats so there is less of the imbalance that so thoroughly disfavours Alberta and British Columbia at this time? I have colleagues in the government side from Alberta and British Columbia. It is inconceivable to me that they would think of altering in any way the status, the mandate, the credibility or the validation of the Senate without first sorting out that extremely unfair distribution for western Canada. This is where we are on that.

On Bill C-16, it is doublespeak, it is Orwellian, to hear the government House leader speak today about the Liberal side or Liberal senators delaying it. Good heavens, we could have had this passed before the Easter recess. We offered to rush it right through, get it to the Governor General and make it law before we left, but no, some bogus concept of this minor amendment as somehow frustrating the will of Parliament, the will of this House, was thrown up as a delaying tactic.

My goodness, the Conservatives refer to a referendum, as if a referendum called in some small municipality somewhere in this country would be allowed to dislodge the fixed election date. What we have to remember is that this would be with the discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer, an officer of Parliament, in one of the most respected senior offices in this country and one of the offices most critical to the fair operation of our democratic process. It is nonsense to expect that this person at his or her discretion would knock off a federal date that had been set for four years in advance because of some local referendum. It is just nonsense. It would not happen and it could not happen. Therefore, that is no reason to slow this down.

The government House leader speaks of disrespect or whatever in the other place where they would dare make a minor amendment to a House bill that has gone through this process and was supported by all parties. The Senate, whatever one thinks about elected or non-elected legislative chambers at this stage in our democracy, exists as part of our democratic machinery. We all have some firm minds about that, I think, including in the Senate, in terms of having some election process for senators. However, the Senate exists as part of our democratic machinery. It has a very specific purpose, which of course is to bring second sober thought to what is thoughtfully determined in this House. When it finds some area where it feels a bill can be made better, the Senate has the perfect right and the democratic responsibility to suggest an amendment, which is what has been done in this case.

I can recall the process last fall when Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, passed through the House after several months of debate in committee and in the House. It then went to the Senate and we heard wailing and complaining from the government side that the Senate somehow was wasting everybody's time with this critical piece of legislation by not simply rubber-stamping it.

I think we all know now what happened in the Senate. There were over 100 amendments because it was a sloppy bill. There was no time as it was rushed through the process in the House. The Senate exercised its responsibilities properly by carefully looking at that massive, complex piece of legislation involving dozens of other statutes that needed to be amended as a consequence of it. The Senate came up with sensible, helpful arrangements and amendments that the House then of course accepted. That was not delay. That was the Senate doing its work in our democratic framework of institutions.

I will go back to this issue of electing, through consulting provincial bodies during provincial elections, for the appointment of senators into vacancies that happen in any one of those jurisdictions. I simply will say that this is a good piece. Let us get that moving. Why did we wait four months? Why have we waited a year without some serious consequence and a discussion of redistribution?

Let me just turn, then, to Bill C-16 itself, because this is a completely appropriate piece of legislation. It was supported in this House. Adding a final little fail-safe in case there could be a problem through a referendum process is just good sense. The Senate has suggested that, which is what we are debating here today. We are in favour of that and therefore are opposed to the government's motion.

In regard to Bill C-16 itself and fixed election dates, we know, and the House debates on Bill C-16 I think made it very clear through speeches on behalf of all parties, that this is a sensible further step in the democratic reform of Canada. It was made very clear that the overwhelming number of democracies in the world have fixed election dates and that there is a range of advantages to fixed election dates, including that it gives some predictability to government business.

Therefore, the government can put forward legislation and have the effective administration of legislation, with a timetable, knowing that it will not be dislodged short of a non-confidence vote or a national emergency. Therefore, the business of the government and the people of Canada can be done more efficiently. It can also be done more efficiently in terms of cost. Having an electoral commission and electoral office idling full time to be ready for an election that could come at any day is not an efficient use of resources.

This is also effective in terms of voter turnout, which is perhaps one of the most critical issues of fixed election dates, something with which I think all members and all parties of this House have been in agreement. For people who are first time voters, be they students, new Canadians or seniors, we can have civics classes in schools, universities and communities to ensure that people are fully engaged in the electoral discussion of the various policies being put forward in the election by various parties. That could enhance interest and voter turnout, which of course leads to a healthier democracy.

Of course in a country such as Canada it is also immensely important to have a fixed date that avoids inclement weather. The last election in this country was held in winter. Sadly, we saw a continued reduction in voter turnout and of course, unless one has the very good fortune to live in Vancouver as I do, winter weather can be very disruptive to voter turnout. That is very important. We also want to avoid the summer holiday breaks, which we can by having a fixed election date in the early fall or late spring, in order to increase voter turnout.

For all of these reasons, it is good sound public policy and we all support it, so good heavens, let us get on with it. Let us not delay this any further. The concept of a referendum in a small community is so inconceivable as to be insignificant. It should not slow down the passage of this legislation. With the support of members of the House today, and with the vote tomorrow, I believe, or whenever we are going to vote on this, we could have this as the law of Canada and as real democratic reform and we could have it immediately.

I just suggest that it is a test to the sincerity of every member of the House in terms of the need for this reform, that we not be distracted by a small amendment. It is the result of the Senate doing its job of carefully looking to see if it could possibly be improved, which to the credit of the House, could only be improved by a tiny amendment of really no consequence at all.

I speak in opposition to rejecting this amendment and in full support of moving ahead quickly in the House right now, so that it can go on to the Governor General and become law as soon as possible.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we are doing, of course, is seeking to restore, defend and strengthen the integrity of the bill. We seek to keep it in its original form and avoid its watering down. Quite clearly, the effort to undermine this has come from the Senate.

My friend from Winnipeg Centre has said that in a minority Parliament the government should accommodate the other parties. I remind him that in this House of Commons and in this chamber all parties supported this bill in its original form. The amendment did not come from anyone in this chamber. It did not come from anyone in the minority Parliament. As he observed, the amendment came from people in an unelected Senate.

