Bill C-19 (Historical)

Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure)

An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Senate tenure)

This enactment changes the tenure of members of the Senate.

Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure)

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the members on the opposite side would like to play games, I am a Liberal member and I am in the House, so I would like to know how many members there are from the Conservative Party.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

This is getting to be a point of argument rather than a point of order. We are returning to the debate at hand with the hon. member for Hamilton Centre, and he might like to know that his microphone works.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a former deputy speaker in Ontario, I will gladly take advice from you on being an MP, and maybe you will take some from me on being a Speaker.

This was a perfect example of the kind of things that do happen in here. We get into partisan pettiness. We go back and forth and we are always looking to get the electoral up. Like, big shock; that is the way this place works, but if one believes that we are going to elect senators and somehow they will not have any of this, that we are going to find--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington is rising on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to encourage decorum and urge all hon. members not to make, either directly or indirectly, insulting remarks toward others. That would include all members.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. member, but I would much rather listen to the hon. member for Hamilton Centre, who has been recognized and who has the floor for the next 11 minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I forget exactly where I was when I left off, which was probably the point of doing that.

I was pointing out that a lot of this partisan pettiness, and that is what it is, exists no matter where one goes, whether one is in the provincial legislature or here. If members are elected to the Senate, we are going to get the same thing. If that is what Canadians want, fair enough, but let us understand that by electing and giving legitimacy to the incredible constitutional powers the Senate has, we create a whole new political dynamic in Canada. This place will function nothing like it does now.

We could look to the Americans as an example of the kind of gridlock there can be between two strong elected houses. They have conference committees where they are forever trying to find compromises so they can actually get something done. We could go there, as complicated as it is, but for less than 35 million people, is it really that practical?

Ontario, Quebec and every other province that had a Senate got rid of it. I believe that our provinces have incredible responsibility under the Constitution. Health care, environment, police services and administration of the courts are just a beginning list of things they are responsible for. They are important matters. The people of all the provinces did not believe they had to elect another tier, find another class of politicians to go into a second place to provide that sober second thought.

The people were quite competent to decide who among them they would send to their provincial capital and make the decisions, and it works. I am quite prepared to be corrected, but I am not aware of a single province where there is a huge clamouring to reinstate the Senate in that province because it cannot trust the people who have been elected directly to the legislature. They may not like them, but then we have a means of taking care of that, do we not? It is called an election, which we do not have in the other place.

This notion that the country needs it as part of its structure I do not think holds. I know there is a concern, particularly among members from smaller provinces, that in the absence of the Senate there would be some kind of a ganging up of the larger provinces. I say this right up front as a member from the province with the largest population in our Confederation. I understand the concern, but as I have said earlier, I am not aware of just how much province protecting is going on in that other place. I am sure I will get examples of senators who have done things for their provinces, but I am talking about the grand scheme of things. Unless we actually walk over there, we do not know what is going on as the Senate does not have TV cameras. My point is that alone is not reason enough to keep the Senate.

What about the notion that because we have such big provinces compared to many smaller ones, without the Senate, no matter what role it is playing directly, somehow that is going to be a real problem for the smaller provinces. Having served municipally, provincially and now federally, I can say that as long as there is representation by population, we are always going to have this.

My good friend, the hon. member for York South—Weston, a former regional chair, would understand better than most what it is like with densely populated areas such as a downtown area and then the more suburban areas that feel they are not being treated fairly because all the attention and money is going downtown where the people are. It is a constant struggle.

I was an alderman, but if a councillor has an area in the ward where there are only a few houses or maybe an area by an industrial sector and most of the money seems to be going toward the development of a new area, a new school, a new recreation centre, people constantly say, “You are only doing it because that is where all the votes are for you. You are ignoring us”. I am not saying it is not a problem; I am saying that it is inherent in representation by population.

At the city level and more appropriately as a comparison at the provincial level, we get past that. We elect premiers in cabinet who are partisans, clearly, but we also expect that for the most part we do not do too badly overall, and I am talking historically, in managing to ensure that everyone has a piece of the pie and gets a share of the interest of the senior level of government. There is no reason we cannot do that. We do that here. We do it in our caucuses.

We have to elect the right kind of parliamentarians. I do not want Hamilton to win at the expense of my neighbour, Burlington. I want Hamilton to win, you bet. It is in large part why I am here, but I care about my neighbours in Burlington. I also recognize there is a self-interest. We cannot be isolated. We are part of a regional economy in southern Ontario, as well as a national economy. So that does not hold, in my opinion.

