Bill C-20 (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, the Director of Public Prosecutions Act and the Income Tax Act, coordinating amendments and commencement provisions.

Opposition Motion—Senate Accountability

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

Mr. Speaker, contained in the question was the following comment: that the government seemed so loath to move legislation relating to Senate reform. I will look back at the legislative history of this government's attempts to cause the Senate to be reformed.

Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Senate tenure) was tabled in 2006. As members can tell from the date, in 2006, the first year of this government, it sought to introduce limits to Senate tenure, which would limit the term of senators, but the opposition blocked it.

In all fairness, that was in the Senate, and I think my colleague is pointing out these were not the New Democrats, and I accept that. However, the fact is the opposition held the majority in the Senate at the time and the government did move. The concern the member had was that the government had not taken action on the Senate.

Bill C-20, the Senate appointment consultations act, which was also moved by the government when it was in minority and opposed by the opposition, would have had the effect of setting in place a national electoral process with a preferential ballot designed to actually avoid some of the pitfalls that created a highly partisan nature in the Australian Senate. We would have ensured that there was none of what they call “above the line” voting that occurs in Australia that causes people to vote for parties instead of individual senators. We did that legislation.

Bill C-7, the Senate reform act, was also put forward by this government.

There are three pieces of legislation, all of which were opposed by the opposition. I cannot remember the details of when the NDP opposed, or which ones were opposed to others, but the general trend has been that NDP members oppose everything because they favour abolishing the Senate, which is a legitimate point of view. However, I do not think it is legitimate to go from that to say the government has not been trying very hard and consistently over the past few years.

Senate Reform Act

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House and the Speaker for allowing me this time, as well as for allowing the debate regarding the House of sober second thought to move ahead.

Over many years, certainly since the inception of this country, this debate has raged on as to its content, how it proceeds, how it is selected and how it goes about its daily business. It has been debated across the country in many forums, sometimes high profile and other times not so high profile. Nonetheless, there have been several repeated attempts to make it better reflect the opinions and the diversity of this country, not just of persons but also the regions that many of us represent. Therefore, I will go through a brief analysis.

I do not think we thank the people who work in the Library of Parliament enough. However, I am thankful to them and, in particular, Sebastian Spano, who did some background information on this. He brought forward some great points. He also brought forward an historical context with respect to the Senate and, in particular, this bill, the thrust of which proposes two things: that we should limit the duration of time that senators can sit, in this case nine years; as well as allow the participation of the provinces in the selection of senators and, more to the point, in the election of senators, which is a practice that has been done circuitously at best when it comes to the situation.

For instance, we remember the particular appointments of the late Stan Waters, as well as Bert Brown, but they were not direct elections per se. This particular bill hopes to bring a direct election within the confines of the Senate, along with term limits.

The bill is divided into two parts. The authors of the bill, in this case the government and the minister in question, have expressed a desire to initiate a process for constitutional reform leading to an elected Senate “in the near future”, which begs the question whether this opens the door to something else. I assume that it does, given that the origins of the party in power always talk about the triple E Senate, equal, elected and effective, which, in my opinion, refers to two things, being equal and elected. Whether it is effective remains to be seen.

The legislative model would allow voters to select candidates wishing to be considered for appointment to the Senate. It does that on two levels. It does that at provincial elections and municipal elections, which is something I will discuss a little later.

It should be noted that the bill would impose no obligation on the provinces or the territories to establish a selection process. However, the nominees model and framework is set out in the schedule, a lot of which the entire framework is set out in the province of Alberta legislation, which is what the schedule is modelled on.

Bill C-20, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, was a past attempt to do this. There were past recent attempts in both the Senate and here. We had Bill S-7 and Bill C-20, which were two ways of doing that, both of which died on the order paper in 2008.

I will trace back to when it all started. Basically six major changes were proposed with respect to how the Senate should react through committees, through the House of Commons, as well as through the Senate. First, in 1887, they proposed a Senate in which half would be appointed by the federal government and the other half would be appointed by the provincial governments. Again, we go back to the appointment process. There was no election involved.

The second time this happened was at the end of the 1960s. In the constitutional conference of 1969, the federal government of the day proposed that senators be selected in part by the federal government and in part by the provincial governments, which is the same sort of situation we had in 1887. As well, the provinces could choose the method of selection of senators, whether by nomination by the provincial governments or with the approval of their legislatures. The difference here is that in the past they wanted to infuse provincial input into this by allowing them to appoint but it never set out the way it was to be done, whether by election or appointment. I am assuming they wanted to do it by appointment of the legislatures so they would choose their own, but we can get the idea.

What they wanted to do, for the most part, for the past 144 years, was bring the provinces into a direct consultation process and a process to directly appoint senators to Parliament.

Third, in 1978, the Government of Canada's proposal for a time for action, as the document was called, a renewed Constitution, which would include a house of the federation that would replace the Senate. How interesting is that? It was probably something similar to what the Council of Europe has in Strasbourg.

Basically, the legislators in their home provinces would come to Ottawa and use the Senate, the upper chamber, as a house of the federation, as it was called. Now that proposal did not last very long. It is did not cause a lot of excitement around here and it did not get a lot of media attention. Nonetheless, it was something that was brave and bold for its time.

Bill C-60 was tabled and received first reading in the House of Commons in 1978. In 1979, the Pépin-Robarts task force on Canadian unity recommended the abolition of the Senate and the establishment of the council of the federation. It moved one step further. The council of the federation was to be composed of provincial delegations led by a person of ministerial rank or by the premier of a province. I suggest that members in this House may want to look at that as a proposal, as an alternative, as in the case of the NDP who want to abolish the Senate. There is something there the NDP may want to consider.

In 1984, the Molgat-Cosgrove Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons recommended that senators be directly elected. The Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada recommended that senators be elected in elections held simultaneously with elections to the House of Commons. Therein lies the rub. That is where the direct participation of the provinces is needed, depending on the formula, in particular, seven provinces representing 50% of the population.

That brings us to 1987. I have three words, Meech Lake accord. We all remember that. That was one of the more high-profile attempts at reforming the Senate, a constitutional reform that would have had implications for the method of selecting senators.

With the Meech Lake accord, once a vacancy occurred in the Senate, the provincial government of the province in which the vacancy existed could submit a list of nominees for potential appointments to the Senate. It was somewhat circuitous in the way it went about its business. The provinces would provide a list of people for the prime minister through the governor general to select. That is a little different but, nonetheless, I do not think it would have put it into the context of allowing the provinces to be directly involved simply because it was more of an advisory role. That brings me to this bill, but I will get to that in a little bit.

In 1992, the Beaudoin-Dobbie Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on a renewed Canada recommended the direct election of senators under a proportional representational system. Therein again lies the participation of the provinces.

Several provinces have enacted their own legislation to make way for this type of procedure where they would be involved in electing senators to the Senate. We know about Alberta. It enacted a senatorial selection act in 1989 which set out the guidelines by which they could do that.

In 1990, British Columbia enacted a senatorial selection act as well, which mirrors the counterpart in Alberta, and it did lapse by the way, but it has been reported in recent media accounts that British Columbia may revive this type of legislation.

In 2009, Saskatchewan passed the Senate nominee election act, which received royal assent but has not been proclaimed into force yet.

In Manitoba, there is the special committee on Senate reform. Manitoba took a different track. In November 2009, it proposed an election process for selecting Senate nominees to be administered by Elections Canada and to be paid for by the federal government. Manitoba went in a different way, which tied it a little more directly into the federal system, certainly with Elections Canada, and proposed that the federal government would look after it. As my hon. colleague from Manitoba points out, it was put forward by Gary Doer of the former NDP government.

Proposals for reforming Senate tenure, again from 1867 to 1985, I mentioned the Molgat-McGuigan committee and others. There were several guiding principles involved, which brings me to the point I am trying to make here when it comes to Senate reform. This is why this particular bill could find itself in trouble.

A few years back a former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams, made a representation by saying that this cannot be done without the provinces. I think he was right and here is why.

In a judgment delivered in 1980, the court articulated a number of guiding principles in the British North America Act and the Senate. It said, basically, that in many ways we cannot change the spirit of the legislation because of the effect of direct election to the Senate. It said that what we would end up doing is changing the very thrust of the way the Senate operates. However, in this particular case, the Conservatives will convince themselves that it is not direct, but it is, thanks to clause 3, which states that the Prime Minister must consider this.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, whose speech I very much enjoyed.

I would like to know what he thinks about more substantive and fundamental reform of our parliamentary institutions. The former Bill C-20 on Senate reform very clearly set out a transition towards a means of direct election for the Senate, which would completely change the system. This bill was simply a transition. That was completely cut out of the bill before us today. There is no more talk of a transition or of more substantive changes. This seems to be all that the Conservatives have to offer us by way of reform. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

I recognize that it is a privilege to have the opportunity to address the House today. This is a privilege granted to me by the democratic principles of our country. Based on the supremacy of the rule of law, Canadian parliamentary institutions recognize this fact and often serve as an example throughout the world. Whether it be our Supreme Court, our Constitution or the House of Commons, the international news constantly reminds us that it would be very dangerous to take our democratic institutions for granted or to simply handle government business in a manner that is inconsistent with the most basic parliamentary rules.

This opportunity to speak about Bill C-7 is an opportunity to express my concern about the profound changes that this government wants to make to Canadian parliamentary institutions and, in particular, about the questionable manner in which it intends to go about doing so.

First, I would like to draw the House's attention to one thing, and that is the purely cosmetic nature of this bill. It is like a face lift that merely serves to superficially hide the signs of aging. This proposed Senate reform does not do much to hide the wrinkles. It is what I would call botched surgery. This bill does not address the real problems with the Senate.

First, this government is not above the laws, and certainly not above our Constitution. How does the Conservative government plan to justify the fact that it is blatantly thumbing its nose at the most basic rules of our state? In the preamble of the legislation, the government says it plans to use section 44, which, subject to sections 41 and 42, allows Parliament to make an ordinary law to change the way senators are appointed. This move would very clearly violate subsection 42(1) of our Constitution, which states:

An amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to the following matters may be made only in accordance with subsection 38(1)...

The Constitution unequivocally states that the powers of the Senate and the method of selecting senators cannot be changed without the consent of seven provinces representing at least 50% of the population of Canada.

This provision is in the Constitution in black and white. How does the minister justify ignoring it? If the government wants to reform the Senate, it must do so in accordance with the rules that have been established.

The government is saying that the scope of section 44 covers everything else, including, it says, what it is trying to do with this bill. This argument does not hold water, given the name of the bill: Bill C-7, An Act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits. That kind of language cannot go unnoticed. I urge the government to honour the procedure for amending the Constitution.

I would like to add something here. I took a look at the government's previous Senate reform bill, Bill C-20. It was very interesting. In the preamble, it states quite clearly that the reform based on consultative elections was to be a transition process that would lead to a more permanent constitutional reform of the Senate to provide for a means of direct election. This statement, which is quite significant, does not appear in Bill C-7. This is yet more proof of the superficial nature of this bill. This is all that the majority government plans to bring to Senate reform. It is amazing that this is being used for political games.

This government feels justified in using an undemocratic method to make an antiquated institution that is ill-suited to modern political realities more democratic. All I am seeing here is another attempt by this government to unilaterally move forward with institutional reform in the least collegial and transparent way possible. What is more, the government is saying that this is all there will be in the way of Senate reform. What a lost opportunity.

Flouting the process for amending the constitution would create a dangerous constitutional precedent. Is this the historic legacy this government wishes to leave? I would like to take this opportunity to say that the New Democratic Party will always defend the rule of law and stand up for healthy, friendly and constructive debate on the future of this country and the issues that directly affect Canadians. No government can avoid meeting this country's constitutional obligations. No government can do that.

I do not think it could be any clearer that the use of section 44 is a way to avoid debate and especially to avoid obtaining the consent of the provinces, which are also concerned about these changes. By proceeding in such a unilateral way, the bill sends an ambiguous and underhanded message to the provinces. Last I heard, they were an integral part of this country. Is this government afraid that this reform bill will not obtain the required consent? This kind of attitude tells me that the government is incapable of generating the support it needs to make these reforms. This bill, in its current form, is an excellent way of short-circuiting the provinces' opinions.

The provinces that had an upper chamber in their own legislature abolished it a long time ago. Furthermore, a number of provincial premiers have opposed this unilateral reform. It is blatantly obvious that the government is saying, “You do not agree with us? Oh well, too bad for you. Our mandate is too strong for us to worry about you. Here are the wonders of Canadian constitutional law, covered in Conservative sauce.” What a fabulous message to send to Canadian citizens. Does that really represent the actions of a responsible majority government that claims to work for all Canadians?

The role of the Senate has been controversial since the early days of Confederation. If I may, I remind the House that the Senate, as an institution, was meant to be a chamber of sober second thought, a chamber of wise people chosen to represent the territorial diversity of the country and act as a counterbalance to the decisions made in the House of Commons. Today, the makeup of cabinet reflects one of the requirements for regional representation, which was previously a responsibility of the Senate. The role of the Senate has increasingly weakened since it was created at the time of Confederation.

Above all, the Senate must be absolutely devoid of partisanship. I am in no way questioning the wisdom of the current senators. However, it is clear that the Senate has never consistently attained the other objectives laid out for it. Territorial representation, a concern at a time when it took several days to reach the federal capital, is no longer relevant and does not protect remote regions. The Senate rarely opposes the decisions made by the House of Commons. When it does, it hinders the proper functioning of the democratic process. The perception of voters is not that the Senate is a chamber of sober second thought, but that it is the chamber where bills that are too controversial remain in limbo. Finally, and this is the key point, Senate partisanship is legendary. That is the greatest complaint about the Senate. Far from correcting the situation, Bill C-7 will only makes things worse.

To get an idea of its partisan nature, we need only watch the news. My colleague from Winnipeg Centre recently gave an interview in which he criticized the involvement of a Conservative senator who was serving as the election campaign co-chair and leading spokesperson for the Manitoba Conservative Party. It is clearly unacceptable for a member of the Senate, who is paid by taxpayers, to use his time for that purpose. If he wishes to get involved in the Manitoba election campaign, he should never do so at the expense of Canadian taxpayers. This example highlights how the Senate, in its current form, is poisoned by partisanship.

Canadians expect the Senate to act as independently as possible. Can the minister clearly tell this chamber that reforming the way senators are selected—by adding an election process—will make the Senate less partisan? No, I do not think he can, unless the minister outright contradicts a Progressive Conservative senator who told the Hill Times last June that Bill C-7 could be a threat to the Canadian parliamentary system. He maintained that the proposed reforms could politicize the Senate even further instead of making it free of partisanship. He also stated that a senator is more effective when there is no partisanship.

What more is there to say? This bill would clearly exacerbate the partisanship that is already all too prominent in the Senate. How can this bill possibly be described as an improvement to the democratic legitimacy of the Senate? The proposed nature of the method of selecting senators would poison the Senate's mandate, which is supposed to be as independent as possible. If we look closely at the government's line of thinking, there would be a huge divide among senators appointed before October 14, 2008, and those appointed after. How will these new, elected senators with fixed terms serve alongside senators who were appointed without any fixed terms? How will Canadians perceive this dual reality?

On that topic, I have a few questions I would like to raise. Approximately 60% of the current senators were appointed before October 14, 2008. This means that they would be able to fulfill their senatorial duty and enjoy the generous privileges of their position until the age of 75. The coexistence of the former kind of senators with the new kind of senators would go on for several years, perhaps even decades. Consider the example of a senator who still has 35 years of service ahead of him. How would the legitimacy of the former kind of appointed senator compare to that of the new senators with a fresh mandate from the electorate? The legislative process and the reputation of the Senate would definitely be undermined. This simply does not fit in with the vision of an independent Senate whose mandate is to remain as impartial as possible.

The Hill Times tried to contact the 37 senators currently serving who were appointed by the Prime Minister after October 14, 2008, and they received very few responses.