Let us think of the irony. Everyone who was elected, every single member of this House of Commons, everyone who has to face the voters in an election, supported the bill in its original form. The Senate is the only place where people thought it should be changed. The only people who thought they had some opinions on how elections should be run, opinions that were different from those of everybody in this chamber, were the people who never face elections, the senators. Let us think of that. That is what is called chutzpah. That is some nerve.

If the senators were actually proposing that they should have fixed date elections, I could understand this amendment being introduced, but I did not see them proposing any amendments that there should be elections and that this bill should apply to the Senate. I did not see them proposing that there should even be fixed terms or fixed dates for senators. They seem to be resisting that in dragging it out so far. No, the only thing the senators are willing to do is tell people in the House how they should run elections.

To me, that is the height of irony. I think it tells us what one of the problems is in the Senate right now, and it tells us why we need to reform the Senate and why we need to continue this program of democratic reform and accountability to have fixed terms for senators. Also, we have Bill C-43, and if the other parties support the bill, then maybe we even will have an opportunity for some of this legislation to apply to senators one day and have them elected.

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I was not here at that time. I am a very recent member.

Another area of parliamentary reform is floor crossing. The NDP, to its credit, brought forward a bill two years ago but it was inadequate. However, I personally brought forward an amendment to the Federal Accountability Act to deal with floor crossing to allow for a limited recall. That would have gone through, even though it was ruled to be out of order, but we had a vote to see whether it could be re-instituted and, unfortunately, the government voted against it. It voted against recall for floor crossing, which is interesting. All members from any party would have been subject by now to that fine provision of parliamentary reform.

I will speak to one other area of parliamentary reform and that is the secret ballot for the chairs of House committees. I think it came from a Conservative resolution when the Liberal government was in power. It was accepted and there were secret ballots for committee chairs. That has been rolled back so that now it is back in the PMO.

We are talking about democracy and all of these things. The trouble is that we cannot just pick and choose, which is, of course, the weakness of Bill C-43. It is piecemeal. It is not comprehensive.

The other issue is public engagement because we are talking about consultations with the public for ideas on who should be appointed to the Senate, which is now done by the Prime Minister at his discretion. Public consultation needs information. A very important part of that information to the public so they can properly be consulted and provide advice to us as legislators is provided through the access to information legislation.

In the last election campaign, the Prime Minister, very broadly, boldly and without any shadow of a doubt, said that the Federal Accountability Act would be the first bill the government would bring forward if he were elected and that it would incorporate the whole access to information draft bill that the Information Commissioner had brought forward at the request of a parliamentary committee.

What was brought forward was just a minor part of it in the Federal Accountability Act. In fact, the Information Commissioner, highly regarded and respected, and actually consulted by all of us, including the present government, for his advice, called the so-called access to information provisions of the Federal Accountability Act retrograde and dangerous. This is our officer of Parliament, now the government, who pledged during his election campaign to incorporate all of his suggested open government act provisions in there.

Let us do this right. If we really see flaws, inadequacies or things that are out of date, we need the courage to say that an unelected legislative body in a modern democracy is an anachronism. I think we all feel that. We need to get together and fix it comprehensively without causing more difficulties rather than solving the democratic deficit of this particular aspect of our democracy.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this morning to speak to Bill C-43, the consultations act. I think everyone understands, who has read the bill, that this is not to provide for the election of senators, but to consult provinces where there are vacancies in the Senate on who might be appointed then by the prime minister. The prime minister will still appoint senators at the end of the day.

It is passing strange to hear the House leader speak of delay. Bill C-43 was first tabled in the House four months ago, and it is only today coming forward for debate. There were many other opportunities to bring it forward. I do not think it should be a purpose of the government to complain about delay. The government had control of it and it has only now brought it forward for debate.

Also, Bill C-16, the fixed election dates, as I mentioned in my intervention, has been stopped in its tracks for want of a minor amendment from the Senate. If the government members had the respect for the Senate, as they suggest, then they would think carefully about the role of the chamber of second sober thoughts. It has thoughtfully looked at the process and determined there is one failure in terms of fixed election dates. Therefore, it has suggested there be a slight amendment for that purpose. I think there must be some other reason why the government will not go along with that. It is in the discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer. That discretion by that officer of Parliament would not be exercised lightly and not in the way the government House leader suggests.

Those on this side of the House have a great deal of respect for the purpose and the work of the Senate.

One example of the value to Canadians of that extraordinary group of people, and they are for the main part, is former Senator Kirby and his health committee. Over a period of years, I think they did the finest work on the ideas to reform and protect the health services of our country. With due respect to all the other commissions across the country and internationally that have looked at it, Senator Kirby's report on health care reform really hit the bell and resonated with Canadians. In fact, very similar conclusions that Senator Kirby's health committee report came to were concurred in by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Chaoulli case. It made many of the same observations about the health of our health care services and what needed to be done to protect them and the rights of citizens under those.

As well, last year Senator Kirby's committee published its mental health report, recommending a national mental health commission. It was done in a way that was thoughtful and sensitive of individuals whose lives were touched, through a family member or friend, by the horrible situation of mental illness.

Those are just examples of how valuable the other place can be to the rights and privileges and services of Canadians.

Let me talk a bit about consultation. We have heard a lot from the government House leader about the government wanting to consult Canadians and it is Canadians who should be consulted, in the words of this bill, for the appointments still of senators.

It is passing strange that Bill S-4, which has been mentioned, Bill C-16, Bill C-43, which we are discussing today, and the Federal Accountability Act, which deals with issues of democratic accountability, have been brought forward by the government before it even put forward its consultation plan.

We know with respect to Bill C-43 that Ontario, Quebec were not consulted about it. Nor were the other provinces or territories. The Governments of Ontario and Quebec have expressed their opposition to this bill as has Yukon. The consultation process was announced a couple of months ago by the Conservative government. It was going to hire a polling firm and a think tank for $900,000, which turns out to be an ideologically based organization. It has come out in favour of keeping the current electoral system in our country, denigrating the idea of proportional representation or any part of it. It was a bogus consultation across the country.