In the few minutes I have left, I want to focus on the power that senators have, why Canadians ought to care about this, and why it matters. I am going to use a very pedestrian issue compared to the huge issues of the day that we deal with here at the national level.

Not long ago, there was an attempt by this place with a bill passing all the stages at committee and here in the House, to reduce the ability of railways to ignore the noise they make, especially when the trains are idling in neighbourhoods. This was a good thing. It was Parliament responding to issues that affect people where they live. It is not just about the big issues of the day; we have to care about where people live, how they live and the quality of that life.

The House of Commons and the minority Parliament was doing the right thing. The bill went over to the Senate. The Senate changed it. It gave the power back to the railways, not to make as much noise as they want, but to go beyond the language and the restrictions that the House of Commons, the elected people, said that the railways should abide by.

I want to know what senator is from Hamilton and is going to be accountable to the people on Stinson Street, Aberdeen Avenue, Lawrence Road and Allison Crescent, where we have trains that park and idle, people who would have benefited from this House passing that law. What senator is going to answer to my constituents? I do not even know who it is.

I spent 13 years in the Ontario legislature and I never once had a senator call and ask me what I thought about something or what Ontario thought about something. I was in the Ontario cabinet. I never had a senator call and ask me, “What does Ontario think about this?” or “I want to talk to you about this and how it affects Ontario”. No, but that place has the power to make the lives of my constituents who are living beside those railway yards worse.

That is not right. It is not right, when we have taken the time and the effort to improve the quality of life of Canadians and an unelected body, not answerable to anyone, not consulting with anyone, can override that decision. If they are holding public meetings, I would like to know about it. I have never heard of one.

That is not the end of the process. We then start going back and forth with it, which takes me right back to the idea of whether we want that process. If the senators were elected and had that power, they would certainly be democratic, but we have to have this whole big battle over what the final law will look like, rather than just letting the democratic process that serves us so well in this place be the final decision.

If we get a law passed through here and it is signed by the Governor General, it becomes the law of the land. Then we go back to our constituents, and in this minority Parliament we do that a lot, and we knock on those doors and we say, “Yes, sir and yes, ma'am”, and we account for our time here.

In the absence of that, Canada cannot offer up all that we believe Canada is, because when we get out on the international stage, people look at us and say, “But do you not have an appointed upper house?” There is no answer to that. The only real answer is that we are trying to fix it. The way to fix it is to abolish it, or at the very least, have a referendum. If none of that works, we can try reform, but the reality is that it is probably going to fail.

What has the best chance is to have an agreement that we will take what that place is supposed to do in terms of representing provincial interests and have it reflected in this place, and thus not rely on an unelected house.

I look forward to questions and comments.

[James Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this debate today. I appreciate the passion from my colleague from Hamilton and from the NDP on this subject.

I really do disagree with the NDP's position on this issue. I want to talk a bit about some of the merits of Senate elections and the demerits of the NDP position.

I am the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works. As members know, the Minister of Public Works is a senator. One of the benefits of the current system is seen when we have a federal election. In the last federal election, the Conservative Party did not get a member of Parliament elected from downtown Montreal. We have the view that the second largest city in Canada should have somebody sitting at the cabinet table to defend the issues relating to the city of Montreal. We appointed Mr. Fortier as a cabinet minister and Minister of Public Works.

We also decided that there should be a measure of democratic accountability, so he was appointed as well to the Senate, because the Senate has a question period and has an access so that opposition parties can ask him questions directly about his activities as Minister of Public Works.

I suspect the NDP may well condemn what we did in this regard, but my colleague should know that when the NDP was in government in British Columbia, it did the exact same thing. When the NDP was in power, it appointed as minister of aboriginal affairs an individual who had not been elected. The NDP did so because at the time we were just coming out of a debate over the Nisga'a agreement in British Columbia and that party wanted to have an aboriginal cabinet minister at the cabinet table.

We believe that at this time in Canada's history all regions of Canada should be represented at the cabinet table. We also want to make sure that all the diverse regions of Quebec are represented, including Canada's second largest city. This is an important thing. This is a practice that has been done before.

We want to make sure that regions of this country are represented. There are 50 separatists here in the House of Commons who want to rip Quebec from the future of this country and we want to make sure that the province is well respected and well represented at the cabinet table. We have done that. Minister Fortier will be putting himself forward to be a member of the House for the riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges in the next election campaign.