Most of them declined commenting or simply did not respond. There is not even a semblance of unity on this bill from Conservative senators. If their own senators do not support it, it is the ultimate insult to present it to this House. How can this government claim that its Senate reforms are based on increasing its democratic legitimacy? This same government did not hesitate a single second to appoint three candidates from its own party who were defeated in the last election. That is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians who clearly expressed their free and democratic choice.

If this government truly had the intention of reforming the upper chamber, as it has been claiming for a long time now, it would have avoided this unacceptable and irresponsible behaviour. This is yet more evidence of a consistently applied double standard: one policy for friends of the Conservatives, another policy for other Canadians. That is the reality of this government's policy. I doubt that the public takes this lack of respect for their democratic choices lightly. There are strong mandates, and then there are brutal mandates.

There are some aspects of this bill that are worth special attention. Unless they are declared as independents, provincial candidates for the Senate will be free to associate themselves with a political party during their election campaign. If the minister is hoping to cut down on the politicization of the work of the upper chamber through this initiative, I think he has misunderstood the role of the Senate, which is to protect regional, provincial and minority interests, while acting as a chamber of sober second thought to examine legislation in greater detail.

It all comes down to the same thing. How can this government say that greater politicization of the Senate could help deliver this mandate? And how does it reconcile overstepping the opinions of the provinces on this, when the mandate of the Senate is partially entrusted to them in order to balance representation within Confederation? Political party affiliation has a major influence on the work of the Senate. Through this bill the minister is proposing to increase the number of partisan battles by renewing the contingent of senators from each province every nine years.

By introducing a non-renewable term, the reform also denies Canadians an opportunity to reward the work of an elected Senator. If the senator is doing good work, he or she will not be able to continue and the voters will not have a chance to show their appreciation through a re-election. If, on the other hand, the senator is doing mediocre work, voters will not be able to punish his or her incompetence and the senator will leave when the nine-year term is up. Either way, citizens are denied their say in the matter. One of the fundamental principles of democracy currently seriously lacking in the Senate is accountability and this reform is devoid of it as well. This principle is working quite well in the House of Commons and it forces us to give the best of ourselves.

Again, this government does not know what it wants. It is trying to achieve a number of objectives without any real focus. This bill would give us a partially elected Senate that, according to the government, is more democratic by virtue of repeated partisan elections for a non-renewable and non-punishable term. Where I come from, we call that hogwash.

These things cannot be reconciled with the mandate of the Senate, as I was saying earlier. Allow me again to read part of the preamble to Bill C-7, which states that “Parliament wishes to maintain the essential characteristics of the Senate within Canada’s parliamentary democracy as a chamber of independent, sober second thought”. I do not think partisanship will create a climate for independent, sober second thought within the Senate. Just look at the climate in this House to see what I mean by that.

The objective of the bill contradicts its actual effects. The government must decide whether it wants to respect the historical mandate of the Senate or whether it wants to make the Senate more democratically legitimate through partisan elections. Regardless, it is inconceivable that the government would introduce this bill to the Canadian public and insist that these two goals are compatible. Frankly, such vague legislation should not be introduced. But perhaps the government is sacrificing finesse for strength.

I was also distressed to notice that the bill, vaguely and without explanation, shifts the responsibility for holding elections to select Senate candidates. Under the bill, Senate candidates would be elected during provincial elections, on a date to be determined by the lieutenant governor, or during municipal elections. Dumping this responsibility seems like a disorganized and very imprecise way of improving the Senate's democratic legitimacy. The government could have taken the time to draft a clear, detailed and intelligible bill, but instead, Bill C-7 is terribly unclear and illogical. For example, when Canadians choose their candidates during an election, they will not even be certain that the one they choose will sit in the Senate. The final choice will remain in the hands of the Prime Minister since the bill imposes no obligation.

I mentioned that this reform seems to be purely cosmetic and here is the evidence. Parliamentary institutions deserve a little more respect and rigour. Unfortunately, when I look at this bill, the public's cynicism about politicians seems justified to me. Nothing now guarantees that this government will take its reform of the Senate any further.

In addition to this important point, we must also consider the costs of this reform. However, Bill C-7 does not make any mention of these costs. As further proof of how vague this legislation is, the bill does not clearly set out which level of government will have to assume the new costs. In these uncertain economic times, the government is adding new costs without having analyzed the proposed reforms to determine how useful they actually are.

Senate elections would thus become a federal, provincial, or municipal matter. Nothing is clear because the bill allows for all three scenarios. How will expenses be shared in these even more complex elections? Moreover, this new use of public money will contribute nothing to democracy. Canadians have long questioned the usefulness of the Senate. I doubt that the public will find the Senate more attractive if it becomes more expensive. In other words, we do not know “when?” or “how?”, and especially not “how much?”. Would it not be preferable to reform the Senate by passing bills that have more substance than grey areas? Is that asking too much of the government?

These are the indicators of a sloppy bill that takes too simplistic an approach to the parliamentary institutions of this country. I am disappointed if this is all that this government can add to the debate on Senate reform. The regions, provinces and minorities of Canada are again left hanging and will continue to be represented by an upper chamber that is completely disconnected from contemporary reality.

This bill, in addition to moving ahead in a manner that is, at a minimum, constitutionally suspect, only masks the problem of the democratic legitimacy of the Senate, without undertaking the mandatory and necessary consultation of the provinces of this country and, above all, without considering what mandate Canadians realistically want an upper chamber to have. The message to the provinces is as follows: this government does not need to consult you to proceed unilaterally with constitutional amendments. The message to Canadians is that this government is not listening to them. Its mandate is too strong for it to worry about them, especially when they indicate their preferences in a general election.

My colleagues are certainly aware of all the attempts made to reform the Senate since its inception. These attempts all have one thing in common: they failed. In the past 100 years, 13 attempts have failed and, today, given the lack of provincial interest and the absence of a consensus on the nature of the reform, there is every indication that this bill will be added to that historic list of failed attempts.

The reality is that the Senate is a problem that no one has been able to fix. So, as our party is suggesting, it is time to consider another option that has yet to be explored—abolishing the Senate. That is why are proposing that we consult people about this, to see if they believe that the upper chamber still has a place in our democratic institutions. We want to ask them if they feel this legacy from the 19th century still has a place in a 21st century democracy. The provinces that abolished their senates did not stop functioning. Countries like Denmark and New Zealand abolished their senates and continue to operate without any problem.

Yes, I am critical of this bill, but the official opposition will not be content with simply criticizing in a stubborn and narrow-minded fashion. The opposition will do everything it can to propose well-thought-out and reasonable solutions for the good of Canadians. Our parliamentary institutions deserve more of our time and intellectual rigour. That is why I insist that when difficult issues such as Senate reform are brought before the House for debate, we should be discussing the option of abolishing the Senate and presenting that to the Canadian public as well. That is the spirit of what I consider to be constructive and respectful debate.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Senate, I am not the one who is saying that. Of the constitutional experts who testified, 80% said that Bill C-20 was unconstitutional, and the other 20% agreed that the government and the Prime Minister were doing indirectly what they could not do directly. Opinion was unanimous, and that was condemned by many of the experts who appeared.

Still with regard to the Senate, not only is the Conservative government paralyzing the work of the House, but it is also paralyzing the Senate. In fact, since the Conservatives came to power, they have not replaced any senators who have retired or died. The Senate currently has 15 vacancies. Last week, Christian Dufour, a political scientist at ENAP, said that at this rate, the Senate would also be paralyzed.

So we are not the ones who are bringing things to a standstill. It is the Conservative government. Moreover, its reform is not at all consistent with what is written in constitution. We have reached the point where it is the Bloc Québécois that is trying to uphold the Canadian Constitution of 1982. That is pretty amazing.

I will conclude by answering the member's last question. We agree that the regions of Canada are entitled to fair representation in this House. But we need to recognize that if Canada is shared by at least two nations, the nation of Canada and the nation of Quebec, then the nation of Quebec must have a political weight in this House that remains unchanged at 25%. We have had 75 members, guaranteed by the Constitution, but 75 out of 308 is not the same as 75 out of 350. It does not give the same political weight. What we are asking is that Quebec, which has been recognized as a nation, maintain its political weight within federal institutions as long as Quebec remains part of them.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will start off by saying that the Bloc Québécois, like the official opposition, and like—I believe—the NDP, will opposed the motion by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons to extend the sitting hours, for a number of reasons.

First, it is important to remember—and this was mentioned by the House leader of the official opposition—that the government and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons have been completely unwilling to negotiate and cooperate. Usually, when Parliament is running smoothly, the leaders meet and agree on some priorities, some items and some ways of getting them done. But since the start of this session, or at least since September, House leaders' meetings on Tuesday afternoons have simply been meetings where we hear about a legislative agenda, which, within hours after we leave the meeting, is completely changed.

That is not how we move forward. Now the government can see that its way of doing things does not produce results. In fact, I think that this is what the government wanted in recent weeks, to prevent Parliament, the House of Commons and the various committees from working efficiently and effectively.

As I was saying, usually such motions are born out of cooperation, and are negotiated in good faith between the government and the opposition parties. But we were simply told that today a motion would be moved to extend the sitting hours, but with no information forthcoming about what the government's priorities would be through the end of this session, until June 20.

This was a very cavalier way to treat the opposition parties. And today, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the Conservative government are reaping the consequences of their haughty attitude. As the saying goes, he who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind. That is exactly what has happened to the Conservatives after many weeks of acting in bad faith and failing to cooperate with the opposition parties.

In this case, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons—and earlier I mentioned his arrogance, which, to me, has reached its peak today with the way the motion was moved—gave us no indication as to his government's priorities from now until the end of the session, despite the fact that he was pointedly questioned about that matter. What we did receive was a grocery list with no order, no priorities. As the leader of the official opposition said earlier, when everything is a priority, it means that nothing is.

That is the current situation: they gave us a list of bills which, in fact, included almost all of the bills on the order paper. Not only were things not prioritized, but in addition, as I mentioned before, it showed a disregard for the opposition parties. There is a price to pay for that today—we do not see why the government needs to extend the sitting hours.

Not only was the grocery list not realistic, but also it showed that the government has absolutely no priorities set. The list includes almost all of the bills, but week after week, despite what was said during the leaders' meetings, the order of business changed. If the order of business changes at the drop of a hat, with no rhyme or reason, it means that the government does not really have priorities.

I am thinking about Bill C-50, a bill to implement the budget, which we waited on for a long time. The government is surprised that we are coming up to the end of the session and that it will be adopted in the coming hours. However, we have to remember that between the budget speech and the introduction of Bill C-50, many weeks passed that could have been spent working on the bill.

As I mentioned, the list presented to us is unrealistic. It shows the arrogance of this government, and furthermore, the order of the bills on the list is constantly changing. We feel this is a clear demonstration of this government's lack of priority.

In light of that, we can reach only one conclusion: if the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform cannot present us with his government's legislative priorities as we near the end of this session, in effect, it means that his government has no legislative priorities. It has no long-term vision. Its management is short sighted, very short sighted indeed. I would even say it is managing from one day to the next. From my perspective, this can mean only one thing: it has no legislative agenda. When we have before us bills dealing with only minor issues, this is what that means.

Proof of this lack of legislative agenda is easy to see, considering the current state of this government's agenda. An abnormally small number of bills for this time of year are currently before the House at the report stage and at third reading. Usually, if the government had planned, if it had been working in good faith and had cooperated with the opposition parties, in these last two weeks remaining before the summer recess, we should have been completing the work on any number of bills.

Overall, as we speak there are just five government bills that are ready to be debated at these stages, in other words, report stage or third reading stage. Among those, we note that Bill C-7, which is now at third reading stage, reached report stage during the first session of the 39th Parliament, in other words in June 2007. It has been brought back to us a year later. And that is a priority? What happened between June 2007 and June 2008 to prevent Bill C-7 from getting through third reading stage? In my opinion, we should indeed finish the work on Bill C-7, but this truly illustrates the government's lack of planning and organization.

As far as Bill C-5 is concerned, it was reported on by the Standing Committee on Natural Resources on December 12, 2007, and voted on at report stage on May 6, 2008. Again, a great deal of time, nearly six months, went by between the tabling of the report and the vote at this stage, which was held on May 6, 2008, while the report was tabled on December 12, 2007.

Finally, Bills C-29 and C-16 were both reported on by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs roughly six months ago.

All these delays of six months to a year force us to conclude that these bills are not legislative priorities to this government.

It would be great to finish the work on these four or five bills, but let us admit that we could have finished it much sooner.

This lack of legislative priority was even more apparent before question period when the House was debating second reading of Bill C-51 on food and drugs. Next on the agenda is second reading of Bill C-53 on auto theft.

If these five bills were a priority, we would finish the work. But no, what we are being presented with are bills that are only at second reading stage. This only delays further the report stage or third reading of the bills I have already mentioned. If we were serious about this, we would finish the work on bills at third reading and then move on to bills that are at second reading.

Furthermore, if its legislative agenda has moved forward at a snail's pace, the government is responsible for that and has only itself to blame, since it paralyzed the work of important committees, including the justice committee and the procedure and House affairs committee, to which several bills had been referred. And then they dare make some sort of bogus Conservative moral claim, saying that we are refusing to extend sitting hours because we do not want to work. For months and months now, opposition members, especially the Bloc Québécois, have been trying to work in committee, but the government, for partisan reasons, in order to avoid talking about the Conservative Party's problems, has been obstructing committee work.

Earlier, the NDP whip spoke about take note debates.

Once again, it is not the opposition that is refusing to work on issues that are important to Canadians and Quebeckers. Rather, it is the government that refuses to allow take note debates, because of partisan obstinacy. In that regard, we clearly see that the argument presented by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform is mere tautology or a false argument. In fact, it was the Conservative Party, the Conservative government, that slowed down the work of the House and obstructed the work of several committees.

Not only is the government incapable of planning, vision, cooperation and good faith, but furthermore, its legislative agenda is very meagre and does not in any way warrant extending the sitting hours. In addition, the Bloc Québécois sees many of the bills that are now at the bottom of the list as problematic, but if we extend the sitting hours, we will end up having to examine them.

Take Bill C-14, for example, which would permit the privatization of certain Canada Post activities. Do they really think that sitting hours will be extended to hasten debate on a bill that threatens jobs and the quality of a public service as essential as that provided by the Canada Post Corporation? That demonstrates just how detrimental the Conservatives' right-wing ideology is, not just to public services but to the economy. Everyone knows very well—there are a large number of very convincing examples globally—that privatizing postal services leads to significant price increases for consumers and a deterioration in service, particularly in rural areas.

I will give another example, that of Bill C-24, which would abolish the long gun registry even though police forces want to keep it. Once again, we have an utter contradiction. Although the government boasts of an agenda that will increase security, they are dismantling a preventtive tool welcomed by all stakeholders. They are indirectly contributing to an increase in the crime rate.

These are two examples of matters that are not in step with the government's message. It is quite clear that we are not interested in extending sitting hours to move more quickly to a debate on Bill C-24.

I must also mention bills concerning democratic reform—or pseudo-reform. In my opinion, they are the best example of the hypocrisy of this government, which introduces bills and then, in the end, makes proposals that run counter to the interests of Quebec in particular.

Take Bill C-20, for example, on the consultation of voters with respect to the pool of candidates from which the Prime Minister should choose senators. Almost all the constitutional experts who appeared before the committee currently studying Bill C-20 said that the bill would do indirectly what cannot be done directly. We know that the basic characteristics of the Senate cannot be changed without the agreement of the provinces or, at the very least, without following the rule of the majority for constitutional amendments, which requires approval by seven provinces representing 50% of the population.

Since the government knows very well that it cannot move forward with its Senate reforms, it introduced a bill that would change the essential characteristics of the Senate, something prohibited by the Constitution, on the basis of some technicalities.