The government did not even wait for that consultation, bogus as it might be, before it brought forward its legislation. That is a strange process. We have seen criticism and problems with it since it started.

There is another irony here. Electoral reform, as another aspect of democratic reform, was put in the Speech from the Throne. The NDP put forward that amendment and it was accepted by the government of the day. In time a legislative committee was set up to look at that issue and to have real cross-country consultations conducted by members of Parliament, who have the responsibility to do that consultation, not polling companies and overpaid ideological think tanks holding a few so-called deliberative discussions behind closed doors. We must get on with that work before too long, certainly before we go ahead with rash changes to our electoral system.

Another irony is this. The Law Commission of Canada, which is an independent, statutory public body that works independently of government, came up with a report in the spring of 2004 on electoral reform in Canada. I invite government members, who would care to rise for commentary and questions, to comment on whether they have read that report. I invite anyone who rises to first comment on the wisdom of that report on two aspects; first, the indepth research that was done; and second, the indepth consultation across the country.

I have read a number of these reports from different countries. I know the respect that the Law Commission of Canada is held in throughout the Commonwealth and the common law world. The report is perhaps the finest treatment of the question of electoral reform in a modern democracy that has ever been written. I look forward to commentary from government members on that.

I guess the triple irony is that the Law Commission of Canada, as announced in the government's economic update in the fall, has had its budget cut to zero as of April 1. It is extraordinary. This is while we are paying ideological flacks $900,000 to gather some bogus public consultation on democratic reform, yet we have this respected body. I am sure some members have not even read the report.

That is another aspect of democratic responsibility. Imagine having the Law Commission of Canada Act, an act of Parliament, disrespected by the government. There are statutory responsibilities under that act to perform services for Canadians. The government, without having the courage to bring legislation to repeal the Law Commission of Canada Act, has cut its budget. It sounds kind of like the gun registry. I do not want to get too off course here, but it is an elementary question of democracy. It has had no courage to bring legislation before this House to repeal the gun registry. Rather it frustrates it. It gives endless time for people to register their guns.

They are laughing across the way. Whenever we talk about democracy and the gun legislation, let us remember earlier this week when the Canadian Police Association came to Ottawa to talk to parliamentarians. The single most important message that the president, on behalf of the police organization, had for us as parliamentarians was it used the gun registry 6,000 times a day, including the long gun registry. He said it was valuable.

Let me now turn to the specifics of Bill C-43, reform of the Senate. I will talk about Bill C-43 in a different context, in the context of Senate reform exactly. Yes, members on this side of the House are in favour of reform. Members in the official opposition are in favour of Senate reform. However, it has to be comprehensive reform and not piecemeal reform.

The trouble with piecemeal reform is this. The Senate, the traditions and the institution of that important body of Parliament, are a Rubik's cube of at least three colours. Two of those colours represent the selection process, including the term of office, and the mandate. Remember we have to think about the mandate of its relationship to the House. If they are identical with identical electoral status, then we will get gridlock. To avoid that, if the mandate is going to be exact with the same electoral legitimacy, then we had better have a dispute resolution mechanism to resolve gridlock when it occurs or the governance of the people of Canada could be frustrated.

The third colour in the Rubik's cube is distribution. Of the issues before us today, this perhaps is the most important. I look across the aisle at government members from British Columbia and Alberta. I cannot believe government members from British Columbia and Alberta could support giving greater powers, greater credibility and greater authority to the other place without a redistribution of seats to fairly treat British Columbia and Alberta, which are woefully underrepresented in the other place.

Let me quote from the preamble of Bill C-43, second clause:

WHEREAS the Government of Canada has undertaken to explore means to enable the Senate better to reflect the democratic values of Canadians and respond to the needs of Canada’s regions;

The bill tries to selectively deal with electoral matters and bring in greater credibility, therefore, power to the Senate, but leaves British Columbia and Alberta so woefully underrepresented.

Let me go back to the government House leader's point that Bill S-4, the bill introduced in the other place to deal with fixed terms for the appointment of senators, has lots of positive support. The trouble is this creates another problem that has to be dealt with on distribution. Other senators, Liberal senators and a former Progressive Conservative senator, put forward, for consideration by the same Senate committee, the idea that there be a redistribution by giving more seats to the four western provinces so the horrid imbalance and disadvantage to the west could be corrected, and without constitutional change as well. It would be an addition of extra Senate seats, but it would balance, for the first time, the rights of the people of western Canada.

This is why Bill S-4 has been held up for the last year in the Senate. It is not because of term limits. Everybody agrees there should be term limits. It is to get the distribution and that is the Rubik's cube that has to come into conformity before we can give greater mandate or greater credibility. Therefore, let us do it all at once.

I keep hearing that we cannot have constitutional change, that we cannot possibly open the Constitution to deal with something of such importance.This timidity would make the Fathers of Confederation blush if they thought they could not do anything to the institution in a constitutional way. One can only think of what would have happened if those fathers meeting in Charlottetown had the timidity of the members of the government today who say that we cannot go near the Constitution.

Let us think carefully about this but let us do it all at once, by all means, and let us do it comprehensively and do it properly.

I want to talk very briefly about other areas of electoral and democratic reform which have been raised by the House leader.

Parliamentary reform is very important. We saw with the last Liberal government a number of elements of parliamentary reform that came in, sometimes by resolution of opposition members at the time. One was the three line whip by the former Liberal government to allow for votes of conscience, free votes, two line whips for people not in cabinet and full votes of conscience. We see that regularly in this party in official opposition. We saw it regularly in the previous Parliament of the previous Liberal government. We do not see it across the aisle here. I do not recall, and I try to watch quite carefully, one vote that has been brought forward where members of the government have been, apparently, free to vote.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

moved that Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to open the debate on Bill C-43, the Senate Appointment Consultations Act, which is important legislation to make Canada's democratic institutions better. It also represents another step in the positive reform of the Senate undertaken by this government.