I have a question for my colleague. It has not been uncommon for provincial premiers historically to be in favour of abolishing the Senate, because they all have unicameral legislatures so it makes sense for them to say that this should be transitioned federally. The problem, of course, is that historically it is a two party system in most provincial election campaigns so there are majority governments and of course it makes sense to get rid of an upper chamber so there is unfettered support.

However, in our system it does not serve our best interests. I believe that my colleague's constituents in Hamilton would not support the NDP position of abolishing the Senate, given that if it is abolished, the cities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver alone, those three cities, would have an absolute majority of seats in the House. The regions, the suburban areas, the rural areas and the northern areas in this country would not have the same effective voice that they do now with a balanced system where we have provincial representation and a fair voice in the House of Commons.

There are reasons for the status quo. There are ways to improve it, but I think the NDP approach is thoroughly backward.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member caring enough to listen and to ask a good question. The answer is that, first of all, there is nothing perfect about democracy. It is the people who decide who comes to this place, not parties, not governments, not any of us. The people decide and it is then up to us to make sure that we give the people, as best we can, a Parliament that works.

Also, if that is the member's only justification for keeping an entire Senate, then I would say there is an easier way to accommodate these kinds of needs. I understand the point the member is making. It is a valid one. What I do not accept is that to me it is the same as the senators saying to look at all the good work they do. That is not the point. The member's point is not the issue. Here is what matters. Would my colleague have an entire Senate with half of our constitutional power residing in that other place just to solve that one issue that does come up from time to time?

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on a very eloquent speech and an insightful one with respect to the issue at hand.

I would be interested, in that same vein, to hear the member's response to what I see as an inconsistency between the New Democratic position with respect to the Senate, based on accountability, and its support for proportional representation.

Proportional representation would have a group of members in a legislative assembly who would not have a direct responsibility to any constituency. That is the same argument, to some extent, that the member has been putting forward. I accept that and I am sure the House does, but it seems inconsistent with the position that his party has put forward on proportional representation. I wonder if the member could address that.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent question and I thank the member for it. My answer to that would be that to the best of my knowledge each of the parties in this place, if we ever did go that way, has confirmed that it would elect anyone on any list within each one's own party.

There would have to be some level of democracy. I doubt that any of us would stand for our party leader unilaterally saying “him, her and him”, who suddenly get seats. There is that accountability back to the party. In large part, that accountability will be reflected by how well the party did in the last election. If it did not do very well, it knows where the weak spots are. The hon. member has been around politics a long, long time. He knows how that would be.

The difference, of course, is that with the Senate, if a person is appointed at 40 years old, he or she has a 35 year term and at no point, none, ever, does he or she account to anyone for that time.

I take the point. It is a valid one, but I do think that the element of democracy still being in there does stand the test of time in terms of a comparison between the “win a lottery for life” sort of thing over there versus still having to go back to somebody in the democratic process, where at the end of the day, the people still decide. If we do not get any votes for our party, nobody will get in there.

That is not case in the other place. It is still a matter of one person in this entire nation, one person in the Prime Minister's Office, who decides who goes into the Senate. Once they are there, they never, ever have to account to anyone about anything.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

There are three minutes left and there are three people rising to ask a question. If I can trust each of you to have half a minute questions, we can have half a minute answers. The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure we hold to the same standard for all members here. The government member previous to me gave a little speech a minute ago, but I will be succinct.

When we look at the bill, what we see is that the government is tinkering. At the end of the day, we are asking if this is enough. That is my question for my colleague. Is this enough to actually make the Senate a democratic institution? Is this tinkering enough or should we be doing more?

If this bill and the other bill for Senate reform are all we have, is it enough? Does the hon. member think his constituents will be happy with that or do they need more?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is an excellent one. I will answer by saying no, and that is the difficulty, it does not go all the way.

There are two pieces to this. First, is this enough democracy to say in regard to the existence of the Senate that it is okay, we can live with it and at least it is democratic? The answer is no, not by a long shot. One election in eight years is not democratic accountability. I do not know anybody else who has an eight year term that is somehow called accountable and democratic.

The bigger issue, though, is still whether or not the Senate, even if it were fully democratized, and this is far from that, is the structure we want. Do we really want to duplicate the whole process? Do we want to run the risk of gridlock? Do we need two full houses for 35 million people? Is this in the best interests of Canadian governance?

We in the NDP believe it is not.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Western Arctic should know that there are 45 seconds left for both the question and the answer.