It is interesting to note that even a constitutional expert who told the committee that he did not think the way the government had manipulated the bill was unconstitutional admitted that the bill would indirectly allow the government to do what it could not do directly.

They are playing with the most important democratic institutions.

A country's Constitution—and we want Quebec to have its own Constitution soon—is the fundamental text. We currently have a government, a Prime Minister and a Leader of the Government in the House of Commons who are manipulating this fundamental text— the Canadian Constitution—in favour of reforms that would satisfy their supporters in western Canada.

We do not want to rush this bill through the House by extending the sitting hours. It is the same thing for Bill C-19, which, I remind members, limits a Senator's tenure to eight years.

These two bills, Bill C-19 and Bill C-20, in their previous form, meaning before the session was prorogued in the summer of 2007, were unanimously denounced by the Quebec National Assembly, which asked that they be withdrawn. It is rather ironic that the federal government recognized the Quebec nation and then decided to introduce two bills that were denounced by the Quebec National Assembly.

I must say that the two opposition parties are opposed to Bill C-20, albeit for different reasons. Thus, I do not think it would be in the best interests of the House to rush these bills through, since we are far from reaching a consensus on them.

I have one last example, that is, Bill C-22, which aims to change the make-up of the House of Commons. If passed, it would increase the number of members in Ontario and in western Canada, which would reduce the political weight of the 75 members from Quebec, since their representation in this House would drop from 24.4% to 22.7%. It is not that we are against changing the distribution of seats based on the changing demographics of the various regions of Canada. We would like to ensure, however, that the Quebec nation, which was recognized by the House of Commons, has a voice that is strong enough to be heard.

The way things are going today, it is clear that in 10, 15 or 20 years, Quebec will no longer be able to make its voice heard in this House. We therefore believe we must guarantee the Quebec nation a percentage of the members in this House. We propose that it be 25%. If people want more members in Ontario and in the west, that is not a problem. We will simply have to increase the number of members from Quebec to maintain a proportion of 25%. There are a number of possible solutions to this.

Once again, I would like to point out that we introduced a whole series of bills to formalize the recognition of the Quebec nation, including Bill C-482, sponsored by my colleague from Drummond. That bill sought to apply the Charter of the French Language to federally regulated organizations working in Quebec. That was for organizations working in Quebec, of course. At no time did we seek to control what happens elsewhere in Canada. The bill would have given employees of federally regulated organizations the same rights as all employees in Quebec, that is, the right to work in French.

Unfortunately, the bill was defeated, but we will try again. Once again, the fact that Bill C-482 was defeated does not mean we are about to throw in the towel and let Bills C-22, C-19, and C-20 pass just like that. As I said earlier, we will certainly not make things easy for the government by rushing debate on these bills here.

And now to my fourth point. I started out talking about the government's lack of cooperation, vision and planning, not to mention its bad faith. Next, I talked about its poor excuse for a legislative agenda. Then I talked about the fact that we find certain bills extremely problematic. We will certainly not be giving the government carte blanche to bring those bills back here in a big hurry before the end of the session on June 20. Our fourth reason is the government's hypocrisy, in a general sense.

This has been apparent in many ways, such as the government's attitude to certain bills. I would like to mention some of them, such as Bill C-20. I cannot help but mention Bills C-50 and C-10 as well.

Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill, makes changes to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's powers, but that is not what the debate is about. Bill C-10, which introduces elements that allow the Conservative government—

Concurrence in Vote 1--Parliament

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the member. We have served on committees together. I know he has many more years of experience in life and at the bar than I do.

I want to ask him very plainly, does he not think that Bill C-19, Bill C-20 and any of the other bills the government is proposing with respect to Senate reform need to pass muster by way of reference to the Supreme Court of Canada or in each province, as the case may be?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is good to know because it means I do not have to worry about responding to some of the questions that might come particularly from the Liberal side.

I rise in strong support of this motion that we have moved to undermine in a very effective way an undemocratic institution that has been foisted on the Canadian people for 141 years now.

We heard from my colleague from Timmins—James Bay the type of abuse that goes on there in terms of the senators not performing any valuable function whatsoever, or at least the vast majority of them. I recognize that some of the people who are there are decent people; they are probably the exception, but there are a few.

The reality is we believe in democracy. I believe in democracy. I believe every constituent of Windsor—Tecumseh believes in democracy and they do not believe in an unelected Senate, a Senate that has consistently, and I saw it at a very personal level very recently, gone out of its way to thwart the democratic process in this country. We saw it a number of times in the period from 2004 to 2006 when the unelected Senate, in protecting big financial interests, thwarted legislation that was designed to protect wage earners in this country where their employers went bankrupt or into receivership and where priority was given not to the labour side of the equation but all priorities were given to the capital side.

We saw repeatedly that legislation was stalled, oftentimes by Liberal Senators, so that it would expire in the course of the upcoming election. Other times legislation was amended, or it simply sat there literally for a year, or a year and a half in one case.

That is simply not tolerable in a country that prides itself on being a democratic country, one that is a beacon for democracy in the world and one with every right to be proud of that reputation, but for this blight that we have in the other chamber.

I saw it very personally and it was so offensive, the work that a cadre within the Senate did to prevent the passage of legislation to protect animals in this country. It did it repeatedly. Not once but on three different occasions the Senate has been able to manipulate the constitutional framework of this country to the benefit of a very small segment of people that it wanted to take care of. The end result is that there have not been amendments in the animal cruelty area for well over 100 years, in spite of passage of bills in this House on two separate occasions. It was the Senate that prevented that.

I looked at some of the letters and petitions that came into my office from across the country. There were two things that showed up. One was outrage that it has taken our level of government this long to deal with the issue. The other thing that showed up was a combination of shock and sadness that after all this time an unelected Senate, an unelected body, an unresponsive body to the needs of the country could thwart the votes in this House, could thwart the desire right across the country of the need for this legislation to go through.

As I said earlier, there are any number of other pieces of legislation we can look to. Inevitably when we look at legislation that has been stalled, it has always been stalled, stopped or prevented from going ahead in the Senate because members in the other place were taking care of their buddies, always, every single time. It has never been done on principle. it has never been done on ideology. It is all about whom they are going to take care of. It is always their friends. It is always the big financial interests in this country that they take care of.

Today, we have the opportunity to send a very clear message. The Bloc members are going to be with us, but I invite the Conservatives to take a look at this. Bill C-19 and Bill C-20 are not going anywhere. They have a chance here tonight to send a message to members in the other place that we are sick and tired of them, we are not going to take it any more and we are going to shut them down. There will be no more wasting money.

The Senate costs us over $90 million a year. It is not in the motion that we have before us this evening but it costs us $90 million for absolutely nothing, other than to destroy parts of our democracy.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will support the NDP in contesting the vote for the Senate, for reasons that are perhaps not the same, but I am sure they are similar in some respects.

The first reason is that, like the NDP and many Canadians and Quebeckers, we think the Senate is an antiquated institution. In particular, the fact that the representatives are not elected means that the institution's legitimacy is by no means assured. Furthermore, all of the provinces got rid of this second unelected chamber a long time ago. It is obviously a legacy left over from a time when aristocrats, the elite, were afraid of the democratic decisions of the people, and created the Senate to act as a sort of counterbalance. The Queen of England and Canada appointed people back then. The Prime Minister has since taken over that responsibility. We know that officially, it is the Governor General who appoints Senators, after hearing the Prime Minister's recommendation. Thus, it is an antiquated institution.

It is also, and this is where we differ from the NDP and other Canadians, an institution that was part of Confederation in 1867.

In 1867, it was decided that the House of Commons would proportionally represent—although it was not entirely equitable—the population of each of the Canadian provinces and that the Senate would be a counterbalance—once again, not elected, unfortunately—to represent different regions in Canada: the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario and the West. This means that abolishing the Senate would require us to reopen constitutional negotiations and reconsider the question of representation of the Quebec nation within federal institutions.

Yesterday, Benoît Pelletier testified before the legislative committee examining Bill C-20. He said that Quebec has traditionally asked to appoint its own senators using its own democratic selection process. He certainly disagreed with the fact that it is the Prime Minister of Canada who chooses the senators who will represent Quebec.

What we now have is an institution that no longer has a raison d'être, but that, in the Confederation agreement of 1867, represented a counterbalance to Canada's changing demographics. In that respect, clearly, while we in no way approve of the Senate as an institution, we would like to remind the House that its abolition would force renewed constitutional negotiations to give the Quebec nation a presence and significant authority within the federal institutions.

I will not hide the fact that my preference would be for Quebec to escape from the shackles of Canada and have its own democratic institutions. We can now very easily imagine the National Assembly being complemented by a house of the regions. All possible scenarios are being studied at this time within the sovereignist movement. But until sovereignty is achieved, the people can be assured—and the Bloc Québécois has made this its first priority—that the interests of the Quebec nation will be met.

I know the Conservative government has made a threat in that respect. It has said that if the recommended changes to the Senate are not accepted, it would abolish the Senate. It is not that simple, as we all know, and as I just pointed out. Negotiations could be held, however, under the rules set out in the Canadian Constitution. As I have often said, and yesterday I reminded Benoît Pelletier, Quebec's minister of intergovernmental affairs—who was appearing before the legislative committee—that we are the only ones, that is, Quebec and the Bloc Québécois are the only ones trying to ensure respect for the Constitution of 1867 in this House.

It must be ensured that the results of these negotiations respect the political weight of the Quebec nation, as they will entail the enforcement of rules from amendments in the 1982 Constitution—that is, seven provinces representing 50% of the population.

Quebec has made its opinion known. We want 24% of the members of this House to come from Quebec, no matter the distribution of seats. For example, we are currently studying Bill C-22, which would increase the number of seats in Ontario and two western provinces. This increase, which is completely legitimate in light of demographic changes, will diminish the relative political weight of the Quebec nation. We find that unacceptable.

The Quebec nation must maintain 24% of the political weight in this House as long as Quebeckers decide to stay within the Canadian political landscape. I have no problem with increasing the number of seats in the west or in Ontario to reflect demographics. But I do not agree with marginalizing Quebec through that increase. I am not the only one to say so. The Bloc Québécois has said it, and the National Assembly unanimously passed a motion in this regard.

That leads me to the second reason why we support the NDP's opposition to the vote regarding the Senate, namely the manner in which the Conservative government, the Prime Minister and especially the Leader of the Government are going about their so-called reform, which does not alter the main characteristics of the current Senate with Bills C-20 and C-19.

They are trying to do indirectly what cannot be done directly. However, no one is being fooled. I would say that 80% of the constitutional experts who appeared before the committee—and I can assure him that there were not many sovereigntists among them—told us that the government's bills touched on the essential characteristics of the Senate and would require the reopening of the Constitution. Negotiations would require the application of the rules for making amendments set out in the Constitution Act, 1982, namely approval by seven provinces and 50% of the population.

The Conservative government wants to avoid that scenario and would like to present Quebec and Canada with a fait accompli. We will oppose this way of proceeding, as did the National Assembly. If the federal government wants to reopen constitutional negotiations to reform the Senate, Quebec will be there with the demands of successive Quebec governments.

If that happens, we will also raise the issue of the federal spending power. It is clear that the Conservative government does not really have the political will to get rid of that power. It is very clear that if Senate reform negotiations take place, Quebec will not only ensure that the Quebec nation's interests are protected, but also take on certain other irritants that are not working for Quebec, issues that the federal government refuses to address. These issues include the elimination of the federal spending power in areas under Quebec's and the provinces' jurisdiction.

The only way to be absolutely sure that the federal government will not encroach on Quebec's areas of jurisdiction is to ensure that Quebec and other provinces that want it have the right to opt out with no strings attached and with full compensation. So we say yes to reopening constitutional talks on Senate reform, but the government can expect Quebec to bring other things to the table: all of the demands of successive Quebec governments, both the sovereignist and the federalist ones.

That is what Mr. Pelletier said yesterday, and I will end on that note. The Conservative government's current plan for Senate reform is unconstitutional, it is against the Quebec nation's interests, and it is against the motions that were repeatedly and unanimously adopted by the National Assembly, most recently in May 2007. It is clear that this government's support for the motion that was passed almost unanimously in the House concerning recognition of the Quebec nation was nothing but an election ploy. Quebeckers have now realized that and condemned it.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for his question.

Of course it is unfair to exclude one aboriginal group from a process that would select representatives for the entire population of a province. There are ways of going about it other than that proposed in this unfair bill C-20.

We received a submission from the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada which is opposed to the process in Bill C-20 because it is an appointment process that seeks to avoid a neighbourhood or riding system. The results would discriminate against official language minority groups, including those in New Brunswick.

I am very familiar with the situation in New Brunswick. With this system, the francophone population of that province would run the risk of not having any Acadian senators. That is unfair. The Acadian population fought electoral discrimination in the last century. The Acadian community of New Brunswick is opposed to this bill.

Why has the Minister for Democratic Reform introduced and supported a bill which runs counter to the aspirations and the hopes of the Acadian population of New Brunswick?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to a couple of the questions that he wished to ask me that he did not ask. First, what kind of consultation do we envisage? It is quite clear. It is in Bill C-20.

He talked about the committee. Apparently, at committee, he has not bothered to read the bill which talks about actually asking Canadians in the provinces, by way of a vote, who they would like to represent them.

What is our view in terms of provincial consultation? We are quite open to having provinces look at their own electoral processes for doing so. In fact, the Prime Minister has actually appointed a senator who was elected through such a provincial process, Bert Brown, a senator from Alberta.

In fact, it is only Conservatives who appointed elected senators. It is only Conservative prime ministers, people who have, through a consultation with the voters in their province, achieved some kind of mandate. That is the kind of appointments we will contemplate right now. Those are the kinds of appointments that would occur if Bill C-20 were in place.

My question is very simple, having posed those questions in this House, I ask my friend: Has he actually read Bill C-20?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that as far as I know there are no famous hockey players campaigning against me in the next election, that I know of yet. I would hate to face that prospect, to be quite blunt. It might be worse to be campaigned against by a famous ex-rock star, one never knows.

In New Brunswick, one of the four provinces that was part of our Confederation from the beginning, the issue of Senate reform has been topical over the years. I do remember, as a younger person, being involved in Meech Lake and having the then premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, ultimately be a very ardent supporter of the Meech Lake process.

I remember as well the Charlottetown accord process, when I was first elected to municipal politics, and I remember that being a period of interesting consultation, with the voters and the provinces, with respect to Senate reform and constitutional reform in general.

What strikes me, as I begin the comment on the supply issue, is that I do think that both the Conservative Party and the NDP are being a bit sneaky, frankly, with their stances and I will explain that very clearly. The NDP, if it is as true to its convictions as it pretends to be, ought to open every session of Parliament with a private member's bill, a motion, or, perhaps with their new bed fellows often the government, a bill which calls for the abolition of the Senate.

It is one thing to say that we are continuously and regularly against the abolition of the Senate, but it is another thing to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The NDP should in fact bring a vote for abolition, but it does not do that. It does this tonight, ladies and gentlemen of the public might want to know, it does it on a supply day.

The NDP members say that it is almost like the baby is coming, but we are not going to buy a crib for the baby. What they are really saying is that they will not fund the Senate, but they did not have the guts, it was not on their agenda. I am not accusing the member for Timmins—James Bay of not having guts or not making it his continual priority, but maybe he cannot get through to the leader to make it a priority to abolish the Senate. Maybe that is the case.

However, the fact is that we are standing here tonight discussing whether all of the departments of government should be funded, and the funding in question in this motion is the Senate, whether the Senate should be funded. If it is not funded, it dies. It cannot function.

That is a little sneaky. The real big sneak though is the government. The Minister for Democratic Reform, through his prepared text, would have Canadians believe that his party's sensible piecemeal approach, Bill C-19 and Bill C-20, of various ways to reform the Senate, are as a result of their consultation with the people of Canada and that is what the people want.