This bill follows through on the promise made to the people of Canada in the Speech from the Throne to “explore means to ensure that the Senate better reflects both the democratic values of Canadians and the needs of Canada's regions”. More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy. Bill C-43 not only strengthens but also revitalizes and modernizes some of our traditional Canadian values. What I am talking about, of course, is what Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker called the “legacy of freedom” cherished by all Canadians.

In 1960, Prime Minister Diefenbaker's definition of Canadian values included the right to “be free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, and free to choose those who shall govern my country”.

The right to choose who will govern our country or the right to vote is perhaps our most precious and fundamental right, something that has been in our thoughts this week as we mark the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We on this side of the House are proud and honoured to be part of a Conservative parliamentary tradition of expanding rights to Canadians, including particularly the right to vote.

It was Sir Robert Borden's wartime government that first extended the right to vote to women who had close relatives in the armed forces through the Military Voters Act of 1917.

At the dawn of 1919 all women were enfranchised with the enactment of the Act to Confer Electoral Franchise Upon Women, again by Borden's Conservative government.

Likewise, in 1960 Prime Minister Diefenbaker put an end to what he rightly considered an unfair law that forced native people to choose between their right to vote and their treaty rights. Giving aboriginal people the right that was granted to them at Confederation was an ideal to which Prime Minister Diefenbaker had long been dedicated. He noted this in his memoirs:

I felt it was so unjust that they didn't have the vote.I brought it about as soon as I could after becoming prime minister.

Diefenbaker's government granted status Indians the right to vote, without having to give up their treaty rights on March 10, 1960, thus eliminating once and for all voting rights restrictions based on race or religion in Canada.

Our government is following the course charted by our predecessors in Parliament and strengthening the voice of the Canadian people in the Senate, one of our most valuable institutions. We had told Canadians that our government would be mobilizing and democratizing the Senate so that they could have a say in the appointment of their senators. It is time that all Canadians be allowed to exercise the most fundamental right in any democracy, namely the right to vote, in the selection of those who will represent them as senators.

As soon as it took office, our government undertook, as promised, a process to strengthen democracy.

The first legislation passed in this Parliament was the government Bill C-4 that created a review of party registration rules, and just before Christmas, we finally secured passage of the Federal Accountability Act. From a democratic reform perspective, the act reduced the influence of big money in election campaigns and imposed new donation limits and disclosure requirements on those who seek public office.

We have, again with the support of our colleagues in the opposition, passed legislation in the Commons to establish fixed dates for general elections, that is, every four years in October.

Just like the bill we are discussing today, Bill C-16 represents a meaningful improvement to the democratic landscape without requiring a constitutional amendment. Ironically, the Liberal Senate has blocked it from becoming law by amending it at the last minute. We will be asking the Senate to remove that inappropriate amendment so that fixed dates for elections can become law.

Bill C-31 will enhance the integrity of the electoral process. It is currently awaiting approval in the Senate and we would like to see it passed as soon as possible, so that it can be put in place for the next general election.

As we know, citizen involvement is fundamental to any democratic institution. Unfortunately, Canadians have had no involvement in the selection of their senators.

There is one exception. In 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Stan Waters to the Senate after he was selected in a Senate election sponsored by the province of Alberta.

This week, the Prime Minister told us another exception is coming, with his intent to appoint Bert Brown to the Senate, also chosen by Albertans in a vote to represent them.

These are the harbingers of change and the democratization that will be made a permanent fixture in our Canadian democracy, allowing Canadians a say in who will represent them in the Senate, strengthening our Canadian democracy.

Bill C-43 moves to make this happen by immediately involving Canadians in the process.

This bill will enable the government to consult Canadians about the people who will be representing them in the Senate. It is also an important step in the evolution and modernization of a great Canadian institution.

Furthermore, this bill recognizes that citizens—not political friends or big donors—are in the best position to advise the Prime Minister about the people who should speak on their behalf in their institutions. We know that Canadians think it is time to act on this idea.

Bill C-43 will do more than enable Canadians to have their say about the representatives who will be making decisions on their behalf here in Ottawa. It also guarantees that those representatives will be accountable for the decisions they make.

Consulting the Canadian public on Senate appointments will help to boost the Senate's legitimacy in the eyes of Canadians by transforming it into a more modern, more democratic, and more accountable institution that reflects the core values of Canadians.

Senate reform has been something of a national preoccupation for more than a century now, consuming a great deal of time, energy, effort and attention, almost since Confederation in fact.

Well-meaning and reasonable proposals to improve the Senate have sadly become bound up in the broader national pursuit of omnibus constitutional reform, and those efforts to modernize the Senate came to naught.

Ultimately, of course, we know that fundamental reform of the Senate will require complex, lengthy and multilateral constitutional change. There does not exist, sadly, at present, the national consensus or will required to engage in the inevitably long and potentially contentious rounds of negotiations that would be involved.

Some people say that it would be best to do nothing. They just want to shrug their shoulders and say they cannot do what must be done. That is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition did this week. Others prefer to close their eyes and wait until some other time when all of the issues concerning the Senate can be resolved at once.

That is not what the government thinks, nor is it what Canadians think. We believe that Canadians expect more from their national institutions and their government. In fact, that is what they have told us. They know that some Senate reforms are within our grasp, and they want us to act.

There are, of course, other elements of a reformed Senate that will have to wait for another day, most notably redressing the inequalities of provincial representation. However, our step-wise approach will lay the groundwork for a strong foundation for any future change.

I am pleased to note that during the consultations of the Special Senate Committee on Senate Reform last fall, leading constitutional scholars agreed with the government's interpretation that the approach taken in Bill C-43 is legally valid without a constitutional amendment.

Speaking of that Senate special committee, I would like to use the example of another piece of legislation, Bill S-4, as clear evidence that Canadians need and deserve an upper chamber that is more democratic and more accountable to them.

Bill S-4 is legislation that proposes to limit Senate terms to eight years. Bill S-4 was introduced in the Liberal dominated Senate for consideration on May 30, 2006.

Last spring the upper chamber struck a Special Senate Committee on Senate Reform to examine the subject matter of Bill S-4. The committee held exhaustive hearings with witnesses, including the Prime Minister, ministers from several provinces and constitutional experts. In October of last year it reported its findings, which supported the government's approach.

Let me emphasize the point that the special Senate committee with its Liberal Party majority, in its report, endorsed the government's incremental approach to Senate reform. It went so far as to pronounce itself hopeful that the government would continue the momentum of reform it began with Bill S-4.

Paradoxically, however, Liberal members of the Senate brought the momentum of reform, so admired by the committee, to a screeching tortuous halt. Bill S-4 is now the subject of a second round of hearings by a Senate standing committee, a committee that is essentially duplicating the efforts of the special committee.

Despite the endorsement of the special Senate committee, Bill S-4 languishes in the upper chamber still, an astounding 325 days after its introduction.

This is all the more remarkable when one considers that the Liberal Party leader says he supports term limits for senators. He even bravely declared months ago that he would get the Liberal senators to finally deal with the bill. According to the Canadian Press, Dion's decision “Breaks an impasse in the Senate”. Despite his bold declarations, he could not get it done. More Liberal senators continue to obstruct and delay the Senate term limits bill.

A national institution that is truly accountable to the people would not engage in this political muscle flexing for almost a full year so far. An institution that is truly responsive to the people it purports to serve would not employ these recalcitrant procedural manoeuvres for the sole purpose of frustrating the government's agenda, an agenda endorsed by Canadians.

I would like to take this opportunity to once again implore members of the official opposition to urge their colleagues in the Senate to stop playing games, stop resisting constructive change, and get on with the job that Canadians expect and want them to do.

The government rejects the tactics employed by some senators and is taking action to respond to the wishes of Canadians on the subject of Senate reform.

In conclusion, Bill C-43, the Senate appointment consultations act, will strengthen and revitalize the very values that define us as Canadians, values such as democracy and accountability in government.

Indeed, it extends to Canadians the most fundamental right of all, the right to vote, by advancing the principle that Canadians should have a say in who speaks for them in the Senate.

The government believes Canadians should have that right. Bill C-43 not only allows Canadians to indicate who they would like to represent them, it ensures that the people they select are required to account for their actions. In fact, the bill proposes rigorous standards of accountability for nominees, similar to the ones Parliament has put in place for the Commons through the Federal Accountability Act's amendments to the Canada Elections Act.

Bill C-43 is a realistic and achievable Senate modernization measure. It will not have to go through official constitutional amendment procedures. This is not a bill to amend the Constitution, and there is nothing in it that requires a constitutional revision. That is the government's position.

Rather, this is an important step that is part of a gradual approach. The ultimate goal is to bring the Senate into line with the democratic values of Canadians. We need to strengthen democracy. The act to provide for consultations concerning Senate appointments lays the foundation for future changes that will transform Canada's Senate from a 19th century institution into one fit for the 21st century.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue with the debate on the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will begin debate, as I said earlier, on one of the government's bills to modernize the Senate of Canada, Bill C-43. This is an act to provide for consultations with the electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

In fact, yesterday the Prime Minister announced that Bert Brown would finally take his seat in the Senate after being elected twice by the people of Alberta. For those who say it cannot be done, we are getting it done. We will continue to get the job done for the other provinces, with the bill, so they too can elect senators. The Senate elections bill, along with the bill to limit terms of senators to eight years will achieve meaningful Senate reform. Meanwhile, we have talked about constitutional reform. We do not think it is necessary. It can be done without it.

However, in response to the other question raised by the opposition House leader on Bill C-16, we will be bringing it forward. We have indicated that we will bring forward a motion to ask that the amendments by the Senate be removed and to communicate that to the Senate. We will bring that motion forward on Monday. We believe we have the support in the House to have that secured so we can have fixed date elections that cannot be tampered with. That will be on the agenda for Monday, followed by Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill. BillC-43 will be the backup bill on that day. That is the Senate consultations.

Tuesday, April 24 and Thursday, April 26 shall be allotted days.

On Wednesday, we will resume debate on BillC-52, the budget implementation bill, if it has not been completed Monday. It will be followed by Bill C-40 on sales tax and Bill C-33 on income tax.

Friday, April 27, we will continue with those same finance bills.

The Senate

[Stephen Harper, Conservative, Prime Minister]

First , Mr. Speaker, let me take the opportunity to congratulate Senator Hays on his long public service, including his role as leader of the opposition and Speaker of the Senate.

We do have Bill C-43 tabled. On the other hand, the province of Alberta did some time ago hold a popular consultation for the filling of a Senate vacancy. When that seat comes due, I will recommend to the Governor General the appointment of Mr. Bert Brown.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as part of our campaign promise for democratic reform, our Conservative government put forward Bill C-43, which establishes the national process for consulting Canadians on their preferences for Senate appointment through election. We have recently learned that Senator Dan Hays, who holds the seat from Alberta, will be retiring from the Senate after it rises for the summer.

Could our Prime Minister advise the House, Canadians and Albertans on how he will be filling this vacancy?

Senate Appointment Consultations Legislation

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter includes democratic rights for each and every Canadian citizen.

I would like to speak about Bill C-43 today. Bill C-43 is an act to allow electors to choose whom they would like to represent them in the Senate. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes democratic rights for all Canadian citizens. Why then should there be any questions in regard to Bill C-43?

Canadians from coast to coast to coast should have the democratic right to have their say on who sits in the Senate of Canada. Bill C-43 would give them that right.

I call on all 307 of my colleagues to support the bill, to modernize our democracy so that our great country will be a true reflection of what its citizens desire.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of Bill C-16, it is obvious that the Liberal House leader is very concerned about having an election and wants to do anything he can to stop it. Having watched the news last night and having seen some numbers, I can understand his sentiments. That is not surprising.