I do not know about that. If we want to talk about what the people want by virtue of polling, which is what he referred to, then really what we are talking about is the disrespect that Canadians now have in the honesty of the government. The government is falling in its credibility and honesty.

I think they will see that what the government is trying to do is to appease parts of Canada, and particularly western Canada that has in fact been underrepresented in the Senate of Canada since its inception and since the joining of provinces into Confederation, by promising them and their leaders in provincial capitals and movements like western think tanks and that sort of thing, promising them gradual reform but as an end game hoping that the gradual reforms do not work.

Then the end game for the Conservatives and the Minister for Democratic Reform is to do one of two things, I suppose, do what I think a vast majority of his caucus wants him to do, which is to join with the NDP and abolish the Senate. That would centralize the power of the governing party in the one house, the unicameral house.

There are very few unicameral houses in western democracies. Most evolved western democracies have bicameral systems, two houses: the congress and the senate, the senate and the people's house. That is generally the way these things work. So, he would be alone on that one but maybe that is what the government House leader wants. Maybe, however, he wants to fill the Senate with the people that he wants.

He said earlier that the only reason the vacancies have not been filled is because the government did not want to make patronage appointments. I do not know if that is an admission that Michael Fortier, the current senator, was in fact a patronage appointment. We heard some backtalk that it was necessary because we needed a minister from Montreal and he would run at the next available opportunity.

I do miss some press stories, but I have not seen Michael Fortier, the senator, run in any byelection in Quebec that was called recently. I think he is probably not going to present himself in a byelection and, therefore, the government's ruse in saying that it had to appoint someone to have representation really was false, as well.

Bills C-19 and C-20 are a furtherance of the government's disingenuousness with respect to achieving reform of the Senate, to which it pays lip service. That is because, despite the fact that a couple of eminent professors support, in the case of Bill C-20, Senate reform with respect to the election or selection of senators, the vast majority of academics have come out and said they are against Bill C-20, the bill that says provinces can select names that the Prime Minister can choose or not.

The vast majority of provinces, through their attorneys general, have been against the bill. It goes to the fundamental point, and it would have been a good question had I had the opportunity to ask it of the Minister for Democratic Reform, of whether the real public consultation that he seeks with the Canadians would be done in focus groups and hotel rooms in predominantly Conservative ridings? Or is he afraid of consulting with the provinces?

Provincial governments, and maybe the Minister for Democratic Reform did not know that, by some of his rhetoric inside and outside the House, I am not sure he does, are elected. Premiers, MLAs and MPPs are elected by the people of the provinces and they represent those provinces.

However, the Minister for Democratic Reform has serially called a number of them into question, that is, the premiers of the provinces. He has called the premier of Ontario, I think, the small man of Confederation. These kind of epithets are not really conducive to sitting down with premiers, which his government has not done yet.

The government gave a nice meal of venison and, I think, apple pie or cloudberry pie at Sussex Drive around Christmas, but it has not sat down with provincial premiers to discuss the idea of constitutional reform, which has been very much part of our Canadian history for some time.

I do not know if the member for Toronto Centre can recall any of these times, but even in the best of times, provincial leaders and prime ministers and their federal counterpart ministers had disagreements. So, if the Conservative government is afraid of disagreement, which clearly by the way the Prime Minister runs his caucus, it is, then that is fine. Why does he not come clean with the Canadian people, why does not the Minister for Democratic Reform come clean with the people and say, “Well, we're just not meeting with any provincial governments because we think there might be disagreement?”

I think the Minister for Democratic Reform has seen through the hearings we had on Bill C-20. We had Bênoit Pelletier, the minister for Canadian intergovernmental affairs of Quebec recently before the committee. I think he has seen that there is profound disagreement with the way the federal government is proceeding with Senate reform. He knows that in my own province of New Brunswick, Premier Shawn Graham, who is responsible for intergovernmental affairs, is against the procedure. Even what he thought were erstwhile allies in the west, they have said, “Well, we don't agree with the part of Bill C-20 that says that the election modality should be federal. It should be provincial.”

The Conservatives cannot even get their allies onside. They do not want these bills to pass. They are not genuine about Senate reform. I think in lieu of this supply item, the best they can do is hide their tails and oppose it.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my friend a few questions. I know he has an aversion to great hockey players. I have heard that story a number of times.

On a serious note, he has ended his comments by saying that this matter will end up in court. I want a clarification. The issue of Senate reform or the amendment of the Constitution will ultimately end up in court, at least that is how I read his answer.

Earlier in his comments, he talked about four levels of government. I do not know if he was including the Senate as the fourth or the courts as a level of government. I am not clear on that.

My question, in pith and substance, is this. With regard to the role of the courts, does he see that an amendment of our Constitution is inevitable, arising from the process that the Minister for Democratic Reform has put before the committee with Bill C-20, and will put before a committee with Bill C-19?

Does he not agree that a reference to the Supreme Court would probably be the only answer to the question of whether these bills are constitutional? Does he at least agree on process?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate relating to the main estimates for the Senate.

I am glad that the New Democratic Party raised this matter because it draws attention to a very important issue, the need for Senate reform. The government clearly agrees that the Senate cannot stay as it is. Certainly, we understand the sentiment of those who support immediate abolition, as the NDP does and as that party is attempting to achieve through this supply motion, because the Senate is far from the effective institution that it should be. However, the government wishes to take a constructive approach. We support reforming the Senate. Only when it becomes clear that reform is not possible should abolition be pursued, but clearly, the status quo is not acceptable.

Canadians have made it clear that they want change. They no longer have confidence in the Senate as currently instituted and they do not regard it as a legitimate democratic institution appropriate to this millennium. Over the past few years, the consistency in polling results on Senate reform has been quite remarkable. Canadians consistently support either the direct election of senators, or alternatively, that there should be consultations on Senate appointments. For example, an Angus Reid poll just last month indicated that 60% of respondents supported the direct election of senators.

We have listened to Canadians and this government has made it a priority to renew and improve our democratic institutions so that we can have a stronger, better Senate.

A strong and united Canada requires federal parliamentary institutions that reflect democratic values in which Canadians in every region of this country can have confidence and faith.

This is why our government has taken concrete action to develop a practical and achievable plan to reform the Senate. Canadians are aware of the difficulties of an in-depth constitutional reform. That is why the government has adopted an incremental approach that will produce immediate results.

In particular, the government has introduced Bill C-19, concerning Senate tenure, and Bill C-20, which would provide for consultations with the Canadian public concerning appointments to the Senate.

Unfortunately, our efforts thus far have been stalled and obstructed in the Senate, demonstrating to Canadians that the Liberals in the Senate refuse to change.

Bill C-19 to limit the terms of senators to eight years of course was originally introduced in the Senate as Bill S-4. In the Angus Reid poll that I referred to earlier, 64% of respondents indicated they support limiting the terms of senators to eight years. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition at one time actually supported Senate term limits of only six years. He is on the record supporting those six year term limits.

However, even though we knew this strong popular support existed before the Angus Reid survey, and even though the Senate Special Committee on Senate Reform confirmed the constitutionality and goals of the bill, as did numerous constitutional experts, the Senate killed the bill by refusing to allow it to go to third reading, unless it was first referred to the Supreme Court of Canada.

This was definitely an unprecedented move on behalf of the Senate, and I would even go so far as to say that the senators who opposed the bill shirked their responsibilities as parliamentarians.

And it is a perfect example of why Senate reform needs to happen. It also shows the difference between the approaches of the government, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party.

The Liberal Party seems determined to maintain the status quo with regard to the Senate and thereby to maintain the entitlements that go along with an antiquated, undemocratic method of appointing senators.

The New Democratic Party, to its credit, recognizes that there is a problem, but the solution offered by the NDP is to simply give up, to stop trying.

As I have demonstrated, the government's approach is to listen to the people who continue to demand reform.

I believe that Bill C-20 is another important bill that responds to Canadians' desire for fundamental reform.

If the bill on Senate tenure is a modest step towards the renewal and modernization of the Senate, the Senate appointments consultation bill will allow us to address a much more serious problem, that of democratic legitimacy.

The government's view is that it is utterly unacceptable that in this, the 21st century, and in a federal country such as Canada that prides itself on its democratic values, democratic values that we promote abroad as an example to others, that we have a chamber in our Parliament that lacks fundamental democratic legitimacy. This lack of democratic legitimacy in the Senate impairs its ability to act effectively as a legislative body that plays a meaningful role in the federal parliamentary process.

The Senate consultations bill is a positive step toward correcting this problem. It provides a means for Canadians to have a say in who represents them in what would finally be their Senate.

I find it hard to understand how anyone can disagree with that basic proposition. How can anyone argue that it is okay for a prime minister to consult with friends and family, MPs and party organizers about who should get a good plum spot in the Senate, but not be able to ask Canadian voters for their opinion on who should represent them in their Senate?

Senate reform has proven to be difficult. But that does not mean that we should quit before we have even begun.

Canadians expect more from their government, and with good reason.

Senate reform has already proved to be a difficult task in no small part because of the negative attitude of Liberal senators and the Liberal Party toward improvement and change. However, I still believe it is important that we make every effort to improve this institution before resorting to move forward with abolition.

Therefore, I cannot support the NDP in its efforts at this time to withhold supply to the Senate. Rather, I call upon the NDP to join us in achieving real reform by supporting the government's proposed Senate reform legislation. In other words, let us respond to the desire of Canadians and work toward achieving a modern, democratic Senate.

If the NDP members want to engage in a democratic exercise to abolish the Senate, I invite them to introduce a private member's bill, to hold a referendum and ask Canadians if they want to keep the Senate as it is, to democratize it, or to simply abolish it. That open public debate is the democratically legitimate way to approach abolition, not a back door tactic such as we see tonight through a supply motion.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 113(1), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of the legislative committee on Bill C-20, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

The Constitution Act, 2007 (Democratic Representation)

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I said so during my speech on Bill C-20. The National Assembly, Mr. Pelletier, the Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs, and Mr. Charest were very clear on this: the government cannot change any mechanisms pertaining to representation, whether in the Senate or the House of Commons, without consultation or constitutional amendments. This is especially true when it comes to the Senate.

Consequently, any vote we have here, especially on Bill C-20, will cause a huge constitutional wrangle. If we open the Constitution to talk about the Senate, as I said yesterday, we will also open it to talk about other aspects that are much more important to Quebec as a nation. I mentioned some of these aspects concerning the application of Bill 101, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act and many other things.

I will close with the second issue that I feel is very important. There is a consensus in Quebec. On May 17, 2007, Benoît Pelletier, the Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs and a federalist, said this:

I appreciate that the House is based on proportional representation. But I wonder whether there might be special measures to protect Quebec, which represents the main linguistic minority in Canada, is a founding province of Canada and is losing demographic weight. Why could Quebec not be accommodated because of its status as a nation and a national minority within Canada?

While I do not agree with the idea of remaining within Canada, the federalists agree with the sovereigntists: as long as we are part of the Canadian political landscape, the nation of Quebec must have guaranteed representation so that it can make its voice heard, and the federal government and the nation of Canada must respect the tools necessary for Quebec's development.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's speech on Bill C-22, but I would like to ask him a few questions to clarify his position. I understand that the Government of Quebec is very concerned about this government's democratic reform agenda. This means that it does not support this bill, Bill C-20 or Bill C-19.

Just so I understand, I would like to know the Bloc's position on this. It is against this bill because it wants Quebec to be recognized as a nation.

Are there any other reasons it is opposed to this bill and to the fact that the government does not consult the provinces, including Quebec? Premier Charest said that we needed to consult before changing the Senate and the number of seats in the House of Commons.

Does the member think it is a good idea for this government, or any federal government, to consult the provinces, including Quebec, about such changes and their implementation?

[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.

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois on Bill C-20, which provides for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

Hon. members will know by now that the Bloc Québécois will oppose any reform of the Senate, because the Bloc simply wants to abolish the Senate.

I am happy to speak, because we hear all sorts of incredible things here, and it makes me smile to hear the Conservative members say that they have kept the promises they made in the last election, when every day their actions tell quite a different story.

I remember that they wanted to introduce a bill on transparency, ethics and integrity. More than 60 Conservative members still have not been reimbursed for their election expenses. Three of those members are ministers from Quebec, including the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages. The Conservatives promised transparency and integrity, but the only members of this House who have not been reimbursed for their election expenses are Conservatives.

So that is the sort of bill the Conservative Party introduces. This bill on Senate reform is another good example.

True, the Conservatives promised that there would be an elected Senate, but what they are proposing is an elected Senate that violates the Canadian Constitution. Everyone, including the Supreme Court, agrees that the only way to have a Senate that is truly elected and complies with the law is to amend the Constitution. The Conservative Party has introduced a bill that provides for electing senators, but allows the Prime Minister to decide whether or not to honour the will of the electors.

Once again, the Conservatives are trying to tell us that they are keeping their election promises, but they have manipulated all the laws, just as they manipulated the law on political party funding and the Canada Elections Act. This is the same thing. The Conservatives are manipulating the laws to serve their own purposes, when the position of the Government of Quebec has always been clear. It is not shared by the Bloc Québécois, but this is the position taken by the National Assembly of Quebec on November 7, 2007. A motion was unanimously adopted in the National Assembly and reads as follows:

That the National Assembly of Québec reaffirm to the federal government and to the Parliament of Canada that no modification to the Canadian Senate may be carried out without the consent of the Government of Québec and the National Assembly.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss Bill C-20, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate. Like my Bloc Québécois colleagues, I do not agree with the principle of this bill, and therefore, with it being sent to committee.

I would like to remind members that last November, members of the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted the following motion:

That the National Assembly of Québec reaffirm to the Federal Government and to the Parliament of Canada that no modification to the Canadian Senate may be carried out without the consent of the Government of Québec and the National Assembly.

Whether or not they share the views of the Bloc Québécois regarding Quebec's future, the three parties represented at the National Assembly all agree on this important point. The Canadian Parliament cannot unilaterally change the Senate.

Despite how quick the Conservative government is to boast about recognizing the Quebec nation, it is infringing the interests of that nation by introducing Bills C-20 and C-22.

First, it is proposing to reform the Senate without consulting Quebec, thus going against the governing consensus in the National Assembly that has been expressed on more than one occasion. Reforming the Senate “piecemeal” by way of legislation allows it to avoid reopening the constitutional debate. Second, the federal government is proposing to reduce Quebec’s weight in the House of Commons, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works in fact made a point of emphasizing in a mailing to his constituents.

Quebec and the provinces must necessarily be involved in any change to the essential characteristics of the Senate, that is, everything relating to the powers of senators, the number of senators a province is entitled to and the residence requirements for senators. Legislation is therefore not the appropriate route for Senate reform, and this is also the opinion of the Government of Quebec.

Obviously, sovereigntists in Quebec have long understood that Canadian institutions could not be reformed and that it was impossible to amend the Canadian constitution in a meaningful way: the political party to which I belong is founded on that understanding.

As well, there are many countries that have adopted a unicameral parliament: Sweden and Denmark are but two examples of countries whose democratic credentials cannot be doubted, and that are even the envy of many nations in several respects. There is also the oldest parliament in the world, the Icelandic Althing, whose origins go back to the 10th century and which abolished its upper chamber in 1991.

It may be worth pointing out that Quebec and the Canadian provinces that had a similar institution in the past abolished their upper chambers several decades ago. In 1968, for example, almost 40 years ago, Quebec chose to abolish its Legislative Council. During the debate on the bill that was introduced for that purpose, a number of speakers rose to speak on the question of whether or not this kind of institution should be retained. Some of the things said in 1968 may still apply today.