However, I am also not surprised that he could not remember what the bill was about. That is because it has been out of this House for half a year while the Liberal Senate was trying to deal with it. If those members wanted it passed quickly perhaps they could have avoided making amendments to it. However, there are amendments and we have to consult about them. As well, certainly, the information about everyone having consented is very different from the information that has been provided to me by the other parties to this point.

We will continue to pursue that and we hope to move forward on democratic reform. At the same time, as we said earlier, we will invite the other parties to move forward with Bill S-4 in the Senate. If they want to see things move quickly, that would represent good democratic reform. As well, we invite them to indicate their support for Bill C-43.

However, this afternoon we will continue with the list of bills on today's Projected Order of Business.

Tomorrow we will begin debate on the budget implementation bill. When the House returns from the Easter break, it will continue with the budget implementation bill if it is not already completed tomorrow.

Also on the list of bills for that week are: Bill C-33, on income tax; Bill C-40, on the Excise Tax Act; Bill C-10, on mandatory and minimum penalties; the Senate amendment to Bill C-16, fixed dates for elections, if we can get everyone's agreement on that to move quickly; Bill C-27, on dangerous offenders; and Bill C-45, the Fisheries Act, 2007.

Thursday, April 19 shall be the first allotted day in this supply period.

The Liberal House leader continues to make comments about moving quickly today. I wish he had been over there in the Senate talking to his Senate friends for the past six months while we were waiting. Perhaps while he is busying hurrying things up he can go and talk to the senators about Bill S-4.

I have a motion that I would like to make at this time.

There have been consultations, Mr. Speaker, and I believe that you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practices of the House, the remaining debate on the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Health be deemed to have taken place and all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred to Wednesday, April 18, at the end of government orders; and notwithstanding Standing Order 33(2), government orders shall conclude today at 5:30 p.m.

Electoral Reform

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the gist of my presentation today will be to point out that in view of the very aggressive set of initiatives already introduced by the government on the subject of electoral democratic reform, both in this chamber and for application to the upper House, the motion by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North is effectively redundant.

I want to start my comments by pointing out that the government in its throne speech indicated that it was going to focus intensively on the challenges faced by Canada's electoral and democratic systems. This was done in part in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the last Parliament.

Seeing as the New Democrats are talking about the report of this committee as if it is holy writ or, indeed, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, I note that in fact it was not; it was brought down by a group of us, including me.

Let me just read for members what the report said, because it does not say quite what the New Democrats represent it as saying. It states that a “citizens' consultation group”, along with the parliamentary committee, should:

--make recommendations on the values and principles Canadians would like to see in their democratic and electoral systems...[this] would take into account an examination of the role of Members of Parliament and political parties; citizen engagement and rates of voter participation, including youth and aboriginal communities; civic literacy; how to foster a more representative House of Commons, including, but not limited to, increased representation of women and minorities, and questions of proportionality, community of interest and representation;....

Some of this is being taken care of through the citizens' consultation process that is currently under way, as the government has announced, and which has a much broader mandate than what the hon. member is proposing in her motion, but it is a mandate that reflects accurately what was proposed by this committee when it made its report in June 2005.

Indeed, we have made sure that the consultation group reflects what the committee wanted. At the time when I sat on that committee, I was not a fan of that process, but Ed Broadbent, who is constantly cited in the NDP's arguments, spoke in favour of that particular type of process. I said that we would have the usual suspects showing up at this process, and he said, “Sure, it will be the usual suspects, but they have a lot to say, and it is a good process”. The committee voted for it and the government is following through on the recommendations of the committee.

Now the New Democrats have discovered that they really favour another proposal, the citizens' assembly proposal, which Mr. Broadbent fought against vigorously when it was brought up by the Conservatives and which is why the Conservatives put a dissenting report advocating that proposal into the 43rd report of the procedure and House affairs committee. Thus, when the NDP members refer back to this through a revisionist version of history, we must recall that it is a little bit different from the way it actually worked when it happened.

I now want to list some of the legislative initiatives that the government has moved forward with on the subject of democratic reform, because this is really an extraordinary push forward. We are doing more on this issue than any previous government has ever done.

I will start by pointing to the Federal Accountability Act, which changed the rules for financing. It made them much more restrictive, eliminating corporate and union donations and reducing individual donations to $1,000 per capita, ensuring, in other words, that money and affluence are not the determining factors in financing political parties, and therefore ensuring that parties can operate on a level playing field.

We have moved forward on a number of items that deal with making the electoral system fairer, such as Bill C-31 to get rid of electoral fraud, a bill that the NDP opposes although all other parties in the House support it. It is a bill that will do a great deal to make the system much fairer and will ensure that no Canadian is disenfranchised, because electoral fraud disenfranchises everyone who is affected by a vote outcome that can be determined fraudulently, and that is a real problem.

The increased electoral fairness through Bill C-16, which is now in the Senate, having been passed by the House, will ensure that elections occur once every four years, not when the Prime Minister chooses to call them based upon whether his or her party is high in the polls. That was a terrible wrong. It was abused by the previous government repeatedly. This initiative will ensure that it is not abused again. This follows, of course, a series of legislative initiatives adopted at the provincial level, first in British Columbia and then in Ontario, to ensure that provincial elections are also on fixed four year dates.

We have also moved forward on Senate reform. Bill S-4 limits the tenure of senators to eight years. We are having a tremendous problem getting that bill through the Liberal controlled Senate. The government has initiated this bill. It makes sense. It is going to ensure that senators are not effectively appointed for life. Frankly, this is the first time we have seen any serious attempt at Senate reform in the history of this country.

Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, would allow for elections of senators. They are called consultative elections because we have to respect the constitutional prerogative of the Governor General to appoint senators.

That bill is interesting not only because it would allow for democracy to finally reach into the Senate and elections to occur within the Senate, but elections under this legislation would not be by means of the first past the post system. Rather elections would be by a single transferable vote system, in short, a proportional system that attempts to ensure that broader preferences come forward and are represented in choosing a senator. It would have the same effect in the Senate as what occurs in the Australian senate, for example, which uses a similar system where a broader range of preferences is expressed. This is a tremendous step forward.

I find it interesting that when talking about proportional representation the New Democrats always take great pains to avoid talking about the one piece of electoral reform legislation that is actually before the House right now, the attempt to introduce proportional representation in the upper house of Canada. In listening to the New Democrats talk about this, one would think there is nothing going on there at all and that it is not worth discussing.

Focusing on something that can happen right now in this Parliament is very important. The issue came up when the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London introduced a motion in the procedure and House affairs committee last week asking that the committee consider a variety of democratic and electoral reform issues, including the issue of proportional representation in the upper house. The New Democrats on the committee voted against it. They ensured that the motion would be defeated.

I do not detect a pattern of behaviour that is logical and actually beneficial toward moving forward on the democratic reform file. The New Democrats are trying to focus on a single hobby horse in a way that suits their interests best.

I find it interesting that Ed Broadbent advocated the idea of electoral reform. During the election campaign when the New Democrats released their election platform, that party moved from favouring more proportional representation as a general theme and letting Canadians look for the best solution, to directly choosing the solution that would be given to Canadians, the multi-member proportional system.

That system has some merits. That system is used in Germany and New Zealand, both of which are respectable democracies, but it not the only available proportional system. For example, it is not the system used in Australia's upper house, which is proportional. It is not used in Malta or Ireland. All of those countries have a single transferable vote system. It is also not the system used in Australia's lower house which uses the alternative vote system. It is not the only proportional system, but it was the only one that the NDP wanted to advocate.

The New Democrats were actually advocating it. They were saying it was essential to move from our system to that system when the MMP system, the multi-member proportional system, had just been defeated in P.E.I., where it received less than 40% of the vote, and an alternative system, the single transferable vote proportional system, had been adopted by almost 60% of British Columbians in another referendum.

We have to be careful. When we look at what the New Democrats are proposing we have to ask ourselves, do they favour proportional representation? Do they favour changing the electoral system in a way that reflects what Canadians want, which means maybe not choosing that system up front, or do they favour the system that is likely to produce the best result in terms of numbers of seats for New Democrats if their vote total does not change? In other words, the NDP is saying, “Without actually changing our appeal to the Canadian people, how can we get more seats in the House of Commons?”

That is not a beneficial approach. We have to work on allowing Canadians to make these decisions themselves.

Canada Elections Act

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

It is only 66 words long, Mr. Speaker, that is all, but the Liberal-dominated Senate continues to delay and obstruct something that their own leader claims to support. Despite the fact that the leader of the Liberal Party, the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, advocates fixed terms for senators, his Liberal colleagues in the other place just will not listen to him. He just cannot get it done.

I hope this bill will not meet the same fate, because it of course also enjoys the support of the opposition here in the House of Commons. I hope opposition members will be able to persuade their Senate colleagues to support it as well.

Before I turn to the benefits of this bill, I do want to express my thanks and gratitude to the member for Niagara Falls, the Minister of Justice. It is because of his work as the former government House leader and minister for democratic reform that we now are in a position to advance this very important bill.

On January 4, the Prime Minister reaffirmed our government's commitment to make our country's institutions more democratic and more accountable. Bill C-31 is just one of the government's very robust democratic reform agenda items. It is an agenda based on bringing accountability and integrity to the institutions and processes of government.

We have successfully passed the federal Accountability Act. Oddly, it was another bill that was held up for almost a year in the process, but we finally got it through. That bill brought about important changes to political financing to eliminate big money from our electoral system.

As I indicated, we have passed Bill C-16 on fixed election dates through the House of Commons. Never again will the government of the day be able to play around with the date of an election for its own crass political motives.

We also have introduced Bill S-4 to limit senator's terms to eight years. It is a concept endorsed by the Leader of the Opposition. We would like to see it become law. We would even like to debate it in this House. That has not happened yet, but we would like it to come out of the Senate so we can consider it.

I fully encourage the Leader of the Opposition to stand up and use the full force of his leadership. I know how strong that full force of leadership has been. As is evident from indications in the past few weeks, it is not that strong, but I would encourage him to muster all the strength he has to get it through and out of the Senate and to tell his colleagues to follow his lead. We would be happy to deal with it.

We of course have also introduced Bill C-43, which is a bill to consult Canadians on who they would like to see representing them in the Senate. Right now, of course, terms can be as long as 45 years, and those people can be appointed by the Prime Minister without any consultation. They have been in the past, which is perhaps why we have a Liberal-dominated Senate that will not allow the will of the House of Commons and Canadians to prevail.

We would like to have an opportunity to ask Canadians who they would like representing them in the Senate. That is another one of our objectives. That of course would reform our system and Parliament in a more democratic and more accountable way. Everyone knows that our parliamentary institutions are the foundation of our democracy and, as such, they must be democratic. We have a responsibility to ensure they continue to operate well for the benefit of Canadians.

With this in mind, as the current Minister for Democratic Reform I feel privileged to rise to speak on this bill today.

Bill C-31 makes a number of operational improvements to the electoral process and the Canada Elections Act. It is aimed at improving the integrity of our elections. It implements almost all of the recommendations of the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, a report which was agreed to unanimously by committee members from all parties. The same committee reported the bill with some amendments to fine-tune it on December 13.

In short, Bill C-31 is about simple solutions that will yield tangible improvements to the integrity of our electoral system.

Most of these amendments to the Elections Act were originally recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer, who has had on the ground experience in administering elections. All of these legislative changes were endorsed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, comprised of members of Parliament with real on the ground experience as candidates. A number of the changes may seem small, but collectively they will lead to real results that will improve the integrity of our system.

First, I want to speak about improvements to the national register and list of electors. We have proposed, for instance, amendments that will improve the accuracy of the national register of electors and, by implication, the lists of electors used by each of us during electoral campaigns.

As most will recall, the national register replaced the door-to-door enumeration that used to occur up to 1997. It is from this register that permanent voters' lists, as some of us call it, are generated.