At the time, René Lévesque was the member for Laurier. He had been the leader of the unified sovereignist forces under the banner of the Parti Québécois for a little over a month. I would now like to read a passage from the debates of the National Assembly, which was still known as the Legislative Assembly at the time. I will take a few liberties with the speech delivered by René Lévesque, whose easily recognizable intonation and manner of expression come shining through right down to the punctuation in the text. Obviously, I will not attempt to reproduce his very distinctive delivery. Here is what René Lévesque said on November 26, 1968, about the upper chamber:

I think it would be a good idea to remember that the institution we call the Legislative Council, which remains fundamentally unchanged, is rooted, here and elsewhere, in a society that witnessed the birth of democracy. It goes back to a time before our societies' acceptance of democratic institutions. In most cases, regardless of what we call these kinds of institutions—Senate, upper chamber, House of Lords, and so on—they were created at the behest of privileged members of society when it became clear that divine right monarchies everywhere were losing their old absolute power over citizens. These kinds of councils and institutions were created with the intention of reining in the will of the people being freely expressed through universal suffrage.

After hearing that, people may point out that the Conservative government's proposed reform seems to have been inspired by democratic principles because it provides, at least indirectly, for the election of senators. I, however, feel that an elected Senate would only confuse matters and mess up the entire legislative process.

In the beginning, the supposed role of the upper chamber was to protect regional interests. However, it seems that partisanly appointed senators tend to represent the interests of the party that appointed them. To hide that obvious disparity, the member for LaSalle—Émard, when he was Prime Minister, decided to appoint senators affiliated with other parties, so as not to stack the deck too much. Indirectly electing senators would not solve the problem because political affiliations would be even more evident.

In reality, by proposing this Senate reform, the Conservative government is trying to marginalize Quebec. In June 2006, Marc Chevrier, a professor in the Department of Political Studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal, wrote the following:

—equality of the provinces in the Senate clashes with the idea of Quebec being a distinct nation. To enshrine such equality is to finish what was started in 1982: bringing Quebec into line by forestalling its demands as a nation. Basically, the Harper and Trudeau governments, whose ideologies differ so fundamentally—

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak this afternoon in the House of Commons and to represent the good folks of Crowfoot, Alberta, central and east central Alberta.

This is one of those subjects that is dear to the heart of, I think, most Canadians. When we consult Canadians about the importance for the democratization of Parliament and the democratization of our institutions in Parliament, most Canadians point to the Senate and say that we should reform it or abolish it but that we must make certain that the status quo does not remain.

Consequently, that is what prompted the government to bring forward Bill C-20, to bring forward positive change to an institution that needs it.

I remember many years ago in the late 1980s, probably even the mid-1980s, when there was change sweeping across the country. A new political party started in the west and a new political party started in Quebec. They were new parties with new ideas. Canadians at that point in time were very disappointed when they looked at the Senate. They saw an institution that was not functioning right. We saw cases where there were senators who spent most of their time in Mexico and it frustrated Canadians knowing that they were paying with their tax dollars to allow this type of so-called representation to take place.

At that point in time, Albertans, especially in the area where I live, started to talk about the need for this type of Senate reform. Ideas came forward. At that point in time, a Senate election was held and a gentleman by the name of Stan Waters became the senator in waiting in Alberta.

The prime minister of the day, Prime Minister Mulroney, and that government eventually saw Senator Waters appointed to the upper chamber, the Senate, and we saw representation.

Mr. Waters travelled throughout Alberta, throughout the west and throughout Canada talking about the need for Senate reform. I recall those meetings and I recall having him even to my small community in Alberta. I recall him talking about how the Senate started, how the Fathers of Confederation realized the importance of representation by population. When they formulated the idea of this House, they knew that representation by population was a fundamental in democracy and they wanted to achieve that.

As we have already heard in other speeches today, the body of Parliament was formed into constituencies and that is the way that the House still is.

However, the Fathers of Confederation spent much of their time as well debating, planning and strategizing as to what the Senate would look like. They realized at the time that in a country as large as Canada, a country with the huge differences in geography, the differences from the east to the west, that we needed something to balance out representation by population so that our regions would be protected. They realized at the time that a populace area would have the ability to take advantage of less populated areas, take advantage of those resources and take advantage of many of the issues that less populated areas wanted. Consequently, they came up with this idea of a Senate that would not be as political and as partisan as this House.

We talk about partisanship within the House of Commons. To be quite honest, I think it always will be partisan because we are elected in political parties with very different political agendas.

The balance in all of this was to have a Senate that could sit back, represent regions and ensure their area and their district were not taken advantage of.

I had the opportunity of sitting with a Liberal senator on the plane one day and I appreciated what he said. He talked about how in the very early days, I am not certain if it was in Confederation or perhaps when he started sitting in the Senate, maybe that was even in early Confederation, Senators were not even allowed into caucus meetings because there was a differentiation between the Senate and the House, and it was not to be as political.

We can see that what has happened is that we have moved away from that type of time and we see now where the Senate is very political. We see now where the Senate is halting legislation that the government is bringing forward. We have heard the speeches this afternoon about the number of prime ministers who have only appointed senators from their own political parties. Why? It is because they realized that it was a political appointment. Many of them were nothing more than fundraisers for political parties and now they sit in the Senate.

The current legislation comes along because Canadians are saying that they want their Senate to become more accountable and democratic.

Last Saturday evening in my riding of Crowfoot, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting that was a fundraiser in preparation for a potential election, a fundraiser where we had 300 people on a night that was remarkably cold, probably with a wind chill colder than minus 30, in Trochu, Alberta. Individuals came together to talk about what was happening here in Parliament and what was happening throughout the country.

Senator Brown came to the meeting and gave a speech. He was there with his wife and she received a remarkable ovation, as well. If anyone knows Alice, they would understand why that would be, but Senator Brown gave a clear indication as to why he felt that this hope of Senate reform was still alive.

He talked about speaking to provinces, about going out and talking to premiers, and explaining the reasons why this was not just good for one part of the country but why this was good for all parts of the country, and how premiers now were starting to understand that this kind of legislation, Bill C-20, is doable.

Why do I say it is doable? Bill C-20 is not facilitated by the opening of a constitutional debate. It is legislation that very simply would allow individuals to elect, allow individuals a voice, and allow individuals a say in who would represent their areas in the Senate.

That is why we re-introduced the bill. This is not something that is going to divide our country. Very clearly, one of the priorities of the government is to keep a strong unified country. We will not bring forward any type of legislation that would bring disunity to our country.

Our economy is strong, our government is clean and the country is together. We are unified. We are seeing that today and the legislation is not to pit one area against another but it is to allow all Canadians to have a voice in who would sit and represent them in the Senate.

We promised in the last election, and also brought it forward in the Speech from the Throne, that we would take a step-by-step approach to reforming the Senate. In some ways I wish that we were sitting here today and had a bill that was very similar to what we used to call the triple E Senate. That is not what this bill is about.

Many of my constituents would say the bill is not enough. I would tell them this is an incremental step in the reform of an institution that so desperately needs it. All Canadians recognize that the Senate must change. I think most of us here in the House recognize and realize there has to be some change. The status quo is not good enough.

The government is committed to leading that change. For that reason we bring forward this bill and we are excited to debate it in the House.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to voice my support for the bill. It is important that we start modifying and modernizing the Senate.

I do not agree with the Bloc member in wanting to abolish the Senate. The Senate does a lot of good work. If we look at some of the committee work it has done, even in its special interest and the heavy patronage that happens there, it still accomplishes a lot of good work. It is important to have that sober second thought go through the bills and motions that come from this House.

We need to look at the big picture. If we look at other parliaments and congresses across the Americas, almost all of them run in bicameral parliaments, just like we do, and all of them have elected senates. Whether it is Chile, Colombia, Brazil, the United States or Mexico, they all have elected senates.

We need to move down that path and Bill C-20 would help us to do that and to finally get rid of the palace of patronage. It is time for us to look at the hard facts. We are moving forward with proper bills to limit the terms of senators to eight years. We are moving ahead to have an election as a consultation with voters across the country to select the senators they want sitting in the palace of patronage and essentially change that into a functional democracy, the way it should be.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is opposed to the bill concerning the appointment of senators. Parliament cannot reform the Senate unilaterally or without a constitutional amendment. At any rate, even a reformed Senate is a useless institution.

Canadian institutions cannot be reformed. The numerous attempts to reform the Senate illustrate perfectly the “Canadian dead end.” Proposals to reform the Senate date back as far as 1874. Barely seven years after the creation of the Dominion of Canada, the Senate was the subject of criticism and calls for reform.

A motion in April 1874, by member of Parliament David Mills, recommended that “our Constitution ought to be so amended as to confer upon each Province the power of selecting its own Senators, and of defining the mode of their election”. Now, 133 years later, we are still debating this issue. Senator Serge Joyal, who wrote a book on Senate reform, identified at least 26 proposals for Senate reform in the past 30 years alone.

The Bloc Québécois believes that the Senate reform proposed by the current government is a slap in the face for Quebec federalists. The minimum position of successive Quebec governments has always been clear: no Senate reform without first settling the question of Quebec’s status.

In 1989, Robert Bourassa said he did not want to discuss Senate reform until the Meech Lake accord was ratified. In 1992, Gil Rémillard said that signature by Canada of an accord involving Senate reform would depend on the outcome of negotiations on the concept of a distinct society, division of powers and the federal spending power.

By means of Bills C-19 and C-20, the current Conservative Prime Minister is trying to reform the Senate piecemeal, without having satisfied the minimum conditions stipulated by Quebec.

Clearly the Senate cannot be changed unilaterally and without a constitutional amendment. The Canadian Constitution is a federal constitution. Consequently, there are reasons why changes to the essential characteristics of the Senate cannot be made by Parliament alone and should be part of the constitutional process involving Quebec and the provinces.

In the late 1970s, the Supreme Court of Canada examined Parliament's ability to amend on its own the constitutional provisions concerning the Senate. According to its decision, known as “Authority of Parliament in relation to the Upper House”, in 1980, decisions pertaining to major changes to the essential characteristics of the Senate cannot be made unilaterally.

All reforms of Senate powers, the means of selecting senators, the number of senators to which each province is entitled and residency requirements for senators, can only be made in consultation with Quebec and the provinces.

Benoît Pelletier, the Quebec Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and MNA for Chapleau, reiterated Quebec's traditional position on November 7, 2007, which was not so long ago:

The Government of Quebec does not believe that this falls exclusively under federal jurisdiction. Given that the Senate is a crucial part of the Canadian federal compromise, it is clear to us that under the Constitution Act, 1982, and the regional veto act, the Senate can be neither reformed nor abolished without Quebec's consent.

That same day, in November 2007, Quebec's National Assembly unanimously passed the following motion—I hope the government is listening:

That the National Assembly of Québec reaffirm to the Federal Government and to the Parliament of Canada that no modification to the Canadian Senate may be carried out without the consent of the Government of Québec and the National Assembly.

Quebec is not alone in opposing the idea of an elected Senate. The outgoing Premier of Saskatchewan, Lorne Calvert, and the Premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer, have called for abolishing the Senate instead of trying to reform it. The Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, has also expressed concerns about whether electing senators to the Senate might not make the inequalities even worse.

In summary, indirect election of senators would change the rapport between the House of Commons and the Senate. These changes cannot be made unilaterally without the consent of the provinces and without the consent of Quebec, recognized as a nation by the House of Commons. Whether the Senate is reformed or not, it is a useless institution.

Initially, the Senate was supposed to be a chamber of sober second thought that also protected regional interests. Regional equality in the Senate was supposed to counterbalance representation in the House. However, it seems that partisanship has gained the upper hand over regional representation, thus rendering null and void the purpose of the other place, which has a tendency to follow the lead of the House of Commons.

How can this government justify having a Senate whose responsibilities would be much like those of the House of Commons at a cost of $81 million per year? All the provinces have done away with their upper chambers. No province has had an upper chamber since Quebec abolished its legislative council in 1968, and as far as I know, the provinces are able to govern appropriately.

Bill C-20 would not make the Senate democratic. Public consultation is not binding. Bill C-20 provides for public “consultation” to choose senators. The Prime Minister maintains the authority to appoint or not appoint the senators chosen by the public. The Prime Minister could therefore decide not to appoint a candidate selected by the public. The background paper provided by the government concerning this bill 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”.

Besides, 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 to the Senate? The current Prime Minister's real motivation is to marginalize the nation of Quebec. Under the pretext of an orthodox reform of federalism, the Conservative government is proposing shattering the balance of the federation.

In Australia and the United States, having an elected senate has enhanced the legitimacy of the federal government and has “nationalized” public life rather than serve the representation of the federated states within federal institutions. To be heard in Congress, the American states have been reduced to being lobbyists. Senators elected to represent an entire province would overshadow the authority of the provincial premiers and run the risk of supplanting them as regional representatives. That is what the proponents of a “triple E” Senate want: a federal Parliament that would be more legitimate because its elected members were more sensitive to regional interests. Quebeckers would never stand idly by as their own province blithely accepted Senate reform.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak about Bill C-20.

Electoral reform is something that I hear about often from my constituents in Leeds—Grenville. Always at the top of their list is what we are going to do about the Senate. I would like to take this opportunity to give a bit of the history of discussions about changing the Senate in our country.

First, dissatisfaction with the Senate as produced for us by the Fathers of Confederation--the Senate being something which they spent more time talking about than any other subject at the conferences leading up to Confederation in 1867--began almost immediately.

In 1874 there was an extensive debate in the Parliament of Canada about reforming the Senate and in particular, the appointment process, but nothing happened.

In 1887 at the first interprovincial meeting of premiers, there was a call for an elected Senate, but nothing happened.

In 1906 through to 1909, there were extensive debates in both federal houses about Senate reform, but again, nothing happened.

In 1921, Liberal leader Mackenzie King included Senate reform in his party's election platform. This was followed by extensive debates in both houses in 1924 and 1925 on the need for reform of the Senate, and again, nothing happened.

At the 1927 Dominion-Provincial Conference, Senate reform was a main topic of discussion. All the politicians said there was a need for reform, but again, nothing happened.

There were extensive debates in the Senate in 1951 and in the House in 1955 on the need for Senate reform. Again, nothing happened.

In 1965, the Pearson government, following up on a bill introduced by the previous Diefenbaker government, was able to have passed through Parliament an amendment reducing the terms of senators from life to age 75. That was not very revolutionary, to say the least. And that was it. There has really been no change in the formal structure of the Senate since that time.

In 1972, a special joint House and Senate committee, the Molgat-McGuigan committee, held extensive hearings across the country and recommended the need to reform the appointment process for the Senate, if nothing else. Again, nothing happened.

In 1978, the Trudeau Liberal government proposed a bill which would abolish the Senate and replace it with a new body to be known as the house of the provinces, with at least half of the members chosen by the provinces. Again, in the end, nothing happened.

After that, there was a series of commissions and studies: the Pepin-Robarts committee in 1979; the Quebec Liberal Party beige paper in 1980; the House-Senate joint committee, the Molgat-Cosgrove committee in 1984; the Macdonald commission in 1985; the House-Senate joint committee, the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee, in 1992. All recommended basic reform in the appointment process, with election most often as the preferred option, but again, nothing happened.

One of the reasons there was this continued pattern of engaging in public discussion of basic Senate reform followed by no action was that often the argument was made that such reform could only be tied in with other more comprehensive constitutional changes. Thus, attempts at that method, such as what happened in the Charlottetown efforts, failed. The other reason is that the government could then use all of that as an excuse for why nothing gets done.

I am hearing the same refrain and the same arguments coming now from those who still do not want to reform the Senate, in particular, those in the Liberal Party. That is because continued inaction on this file is in their clear partisan self-interest.

However, this government, unlike all previous governments, has chosen not to hide behind these excuses and long history of non-achievement. We have decided to boldly move forward with that incremental reform that we know for sure the federal Parliament and government can initiate and accomplish on its own without going down the complicated path of formal constitutional amendments involving the provinces or some kind of wholesale reopening of the Constitution, something that we know would be very difficult.