We all know the importance of these lists for engaging our constituents in a campaign and for encouraging them to vote. We have all experienced the challenges that have been faced by Elections Canada in maintaining a database of such a large size in a country growing so rapidly where mobility is so high.

Over the years, Elections Canada has taken strides to improve the quality of the register, but the Chief Electoral Officer has requested more tools to allow for greater improvements and efficiencies. Bill C-31 gives him those tools. For example, we have all seen the box on the front page of the income tax return that allows Canadians to consent to have their name, address and date of birth shared with Elections Canada for inclusion in the register.

Unfortunately, the Chief Electoral Officer has found that a lot of non-citizens who are not entitled to vote are checking the box and making the information less reliable.

Bill C-31 provides the authority to change the question on the income tax form and make it clear that it only applies to Canadian citizens and only they should check it off. This will improve the reliability of the information received, enhance the accuracy of the register and, in turn, improve the quality of the voters' lists. It is a simple change. It will produce real results by ensuring that only eligible voters will have their names placed on the voters' list.

Similarly, Bill C-31 allows income tax returns to be used to inform Elections Canada of deceased electors, so those names can be removed from the register more quickly.

In addition, the bill updates statutory authorities to allow returning officers to update the register and the list of electors, to clarify the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to exchange information with provincial electoral authorities, and to permit the Chief Electoral Officer to use stable identifiers that will make cross-referencing of information on electors more efficient.

Each of these reforms will contribute to a better, more up-to-date national register and in so doing improve the integrity of the lists.

Another element of this bill would improve the ability to communicate with the electorate, which is of course a fundamental cornerstone of our democratic system. These reforms are designed to allow candidates, parties, election officials and the electorate all to engage in a dialogue. That is what makes democracy work.

Election officials, particularly returning officers, will have access to apartment buildings and gated residential communities to carry out their functions.

It will therefore be easier for them to conduct a targeted revision of the list of electors by going to electors in areas of high mobility and low registration.

It will also be easier for candidates to meet electors because they will have better access to gated communities and areas open to the public, such as malls, to campaign.

Taken together, these reforms will help the electorate become better informed and enable voters to become more familiar with local representatives and the political process.

A third set of reforms in this bill would improve the accessibility of voting by those who are entitled to vote. For instance, many Canadians are using advance polls to cast their votes rather than waiting until polling day. That is critically important if we are to see the turnout increase or at lease reverse the decline in turnout that has been happening until recently.

Bill C-31 will allow greater flexibility to establish more advance polls when circumstances warrant. This is of particular benefit for large ridings and remote areas, where advance polling districts can be very large and hard to access for some residents. This bill will go a long way to improve access for voters and will lead to increased voter turnout across this country.

One of the things that has saddened many of us who care a great deal about democracy is that at the same time as we have seen a decline in community involvement in all kinds of activities, we have seen that decline in the voter rate. That decline in voter participation is a bad thing for our democracy. We want to see Canadians engaged in their process. We think it is important that voter turnout increase.

All of us in the House of Commons have to explore ways in which we can work to improve voter turnout. If allowing more advance polls is one way to do it, as Bill C-31 opens the door to doing, that is something that we should be doing.

I encourage all members of this House to take that step in the right direction to reversing the decline in voter turnout and encouraging more Canadians to vote, encouraging more Canadians to have a real stake in our electoral system and to participate in that way.

On another subject, one of the most significant sets of changes in this bill addresses potential voter fraud. Like all the reforms that I have discussed, these amendments protect the integrity of the electoral process. The fundamental democratic principle of our electoral process is that only those entitled to vote should vote and they must vote only once.

During meetings of the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, it was clear that most of the members had heard of times when this principle was violated. Every time that happens, voter confidence in the electoral system and its integrity is shaken and an eligible voter is deprived of the right to vote.

Bill C-31 takes action to reduce the opportunity for voting fraud through a very simple step. It amends the Elections Act requiring Canadians to show identification for voting. Rather than only stating one's name and address, which is all someone has to do right now, a voter will have to provide some kind of proof of their identity and residence before receiving a ballot.

I cannot say how many times voters have come to me and said they could not believe that they were not asked for any identification and that anybody could have voted in their place. I think most of us have probably heard stories of folks who have gone to vote and found out that somebody had already voted claiming to be them. We all hear those stories and they are alarming. This change will put an end to that.

The change applies to people who are already registered to vote and are on the list of electors. I should stress that under the current system those who are not registered to vote must already show identification to register at the polls. We are simply making that requirement a uniform requirement. Simply put, the bill requires individuals to prove who they are and that they are who they say they are before they vote.

The federal voter identification process will be modelled on similar procedures in Canada and in other countries, such as those in Quebec and a growing number of municipalities across the country. It will improve the integrity of the process and reduce opportunities for electoral fraud, which can have an impact on very close election results.

In turn, this reform will, like the other measures I have discussed, enhance the integrity of our system and the confidence of the people in that system. This is what this bill is all about, the integrity of our electoral process, which is something in which we all have a stake.

In closing, as Minister for Democratic Reform, I am excited about this bill because it provides tangible and real results for Canadians. Without a well functioning electoral machinery our democracy will not work. All hon. members will agree that the machinery must be regularly maintained, updated, renewed and modernized, and it is our duty as parliamentarians to do that work.

The progress of Bill C-31 is an ideal example of how that work should be done. The genesis of the bill was a parliamentary committee report that was agreed to by all the members of that committee, including the representatives of the New Democratic Party. The government responded with legislative action. We have worked with the other parties in fine tuning the bill after hearing from a number of witnesses in committee. It is truly a multi-partisan or non-partisan effort designed to improve the integrity from which all of us will benefit.

If our electoral system is held in a higher regard, all of us will be held in a higher regard and to the extent that confidence is lacking, all of us suffer as parliamentarians. That is why I think the spirit in which this has gone forward is a positive one and what this bill does is positive.

I hope that the House will pass this bill quickly so that it can come into force as soon as possible. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the House to join me in supporting Bill C-31.

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)