In the first session of this Parliament, we introduced two quite modest bills to get the ball rolling in a very serious way to achieve Senate reform. There was Bill S-4, to reduce the term of all future Senate appointees from the current potential of 45 years, something which my constituents find quite offensive, in that someone who is appointed at age 30 is able to sit until the mandatory retirement age of 75. We wanted to change the term to eight years.

The bill would provide for the ability of the Prime Minister to consult Canadians on their preferences as to who should serve them in the Senate before making such appointments.

What is the actual atrocious record of Senate appointments that both major political parties, while in government, not including the current government, have been of guilty since Confederation?

Sir John A. Macdonald, our first prime minister, in 19 years of office appointed only 1 Liberal and 1 Independent. The rest were all Conservative. I would personally not see that as a bad thing.

However, as I go on, Sir Wilfrid Laurier in his 15 years in office appointed only Liberals.

Sir Robert Borden, in his nine years of office appointed only Conservatives, except when he led a union coalition government during the war.

Mackenzie King in his 22 years in office appointed 103 senators and all but 2 were Liberals.

Louis St. Laurent in his nine years in office appointed fifty-five senators and all but three were Liberals.

John Diefenbaker in his six years in office appointed thirty-seven senators and all but one were Conservative.

Lester Pearson in his five years in office appointed thirty-nine senators and all but one were Liberal.

Pierre Trudeau in his 15 years of office appointed 81 senators and all but 11 were Liberals.

Joe Clark in his nine months in office appointed eleven senators, all of them Conservative.

Brian Mulroney in his nine years of office appointed fifty-one senators, some of whom are still sitting in the Senate today, and all but two of them were Conservatives. One of the two was Stan Waters, appointed as a Reform senator by Mr. Mulroney due to his election by the voters of Alberta in the spirit of Meech Lake, which we all know failed in the end.

Jean Chrétien in his 10 years in office appointed 75 senators and all but 3 were Liberals.

Paul Martin in his 23 months in office appointed 17 senators, only 5 of whom were not Liberal.

Neither Kim Campbell nor John Turner appointed any senators, although Turner did Trudeau's bidding in that regard, as we know. It was something that was very prominent in the election of 1984.

I have had an equal opportunity to be a critic of both major parties that have held office. However, when it comes to the current Prime Minister, we finally have a breaking of this historical pattern.

Since taking office only 21 months ago, the Prime Minister has only made 2 appointments to the Senate, and there are currently 13 vacancies. One of those appointments, Senator Fortier, was to ensure that the island of Montreal was represented in the cabinet, with the commitment from that appointee that he would resign his seat in the Senate as soon as the general election was called, and seek election to the House.

The other was the recent appointment of Senator Bert Brown on the basis that he, on two separate occasions, was democratically chosen by the people of Alberta as their preference to be selected to serve in the Senate.

Therefore, the government has done as much as it can to break this pattern of no action on Senate reform. It is now up to the opposition parties in the House and the Liberal majority in the Senate to wake up and smell the political coffee. There will either be reform or Canadians might well choose abolition.

I have laid out quite clearly the history of what has happened in terms of efforts to reform the Senate, but the bill goes a long way toward moving the ball forward, which Canadians support. I I urge the other parties to support the bill.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

There is no consensus as such on the idea of totally abolishing the Senate. It is not a top priority. However, the Bloc Québécois has noticed that the minimum condition set by successive governments in Quebec on Senate reform has always been clear: there will be no Senate reform without first settling the question of Quebec's status.

I mentioned earlier that in 1989 Robert Bourassa said that he did not wish to discuss Senate reform before the Meech Lake accord was ratified. In 1992, Gil Rémillard said that Quebec's signing of an agreement on Senate reform would depend on the outcome of negotiations on the concept of a distinct society, the division of powers and the federal spending power.

Finally, with Bill C-20, the government is proceeding with piecemeal reform of the Senate without satisfying the minimum conditions stipulated by Quebec.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's remarks and I see great logic in her arguments. That it exactly the position of the Bloc Québécois.

However, I heard a Conservative member say this morning that the Bloc wanted to see the Senate abolished because there would be fewer federalists representing Quebec in Ottawa. He added that that was the reason why the Conservatives wanted to make changes and, through Bill C-20reform the Senate.

I would like my colleague to tell me if there is a consensus in Quebec with regard to the potential abolition of the Senate—which some of us hope for.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the chance to speak to this bill entitled An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

From the outset I would like to say that we are against referring this bill to committee before second reading. In fact, we are against the very principle of the bill, and we believe that no amendment in committee could make it acceptable.

I would add that a lot of hypocrisy surrounds the tabling of this bill. To support that claim, consider that the Senate currently consists of 61 Liberals, 24 Conservatives and 4 independents. I say it is hypocritical because the current government is very uncomfortable with the Senate and the people in it. It is also uncomfortable with the work done by the Senate.

We are against this bill because we think that Canadian institutions cannot be reformed. Just look at the Meech and Charlottetown accords. Twice Canada has rejected the aspirations of Quebec.

Furthermore, the Bloc Québécois was born in 1990, as hon. members will remember, precisely because Canada could not be reformed. Even the Harper government admits that Canada cannot be reformed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-20.

Let me begin with this statement, which members might find familiar: our “federation is only as strong as the democratic institutions that underpin it”. It might be familiar to members because this statement was affirmed by the House when it adopted the government's Speech from the Throne for this sitting of Parliament.

We might not agree on everything in this place. In fact, across the country we disagree on a variety of things related to our political process, but whatever else may divide us, I think we agree that we share a commitment and a loyalty to federalism and to democracy. We have shared loyalties to those things.

As members of the House of Commons, as representatives of Canadians, we are all committed to continuing to strengthen our federation by strengthening our democratic institutions. We can look back at the history of Parliament and see that electoral and institutional reforms aided us as we moved down the pathway of making those federal and democratic reforms.

Because of the efforts of our predecessors in these respects, Canada is a free and democratic society. In fact, we are a model for aspiring democracies the world over. Our federal structure is looked to as a guide for constitution makers and nation builders everywhere.

We have merited this reputation because we have been willing to change. We have aspired to reflect democracy's and federalism's proudest ambitions. As members of the House, we share the responsibility to carry on that proud tradition.

I am proud to represent the beautiful province of British Columbia. From time to time, I speak to people about democratic reform. They might talk to me about proportional representation. They might talk to me about the voting age. They might talk to me about a variety of things, but inevitably what I hear most about is Senate reform. This system that we have today bothers them. We need to respond to that.

The Senate must be reimagined. It must be recreated in the image of a democratic and federal Canada. I believe that our shared commitments to democracy and federalism should lead us all to the conclusion that we need to do something about the Senate.

Maintaining, protecting and promoting the reputation of Canada is a responsibility of Canadian lawmakers. The subject matter of our present debate, the Senate appointment consultations act, gives us an opportunity to fulfill this responsibility.

The extent of reform that is possible is no small undertaking. We could aim for comprehensive reform that will satisfy the full scale of federal and democratic change in the Senate. To do that, though, constitutional change is necessary.

However, short of comprehensive reform, some change can be effected by this present Parliament. I believe it is our responsibility to do what we can now and to hold on to the hope that we can do more in the not too distant future.

I believe the bill before us is a promising legislative initiative. It speaks to both the federal and the democratic ambitions of Canada and seeks to reform the Senate to promote those ambitions.

With this legislative initiative, the opinions of Canadians will be sought on whom the Prime Minister should recommend for appointment to the Senate. That is basically what the bill is all about. With this single act, we can effectuate immediate reform that will answer part of the Senate's democratic and federal deficiencies. To neglect to pursue this opportunity is to fail in our responsibilities as members of the House.

In a democracy, citizens should understand that they are participating in the law-making process and they should have that opportunity. By having the opportunity to choose their representatives, as they do in the House, they engage in that very participation.

In fact, I never lose sight of the fact that I serve here at the pleasure of the people of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission. Citizens have participated in the selection of every member of the House. However, citizens currently have no participatory role in choosing who sits in the Senate.

Given that the powers of the Senate in the law-making process are similar in many respects to the powers of the House, citizens similarly should be participating in the selection of senators. The Senate appointment consultations act would give them that opportunity. To deny Canadians that opportunity is to deny them their proper place in both Houses of Parliament.

In pursuit of Canada's proud democracy, we should support giving Canadians the opportunity to participate in deciding who shall sit in both Houses of Parliament.

Now in days past the decision to divide Parliament into two Houses was made in the light of the federal aspirations of Canada. The House of Commons was designed to reflect proportional representation, or at least mostly so, of all Canadians, whereas the Senate was designed to reflect Canada's regions.

The Senate appointment consultations act proposes not only to give citizens of Canada an opportunity to speak to their preferences on senatorial appointments, it also allows the regions to speak, not just individual citizens. By allowing for consultations per province, the attachment of a senatorial nominee to his or her region will be strengthened.

The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley who spoke previously is right, I think, that most Canadians cannot name very many of the senators who represent their region. He is right about that, even in B.C. where we have a relatively small number of senators, something that also has to be fixed along the way.

I think part of that is due to the fact that we do not have any way of participating in the process. In fact, if we follow this bill and put in place a consultation process, an election by all accounts would give the opportunity for those nominees to better connect with the people in their region. So the relationship between Canada's regions and Canada's senators will be promoted by allowing citizens to have a say in who should represent them.

This may be the most important point of all, senators will owe their allegiance to the region that nominated them and elected them, and not to the Prime Minister or party that appointed them. That is a very important point. I believe this will allow the Senate to regain its constitutional status.

Some will maintain that Senate reform may well be necessary, while the democratic and federalism deficiencies are obvious, and while change is within our grasp, there are other more pressing matters than Senate reform. No doubt the members of this House face many important matters that warrant our attention. We consider them day after day. However, when properly understood, Senate reform should be recognized by all members of Parliament to be a priority.

First, this House committed itself to Senate reform by approving the government Speech from the Throne. This House committed itself during the lifetime of this Parliament to the priorities set out therein. This House has acted on many of those priorities, and now it is time to devote itself to this one.

Second, Senate reform is not a challenge that will be forgotten should we neglect to act now. The Senate is an essential component of Parliament. Unlike the position of the NDP, I believe it has an important role to play. Few actions of this House and no bill passed by this House may proceed without Senate approval.

It reflects poorly on this House that we have had for so long the possibility of correcting the democratic deficits of the Upper House and have failed to do so. Yet, we now have more than the mere possibility of acting, we now have the opportunity to act. A bill is before us and it would be to ignore our responsibility not to stand behind this legislative initiative.

Third, the call for Senate reform has been expressed both democratically and in each one of Canada's regions. Canadians, when polled, have responded enthusiastically to the proposals for Senate reform put forward by the government, including this bill, the Senate appointment consultations act. In a federal democratic state like Canada, when the democratic expressions of citizens throughout the regions affirm a legislative initiative, that should be the guide by which Parliament should act.

These are all reasons that encourage the members of this House to stand in favour of the Senate appointment consultations act. As for me, I will be proud to tell my constituents that I have fulfilled my responsibility to them as their representative in Parliament. I will be proud to tell them that when given the opportunity to support a measure that would further Canada's democratic and federal ambitions, a measure that enjoys decisive, regional and popular support, I voted in favour. I encourage all members to do the same.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I enter this debate with great pleasure but also with great remorse because of the intellectual dishonesty that is being perpetrated by the government in bringing forward this bill at this time.

There is a reason that I make such harsh judgment of the government. I know it is not easy and there are certain government members who endeavour to provide honourable discourse and dialogue in this place. Yet when looking through the many pages of Bill C-20, Canadians might be left with the impression that the government is actually serious about Senate reform, somehow serious about democratic reform. This goes back to the days of the Reform Party and then the Canadian Alliance and various incarnations in between in speaking to what I believe was a sincere desire among Canadians to see some sort of accountability in all levels of office.

If the rules that were given to the Senate were applied to any other official body in this country, Canadians would be absolutely disgusted. They would be unable to understand why we would allow such an important function of government to run amok and have so few rules guiding its own merit and conduct. The ethics rules are not adhered to. On simply showing up for work, the attendance is abysmal. Before I entered politics I ran a small business. After looking at the attendance records for some senators, they would not have been hired, or if they had been hired, they certainly would have been let go as soon as possible. They simply do not show up and when they do, their effectiveness is found wanting.

Clearly there is much speculation in the media and by the pundits that we are on the eve of another election. There is potentially a series of confidence votes. The Prime Minister for some delusional reason seems interested in going back to the Canadian people for a mandate.

The government is showing its true colours in desiring an election because it is clearing the decks of all those bills. The Conservatives want to show some small significance of effort back to their base, that oh yes, they are engaged in the issue and here is their evidence and proof.

Lo and behold, like a gopher, Bill C-20 has popped up its head and pretends at some sincere effort. The government lost any momentum for discussion of the bill because it chose to prorogue Parliament. It chose to suspend Parliament which essentially killed all of the bills on the order paper that were in progress, such as its own crime bill and other bills, including this bill as well. All of that time was lost and it is more than two years since the last election.

The government introduced this bill, but allowed it to fall into the black hole of prorogation, a process which few Canadians understand. However, the government understood it well, and the desperate need for another throne speech was its excuse. It set the bill back 12 months or more and lost any kind of serious discussion.

The New Democrats are deeply interested at our core of finding a way to fix the fundamentally flawed institution that is known as the Senate in order to allow Canadians some sense that democracy is functioning and that they are getting value for money. There are 14 vacancies in the Senate and we get no sense of urgency whatsoever from the government to fill those vacancies, because ultimately those positions are filled through patronage appointments. That is the way it is done.

The government seeks credibility on this issue. It seeks to tell Canadians it is sincere about Senate reform and having true representation in the Senate. One of its first acts as a new government, having just run a campaign on accountability, was to appoint Michael Fortier from Montreal to the Senate. That was one of the first things the Prime Minister did after having spent not just weeks but months telling Canadians how sensible and accountable his government would be, how it would clean up the corruption of the Liberals. How many times did we hear it in this place from the Prime Minister and other people in his cabinet that they would not follow the record of the Liberals and not give crony patronage appointments, that they would do it differently?

One of the things the Conservatives were thinking of doing was reforming the Senate. Lo and behold, when given the reins of power, the first thing the Prime Minister decided to do was to force upon the people of Montreal a representative they did not choose. He chose to put someone into the Senate in one of the most important cabinet positions, one which controls billions of taxpayer dollars, someone who cannot be held to account in this place.

When that ministry, under his guidance, runs amok and spends money unaccountably or perhaps wrongly, he cannot be called to account. He simply cannot be given that direction and focus from this place. Canadians cannot see him, at least on the evening news, presenting his opinions in a place that was constructed to do just that. These walls were built and these desks were put in this place for that. Canadians imbued Parliament with the power to be accountable over many things. One is the law and another is the use of taxpayer dollars.

Yet the government has chosen to put an unaccountable, unelected person into the cabinet and stick that person in the Senate in order to get around this little annoyance called democracy, this little discomfort, which is that people in just about every urban centre in this country decided not to elect Conservative members. Rather than actually appeal to those voters in any kind of sensible way and present a platform on urban transit strategy or the serious issues affecting Canadians living in cities, the Conservatives decided that the appointment process was just so much easier. It is just so much easier to appoint someone to the Senate and allow that person to occupy one of the most critical positions in cabinet.

In this bill, despite the many pages and the many clauses and amendments, the government is clearly playing at the margins. It is clearly tinkering at the edges, because at the end of the day, through all the sections on voting, discrepancy and penalties, it still remains the purview and the power of only one person in this country, and that is the Prime Minister, to choose whom he or she will allow to go into the Senate.

When we craft laws in this place, we do not craft them for any particular current representation or any current manifestation of government. We seek to create laws that will last throughout governments, that will stand the test of time and be a good representation of sound thinking.

It is wrong for the government to present a bill with the pretense that perhaps this Prime Minister may choose to honour the wishes of some of the voters who are constructing some electoral options in regard to it being a truly accountable forum and in regard to this bill somehow fixing a fundamental problem. Earlier in the discussion in regard to the functioning of the Senate, I called it an old beat-up jalopy that simply will not start. It simply will not function. The government's solution is a new coat of paint and some air in the tires, perhaps with windshield wipers if they are needed.

Sometimes there were debates and moments in history where, for some miraculous, rare spot in time, the Senate actually performed a function. It actually did something admirable in one of the current policy debates, but those moments are so rare that they remind me of a strange phenomenon I was looking up earlier. I was trying to find the actual taxonomic name of a flower in the Amazon. It buds only once every 25 years. It is quite rare. No one really knows when that is going to happen and it is a news item every time. Everyone rushes to the Amazon, the cameras show up, the flower buds and shows itself, and then quickly disappears again for some unknown period of time.

When I deal with my colleagues in the Senate, as admirable as some of them may be, I find that as an institution there is absolutely no lever to pull on. There is no accountability measure. I can recall before the previous government fell that the House of Commons, in the midst of an energy concern regarding seniors on fixed incomes, sought to pass a piece of legislation that would assist low income seniors with their home heating bills. I am sure all my colleagues who were here at that time remember that debate. We all remember how the parties got together in one of those rare moments in Parliament and decided to pass a bill at all stages and allow the bill to pass on to the Senate.

I met with a senator that day on entirely another issue. He told me to go back to my leadership and tell them that the bill, which we could find all party agreement to, had no guarantee whatsoever of getting through his chamber because the Senate had to be accountable. That senator was a Liberal, and of course he had no determinants of influence or bias whatsoever in terms of what was happening here in this place electorally with his elected colleagues, and he guaranteed me that if we rushed to an election too quickly, he assured me that this bill would not go through, and how dare the NDP bring down his Liberal government.

In fact, it was a bluff, of course. The bill passed and the money was received by needy seniors across the country, but the fact, and the point of this illustration, remains, which is that the accountability of that gentleman to represent this narrow, biased and partisan view, rather than the interests of this country and the people who vote for members in this place, shows what is so fundamentally dysfunctional about what it is the Senate has come to represent, which is a minority representation, protecting minority views, those of the powerful and the elite in this country.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss Bill C-20, a bill that, by any definition, is purely political, even by Ottawa standards. Like everything we see from the government, the facts play little relevance in what it crafts as legislation or policy. This is all about politics.

Even the name, an act to provide for consultations, shows us what qualifies as consultations in the eyes of the government. It has not had discussions with the provinces and it did not take very long for provinces to speak out against this in its earlier incarnation and again now. As as my colleague from Newfoundland and Labrador mentioned, Conservatives in my province of Nova Scotia very recently spoke out about it.

The bill has little to do with reforming the Senate, but much to do about fulfilling an election promise made by the other side in order to appease their narrow base. Does the leader of the government in the House really believe a discussion, at this moment, on this topic is in tune with the needs and the realities of most Canadians?

In my riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour people are worried about the coming economic downturn. Is the government, which squandered away a lot of money it inherited, ready for that economic downturn? Is it ready to provide the support and the stimulus that Canadians will need to get through this difficult time?

Are students interested in this? None who I have talked to have raised this as an issue in the schools I go to on a regular basis. I always ask kids what is on their minds. They talk about the environment, Afghanistan, the high cost of tuition, literacy, social services and infrastructure that provides the social supports for which Canadian is known. They do not talk about the Senate.

It indicates that the government is either trying to waste the time of the House as we go toward an election, or it is using this as a political wedge, or both. The bill and others like it are props to be used to distort or to create the impression that the Conservatives champion change when in fact they do not.

The bill does nothing to address the issue, for example, of Senate representation. I will have that discussion. We should have a discussion about the House of Commons and about the Senate.

When we go back to the original Senate, when we had Confederation, the design of it was not bad. It was a good design. It was such that regionally there was representation in Canada. Lower Canada, Quebec, had 24 members. Upper Canada, Ontario, had 24 members. The Maritimes had 24 members. Then as the west joined Confederation, it had 24 members. Then the north and Newfoundland and Labrador joined and they were accorded seats in the Senate to represent the important regional issues that mattered to the people in those areas.

Yes, the House of Commons has a largely proportional say in voting on all the important measures of the day. The elected members of Parliament made those decisions.

The Senate is designed, not only as a chamber of sober second thought, but to provide that regional balance, and we saw that. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay, for example, suggested that Atlantic senators did nothing on the Atlantic accord. That is entirely untrue. After it passed in the House, the Senate had further hearings on the Atlantic accord. All senators from Atlantic Canada on the Liberal side voted against the budget. They did continue that fight. Probably at the end of the day, they played their role, which was to bring more attention to it. For example, the Premier of Nova Scotia came up for hearings. However, at the end of the day, the will of the elected House prevailed, but that did not make redundant the role of the Senate.

My colleague from B.C. talked about representation. I agree that my province of Nova Scotia, with 10 seats, and B.C. and Alberta with six seats, need to have that discussion. The bill does not talk about that. We need to have those discussions in a serious and positive way throughout the country.

We need to look at Senate terms as well. Let us talk about the Senate terms. Should they be lifetime to 75? I do not know. I suspect probably there is a better way of doing that, but it is not by coming forward and suggesting that we are going to have consultations, ignoring a lot of the important issues that matter across the country.

I would be very open to some kind of Senate reform package that would allow Canadians to feel they were more connected to the Senate, just as I would support some reforms in the House of Commons that would allow them to feel more connected to this chamber as well.

I want to read the May 2007 resolution from the National Assembly of Quebec, when this bill came back in its original incarnation, Bill C-56. It states:

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.

Most recently, in the province of Nova Scotia at the Conservative annual general meeting of the struggling Conservative government of Rodney MacDonald, this proposal for elected senators was put forward to Progressive Conservatives in Nova Scotia. The report in the now defunct Daily News of Halifax the next day headlined “Tories reject Harper's plan for elected Senate”. It lead off:

[The] Prime Minister's dream of an elected Senate suffered a set back yesterday when Nova Scotia Tories defeated a resolution that asked the province's Progressive Conservative government to organize a vote this October. Delegates at the party's annual convention in Halifax voted overwhelmingly against the idea.

And a number of reasons were given.

It is not particularly creative or imaginative to run around the country and bash the Senate. It has been done for years. The language we hear of the unelected and unaccountable Senate, filled with party hacks and all that sort of stuff does not add a lot to the debate.

In fact, if we look at what the Senate has done for Canada and the work that it has done for Canada, it has actually served this country very well, not only as a chamber of sober second thought but also through its committees.

At around the same time that Mr. Romanow prepared his national commission on health care, Senator Michael Kirby produced his. They were both excellent reports and a good synopsis of the current situation.

I would suggest that the Kirby report from the Senate was every bit as good or perhaps even better in some areas than the Romanow commission report. He went on to do work on mental health which has now become sort of the hope of mental health advocates and people who suffer from mental health illness in this country. That came out of the Senate as well as Joyce Fairburn on literacy, Colin Kenny's work on military issues and a whole host of studies, some of which I individually would agree with and some of which I would not, but which no one could deny was important work.

I may be a little bit biased coming from Nova Scotia. We happen to have some pretty good senators. There is the senator from my own riding, Senator Jane Cordy, who is an outstanding senator. On the work I do on post-secondary education, Senator Willie Moore is the champion of post-secondary education.

If we talk to the AUCC, the CFS, the CASA, and the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and talk to the granting councils, they can tell us that they can always get a good understanding of what is happening when they talk to many of these senators who are particularly focused on this issue. Senator Terry Mercer from Halifax has done some championing work for post-secondary education.

Again, I want to go to the regional aspect of what they have done. When we talk about post-secondary education, we can talk about tuitions and the unique nature of Nova Scotia where we have the highest tuitions in the country.

We can talk about research and development. If it was not for the work, I would suggest, on the part of senators as well as Atlantic Liberal caucus members, some of the important investments through ACOA in research and development would not have happened. We need to build up the research capacity of our universities in Atlantic Canada which are very good, but they need a certain amount of attention.

I think that is a regional issue that is very important. I mentioned the accord. Even the Progressive Conservatives have nominated good senators. Senator Lowell Murray is actually a senator from Ontario but he is a Nova Scotian and he has been a champion of a lot of issues including the duplicity of this government on the Atlantic accord.

I think it is easy to bash the Senate. In fact, the Senate has done some very important work across this country. We can make changes. There is no question about that. We all want to see changes in how Parliament works. We want to see changes in this House and in the Senate, but here we are talking about this issue, when Canadians are worried about the economy, poverty, the environment, jobs, education, literacy, and the list goes on.

I cannot support this bill. I am open to discussions about Senate reform. This is not the answer. It has not been brought in with consultation. It does not meet the needs of Canadians and I will not be supporting this bill.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday, right off the top, I am not very happy to speak in a debate about Motion No. 3, which would send a message to the Senate about its work on Bill C-2. I would rather have spoken about a bill that the government had introduced to increase its assistance to the manufacturing and forestry industries. If they had done that, we could have been dealing with problems that are much more urgent for our fellow citizens than Senate reform.

In any case, though, this reform does not pass muster in our view. As I said yesterday in the debate on Motion No. 3, we think the Senate is a political institution that is not only undemocratic but in the modern era has lost its very reason for being. It is simply a vestige of colonial times and the British monarchy. For these fundamental reasons we will oppose referring it to committee before second reading.

I think we would have opposed it even after second reading because we are opposed to the very principle underlying this bill. Its purpose is to reform an institution that, in our view, is no longer relevant if it ever was. There is no point trying to amend a bill in some way when it is so unacceptable in content and form and when no amendments could possibly make it acceptable. We will therefore vote against referring this bill to committee.

We disagree with the very principle of this bill because it is obvious in our view—and Canadian and Quebec history make it crystal clear—that Canada’s institutions cannot be reformed. By trying to reform the Senate through bills rather than a constitutional amendment, the Prime Minister is confirming something that was already evident to many people in Quebec. For Quebec sovereignists, of course, it is impossible in any case to make significant changes to the Canadian constitution, even more so when taking into account the national reality of Quebeckers.

It is also deeply shocking to see the Conservative government and the Prime Minister bring in bills with which not only the Bloc Québécois but also the National Assembly of Quebec have said they disagree. This is true of both Bill C-20 and Bill C-22, the latter dealing with a redistribution of seats in the House of Commons.

Each time, it is clear that behind these changes—I am not even talking about reforms, because I think the word “reform” has a positive connotation—there is never any will to take into consideration the existence of at least two nations within the current Canadian political space: the Quebec nation, which was recognized by this House, the Canadian nation, which we readily recognize, and, of course, the first nations and the Acadian nation.

I think this has been the problem since Canada was created, and is why Canada's political institutions cannot be reformed. I am obviously talking about the lack of will from the majority of this political space, meaning the Canadian nation, to recognize, and not just by a motion in this House, the existence of several nations within the Canadian political space.

I could talk about the history, but not this morning. At certain points in the history of Canada and Quebec, it would have been possible to mutually recognize two nations and to recognize the first nations and the Acadian nation, in order to build a political structure representative of this multinational space. Unfortunately, the past, and also more recent history—for example, the Charlottetown accord and the Meech Lake accord—has shown us that there was not a broad enough will, yet alone a majority, within the Canadian nation to change the political balance and reflect this reality.

Unfortunately, the current Parliament seems to be the perfect example of the crisis in the Canadian system. I am not talking about the Bloc Québécois, because we chose to represent the Quebec nation in the House of Commons. I am talking about the political parties that call themselves national, but should call themselves pan-Canadian, the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP.

Those parties all have essentially regional foundations: the Conservatives, more in the west; the Liberals, in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces; and the NDP, a bit everywhere. They are not yet sufficiently entrenched in a region of Canada to claim to be pan-Canadian parties. It is not their fault. Quite simply, no one has wanted to recognize this multinational dimension in the past.

The Quebec-Canada relations crisis is not a crisis for the people of Quebec. It is a crisis in the Canadian system, with ups and downs, since history is never linear. It is very clear that, as long as people fail to grasp this reality—and in the case of the Bloc and Quebec sovereignists, we will take this reality into account as soon as Quebec decides to become a sovereign country—we cannot resume discussions with our Canadian neighbours to reorganize an economic space, at least, and perhaps a political space between our two nations.

That being said, within the existing political space, considering the mindset of Canadians, it is obvious that Canadian institutions cannot be reformed. This situation will certainly not be corrected by trying to reform the Senate, especially since Bill C-20 is aimed primarily at marginalizing the Quebec nation more than anything else.

I was saying that we are against the bill because Canadian institutions cannot be reformed. Indeed, in our view, the very spirit of the bill is unacceptable. Nevertheless, there is also the fact that Parliament cannot reform the Senate unilaterally and without making constitutional amendments. As many constitutionalists have said, the National Assembly has confirmed, and Quebec's Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs, Mr. Pelletier, has said on many occasions, any attempts to change the composition or the method of appointing senators would require a constitutional negotiation. Obviously, for us as Quebeckers, and especially for sovereignists, a constitutional negotiation will not be held on the Senate question alone, since it is far from our primary concern. We often even forget that that institution exists.

It is therefore very clear to us that the bill as it now stands cannot be acceptable to Quebec or to anyone who wishes to abide by the Canadian constitution.

I often find it amusing—it should make me cry, but I tend to be an optimist—to say that the only people who try to ensure that we abide by the Constitution in this House are the Bloc Québécois. For example, when we talk about respecting the jurisdiction of the provinces or combating the federal spending power, we are unfortunately the only ones who stand up for what was set out in a document that may, in fact, be too old, because it does not reflect the present-day reality of the Canadian political space.

The fact remains, however, that as long as the Constitution has not been amended and as long as we are within the Canadian political space, Quebec, Quebeckers and the Bloc Québécois will stand up for the idea that there can be no amendments relating to the specific method by which senators are appointed without constitutional negotiations. Once again, on the question of constitutional negotiations, when that door—some would say that Pandora's box—is opened again, very clearly there will be other matters to be brought in besides mere questions about the Senate.

There is a fourth point that I think it is important to make. Even if it is reformed, the Senate is a useless institution, as I said earlier. It is a legacy of the monarchy, a legacy of British colonialism; it is the fear that the founders of the Canadian political space had of seeing a sovereign people make decisions through elections and elected representatives.

So they appointed these wise and elite people, who are often conservative. I am not speaking here to Conservatives as such. We are talking about elites who often wanted to oppose the desire for social and economic progress felt by a majority of the population. That is true for Quebec and it is also true for Canada.

I will conclude on that point because I have been told that my speaking time will soon be up. The bill itself is full of problems, even though it might have been thought to have some value.

Under Bill C-20, given that indirect election of senators is not going to make the Senate democratic, we are creating senators whom it will be virtually impossible to unseat. This is a non-binding consultation and it is full of holes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I gave the minister a few lob ball questions, which I thought he would hit out of the park, but he could only get to two of them and he answered those poorly.

I want to speak today about Bill C-20, about the Senate in general, and what this bill in particular seeks to do. It seeks to establish a national process for consulting Canadians on their preferences for Senate appointments.

The bill will see voters choose their preferred Senate candidates to represent their provinces or territories. As such, it seeks to fulfill a Conservative campaign promise to reform Canada's Senate and move toward an elected Upper Chamber.

I am very confused as to whether the Conservative government is putting forward bills toward Senate reform or Senate abolition. When you hear members of the government speak privately, and I have heard the catcalls across the way that in fact there is quite a bit of foment in the Conservative caucus and in the government in fact for abolition.

I think that is a position that can be held. I think that if the Conservative government is really wanting to abolish the Senate totally, then it should probably say so. Maybe there is a bit of a disconnect now.

Finally, the Conservatives are in government and this party over there has a disconnect between the frontbenchers and the middle and backbenchers. It seems to me that maybe the frontbenchers are not listening to the backbenchers and the middle benchers, people who have been around the block a long time, people who have been advocating for the abolition of the Senate.

I think that is the real debate we are having here, and it seems from the tenor of the remarks by the hon. minister who just spoke here and outside of this House, and by the bills that are being presented, that in fact what the government wishes to do is to abolish the Senate. If that is the debate we are having, why do the Conservatives not just bring forward a bill for the abolition of the Senate, and we can have that debate.

Well, there is a reason. There is division over there on that question. It seems that the Conservative government as elected, and that is the frontbench mucky-mucks, has made promises that it is for Senate reform. Senate reform includes consulting the provinces and looking toward an elected body representing Canada's regions fairly, but also entwining it with issues of representation by population.

Now if the Conservatives truly meant to do that, they would have gone to their first ministers across this country and at least had a conference. We have to ask ourselves, what is the government afraid of?

How bad can it be to have a real meeting with the provincial and territorial leaders, something more than just a main course of bison and a dessert of crème brûlée in a two-hour meeting where they are rushed out to the airport before any real discussion takes place, as we saw from the last conference?

What would be so wrong with sitting down with the territorial and provincial leaders and saying, “This is what we want to do. What do you think?” Then at least we would have on the record, through a conference, certainly not unanimity and certainly not agreement in total, at least a discussion of where the government should go, where the obstacles are, and where the opposition lies.

What we have instead is a patchwork. We have bills rushed through in three days, affecting the future of the Senate. We have television commentary, variously, in Ottawa representing the government's position but also in provincial capitals representing various provincial representations.

With all due respect to the media, they do not play every word that is said. We cannot be sure that what the government mouths, through its spokespersons at night on television, is exactly its position. We cannot be sure that provincial and territorial leaders are being quoted accurately. But it would seem that there is no consensus on this bill and the other Senate reform bills.

A little bit about this bill. It calls for significant Senate reform, this and a companion bill with respect to tenure. Now as my hon. member colleague mentioned, there have been calls for Senate reform since the mid-1970s, when Canada was undergoing major demographic shifts. We had shifts.

I come from Atlantic Canada. There has been a diminution in the population of Atlantic Canada for a generation now, and there has been growth in western Canada for over a generation now, perhaps two generations. With that, the population and the economic clout of Alberta and British Columbia were very evident.

They were growing much faster, for instance, than Quebec. Quebec still had and still does have 24 Senate seats, while Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. held a combined total of 24 seats. We mean no disrespect to the important primordial position of Quebec within this Confederation, but we must recognize that these regions of Canada require a revisitation of the number of seats in the Senate that they require.

In 1989, as members all know, a Senate seat became vacant in Alberta. The provincial government held an election and Mr. Waters was elected to the Senate, appointed by former Prime Minister Mulroney.

On April 18, 2007, the Prime Minister of this country appointed current senator-in-waiting Bert Brown to fill the Alberta Senate vacancy created by the retirement of a senator there, so there has been some movement with respect to the appointment of selected senators. Bill C-20 attempts to codify the past practice with respect to these two selections.

The process allowing elections or consultations to be conducted to elect senators-in-waiting, however, has four distinct flaws.

First, it was introduced, as I mentioned, without consultations with provincial governments. Again, the Canadian public must understand that provincial governments have a stake in what the Senate is. They should either be for its abolition because it no longer represents provincial interests, which is one position, or they should be for reform as it relates to their own representation within the Senate or the efficacy of the Senate, or they should be for the status quo or some version of modified reform.

We have no record of what the provinces and territories feel about Senate reform and what their position on Senate reform is. Yes, from time to time we will have an interview. Yes, from time to time we will have a letter from a premier or a minister respecting intergovernmental affairs from a province supporting a particular position, but what is the overall position on Senate reform from the provinces and territories?

It is unbelievable that almost one year after its introduction, the Prime Minister has still not engaged his provincial counterparts in meaningful discussions on this legislation.

The second flaw is that it tries to skirt around the Constitution, and haphazardly electing senators in this way will still do nothing to improve the representation of British Columbia and Alberta in Canada's Senate.

Both provinces are, as I mentioned, currently underrepresented in the Senate in comparison to provinces that have not had similar population growth. I do not know if the people of Canada know, or if the ministers in provincial governments know, that there are 14 vacancies in the Senate.

If the Senate is supposed to work to protect provincial, regional and other interests that are not represented by population in the House of Commons, then whether we are going to change the Senate, whether we are going to abolish the Senate, should we not have the Senate as it is working the way it is designed to work?

Many will argue it is not working. I presume that is why the minister has made such bombastic comments and the government has made the drastic step of saying that the Senate, over in the other place, shall do something by a certain date. I am not going to get into the debate on tackling violent crime. We had that yesterday, but just think of that. The minister and the government know, or should know, that this House cannot legally bind the other place, so it is mere puffery.

Think of the situation should this bill pass and in a generation or two be in effect. It would mean that every province would have a form of an election. Every senator would be duly elected directly by the people and we would have a body that would claim, as much as this place, to be the democratically elected representative of the country.

Would that motion, which the government is attempting to pass telling the Senate what to do, be received in the same light? Would it be offered by the government, had it an elected Senate of its own type? Or is this just pure politics? Would we be addressing these bills if there was a Conservative majority in the Senate?

Third, the process to elect senators in large provinces will unfairly benefit urban areas.

Finally, the bill would allow Senate nominees to be elected, but does not make those elections binding.

In this environment, when we have non-political appointees fired, if we were to have a political appointee elected by a province in a non-binding election who is not the flavour du jour of the prime minister, can anyone imagine the prime minister actually selecting that person?

The bill is ripe with flaws. It does not reflect the good spirit of our Constitution and the good flow of provincial negotiations that had to have taken place before the bill was posited.

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

Mr. Speaker, if I were to answer all of those questions, I believe I would be well through the next speaker's time. However, I will try to address the first two.

The first was a question regarding the consultation with stakeholders. It was whether we have consulted the stakeholders. I obviously have a very different view of how democracy works than my hon. friend on the other side.

I happen to think that the most important stakeholders in Parliament and in democracy are the people of Canada. Those are the true stakeholders, not elected officials, not bureaucrats, and not people who happen to be holding seats in the Senate or even those in the House of Commons. It is the people of those provinces.

The very essence of the bill is to go to the people of those provinces and consult them every time there is a decision made on who should be appointed to the Senate, so that they get to choose who represents them, not some of the other stakeholders, not a prime minister, not a cabinet, not a provincial premier but the people of that province. That is what we consider to be consultation, the most genuine consultation. That is the essence and purpose of this bill.

I know there are those who wish to see the Senate remain unchanged. There are many members in the Liberal Party who want to see it remain unchanged because it has served them very well over the years as an institution dominated by appointed Liberals. However, we believe it should be an institution that serves and represents Canadians in the provinces and that is why our structure is that Canadians in each province would be consulted to select their representatives.

On the question of underrepresentation, he talked about the need to change the distribution of seats in the House of Commons so that the western provinces that are underrepresented could have better representation.

I take it from that point that my friend will be supporting our democratic representation by population bill, Bill C-22, which will be coming up for debate later in the week because that is the objective of that bill: to move toward representation by population, to give them their fair share, to give Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and underrepresented provinces, more seats than they are entitled to under the existing formula.

I know that because Liberals really do not want that to happen, they will talk about it, say they support it, and then vote against the principle and the bill or obstruct it because that is the way the Liberal Party always works.

It has built institutions that primarily serve the partisan interests of the Liberal Party and does not want to see those institutions change one bit. Liberal members will say one thing and do the other. It has been seen back to the time of Confederation. I do not expect it to change in this Parliament, though I will be delighted if they surprise me by supporting Bill C-20 and Bill C-22 to allow some kind of reform and change to actually happen.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of short questions for the minister.

He is right when he says that Senate reform has been a topic bandied about academically and politically for many years. That does not excuse the government from addressing the issue in the way it was intended to be addressed, and that is looking to the stakeholders with respect to the Senate. I am very glad that he refers to the Confederation debates. He will know that the Senate was intended to protect regional and primarily provincial interests.

Why is it, I ask, that the government has not consulted with the province? Can the minister inform us that as a result of consultations with each minister of intergovernmental affairs or premier he can report to the House their position on this bill? We have read accounts about provincial positions on this bill.

Why is the minister and the government fomenting western alienation by not dealing with the number of seats that each province has at a constitutional conference? Alberta and British Columbia are underrepresented. They even have vacancies that have not been filled by the government. There are 14 vacancies in the Senate. If the government wants to abolish the Senate, as many colleagues he sits with do, then should it not be truthful with the Canadian public and say, “We want to abolish the Senate?”

I have two final, very short questions. Are the elections envisioned in Bill C-20, it is very unclear and I ask for a genuine answer, or the selections, so to speak, binding on the Prime Minister? If the Prime Minister does not like the election selection, can he legislatively, constitutionally and legally refuse to appoint that nominee?

Finally, what does one do in a case of a deadlock between the two Houses with two fully elected bodies? What would the government do?

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

moved:

That Bill C-20, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, be referred forthwith to a legislative committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to open debate on Bill C-20, the Senate Appointment Consultations Act, which the government is reintroducing from the first session of this Parliament. This bill marks an important step in improving Canada's democratic institutions and is one of two bills advancing the government's efforts at meaningful Senate reform.

Our commitment to provide Canadians with a Senate that is relevant for the 21st century was clearly laid out in the Speech from the Throne and approved by the House:

--our Government will continue its agenda of democratic reform by reintroducing important pieces of legislation from the last session, including direct consultations with voters on the selection of Senators and limitations on their tenure.

Ordinary Canadians agree that the Senate cannot play its role with any credibility when its members can remain there until they are 75 and they are not accountable to the public.

That is why they are so supportive of measures to allow them to vote in a national consultation process for Senate appointments. Canadians were encouraged when they saw Bert Brown take a seat in the other place. He, of course, had been elected popularly by the voters. They were heartened to see the Prime Minister take account of the democratically expressed will of the people.

Reflecting the will of the people as the norm rather than the exception would enhance the Senate's legitimacy and relevance as a modern, vibrant legislative chamber while respecting its important and historic roles of providing sober second thought, which Sir John A. Macdonald indicated as a priority, and a voice for Canada's regions and minorities.

Senate reform has drawn a lot of attention since the 19th century but, unfortunately, the upper chamber is still stuck in that era.

We must repair what we can right now if we want to prevent the Senate from continuing its free-fall into what the Prime Minister has described as insignificance and oblivion.

Canadians expect more of their institutions, and the government will not shrug its shoulders while we wait for the ever elusive national consensus on fundamental reform. Those who insist that we wait for one are really looking for an excuse to leave the Senate just the way it is, although hardly any Canadian will publicly declare that the Senate in its current form is appropriate for a modern democracy.

The desire by Canadians to reform the Senate and make it a democratic and accountable institution was reflected in the government's consultations on democratic reform, which were completed last year. A survey conducted as part of the consultations indicated that 79% of Canadians, that is, four out of five Canadians, supported Senate elections. As a result, the government must and will continue with reforms that fall within the legislative jurisdiction of Parliament.

We have also reintroduced legislation to limit the terms of senators to eight years, a separate legislative measure that can be judged on its own merits. This time, we have laid that bill before the elected chamber first after the other place missed the opportunity to be engaged in its own reform and obstructed our efforts there, delaying it, in effect, for well over a year.

Today, we have before us Bill C-20, which would give Canadians a say in who speaks for them in one of their representative institutions.

The Prime Minister has said that the Senate consultations bill raises complex issues. As with all our democratic reform legislation, we are seeking broad debate at committee about its merits and its details. In this case, we are seeking referral to committee before second reading to ensure the broadest discussion possible. It is important, however, that we be clear now on what the bill contains and, just as important, what it does not contain, especially given what some in the opposition have said about the bill.

Bill C-20 creates a mechanism with which the government could ask electors in the provinces to select the people they would like to represent them in the Senate before the Prime Minister makes his recommendations for appointments to the Governor General.

Like the federal Referendum Act, this bill creates a consultation mechanism that will not be legally binding for the government. The bill gives the government the necessary flexibility to decide whether to use the mechanism, where and when to use it, and in how many places the consultations should be held.

The purpose of the mechanism is not to manipulate the Senate for partisan purposes, but to ensure that the systematic vacancies in the Senate when senators retire could be taken into consideration in the system.

It is essential for the government to have this manoeuvrability because the consultations will be held during federal or provincial elections.

If the consultations are held only on the seats that are currently vacant, then the seats that become vacant shortly after an election could remain so until the next election.

The bill will help ensure that candidates are available to fill seats as they become vacant.

The bill would create a mechanism for people to register as nominees, raise money and campaign, and proposes rigorous accountability for nominees.

It respects what is supposed to be the less partisan nature of the Senate by providing a limited role for parties, both in campaign financing and in not giving parties control over how candidates are listed on the ballot.

It provides for reasonable limits on third-party spending so that organizations cannot exert undue influence on Senate campaigns, while respecting the right to be heard in the political sphere.

It avoids upsetting the carefully balanced campaign financing regime in place for the Commons.

Taken collectively, these are reasonable measures to ensure that Senate consultations are fair, that they invite public confidence, that they respect the less partisan nature of the Senate as an institution, and that the integrity of the Commons campaign financing rules remains intact.

Let me be very clear about what this bill will not do.

It will not make any changes that require resort to formal constitutional amending processes. The bill is not a constitutional amendment. The government's position, supported by eminent constitutional scholars, is that these proposals do not require an amendment and are within the ordinary legislative authority of Parliament to act on its own.

The method of selection remains unchanged. The bill does not detract in any way from the constitutional powers of the Governor General to summon Canadians to the Senate.

It does not change the conventional prerogative of the Prime Minister to recommend appointments identified through this process or any other.

It does not change the qualifications of senators and it does not affect their terms or create vacancies.

It does not change the constitutional role of the Senate itself as the arbiter of questions respecting the qualifications of senators.

The process can take account of whatever length of term Parliament in its wisdom ultimately decides to establish for senators.

I hope that the opposition members will engage constructively in this debate and examine the bill on its considerable merits rather than spend their time on distractions and unrelated matters as they did in the previous debate on the identical bill in the last session.

I am pleased that we have this chance to resume our examination of a bill to give Canadians a say in who represents them in the Senate.

This bill is an important step in the government's unflagging efforts to modernize our democratic institutions and it is a priority for the government.

The bill advances the principle that Canadians should have a say in who speaks for them in the Senate and does do so in a way that is respectful of the Senate itself, respects the primacy of the democratic mandate of the House of Commons, and conforms to the constitutional realities of Canada.

The Senate appointments consultation act will build momentum for further reforms. Meanwhile, it stands on its own as a useful step, indeed an essential one, in furthering the goal of a Senate worthy of the 21st century.

Senate reform is perhaps the most studied and most talked about subject among Canadian political science academics. The talk of reforming the Senate goes back almost to its beginnings. When the fathers of Confederation met, more time was spent on constructing the Senate than on any other subject.

I will go back to an observation made by John Diefenbaker, when he said the following to the notion that Senate reform was always talked about:

I recall very well the election of 1925 when the then Prime Minister, Right Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King, stated that reform of the Senate was a first and foremost course of action needed to assure democracy in this country. He said the same thing in 1926. I recall so well the promises of that day.

But to that Liberal prime minister, Senate reform was not the kind of democratic reform we are talking about. I will go on to quote Diefenbaker, who said about Mackenzie King:

He said he was going to substitute live Grits for dead Tories in the Senate. Some of those appointed were only half qualified....

The fact that this joke rings true today tells us why it is that we need to have this kind of Senate reform. I urge this House to seriously consider Bill C-20 and send it to committee so that a broad study can occur.