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.

[John Whyte]

This is fairly technical.

I think that this present bill creates a selection process for senators that when implemented will not be able to sustain the constitutional commitment in section 22 of the 1867 act that the senators either hold property or reside in the appropriate one of the 24 electoral regions of Quebec. If it cannot sustain that provision, then Bill C-20 is effecting an amendment of a term of a Constitution that applies to one or more provinces but not all provinces and therefore triggers the requirement of bilateral consent. It seems to me highly arguable that Bill C-20 is not valid unless the Province of Quebec consents.

Now, it could be argued that the exercise of appointing senators under Bill C-20 in the case of Quebec will be constrained less by the election and more by the section 22 requirement that the senator hold property or reside in the appropriate district. But as I said in my initial submission, that's going to be a fairly unattractive position for Canada to be in: where elections determine who is a senator for most provinces except Quebec, where the elections count for little.

I think that Quebec in this particular amendment is in a very strong legal position if it wishes to. It may not. In a more general Senate reform process, almost any reform we can think of will abandon that really obsolete provision relating to the 24 electoral divisions and again would trigger section 43 giving requirement to a Quebec veto independent of the seven-and fifty formula.

I think that if we're going to deal with the Senate, we're going to deal with Quebec. And if we're going to deal with Quebec, we're going to deal with 1982. That challenge is what the country is facing.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

I have a question.

We are considering Bill C-20 and we also have term limits in Bill C-19. Can we consider these bills separate unto themselves, or do we have to consider them in light of each other?

[John Whyte]

We absolutely could if we sat down and asked what we want our upper house to do. When you have bicameral legislatures, the first reason is to get a second thought. Sometimes it is structured so that you get a second sober thought, a less partisan thought. Finally, it normally has different representational goals from those of straight representation by population, including the representation of the vulnerable or minorities. Of course, all that could be structured.

By the way, the single transferable vote mechanism in Bill C-20 also could have some beneficial effects on diverse representation. It's hard to see exactly how, but it could. Proportional representation is generally thought to have some kind of beneficial effect on broader representation. That part of Bill C-20 could be a plus.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Bill C-20 today has come under significant criticism. Is there any way that you feel this bill could be massaged to make it constitutional and credible, or are we just stuck with the suggestion that the bill should be scrapped?

[John Whyte, Professor of Law, College of Law, Law Foundation of Saskatchwan, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to begin by saying that it is a great privilege to be invited to participate in the deliberations of a national government, and I thank you for this invitation.

There is no doubt that the composition of the Parliament of Canada is anomalous. It is unsuited to prevailing principles of political legitimacy. This unsuitability arises from the appointment, not the election, of members of one of the two legislative chambers in a bicameral legislative arrangement; that is, a legislative arrangement whereby each house has the right to veto legislation.

It might be a mistake, however, to see this situation as an acute derogation from the democratic principle as it is typically worked out in complex rule-of-law states. There are always competing statecraft considerations, some that make the appointment of senators tolerable in a democratic state.

First, senators are appointed by the government, and therefore appointments reflect majoritarian preferences. They hold office for life, so the Senate provides a forum less dominated by intense political rivalry that arises from imminent elections. In recognition of the higher democratic legitimacy of the Commons, the Senate is generally careful and restrained in its exercise of veto.

The purpose of the appointed Senate is to represent divisions, regional and provincial, that are less well reflected when there are closer party ties.

The function of the appointed chamber is to consider legislation on bases less partisan than those in the Commons, in which the defeat of a measure can trigger an election.

As Bill C-20 says, it is “a chamber of independent, sober second thought” and there is a good reason for it. Indeed, the composition of the Senate is anomalous, but it is not statecraft without good purposes. It is not something that a democracy like Canada cannot tolerate.

Nevertheless, the case for changing it in order to establish ongoing democratic accountability for legislative actions is strong. A democratic state is one in which popular approval of lawmakers is the norm.

But the changing of the Senate needs to be carefully considered. My friend Professor Mendes has already told you what he thinks are the possible downstream imperfections that are likely to be produced by this change and other changes.

Here are some sensible questions. If elections are not for a term, but until age 75, in what way is ongoing democratic accountability actually enhanced? If term appointments are for 15 years non-renewable, again how is accountability enhanced? Is not the basis on which senators are currently appointed their support by a political party? And is that not the same basis upon which we put people on a ballot for election? And is not the appointer of the senators the party that generates the most votes? And are those not exactly likely to be the senators who win in the consultation process? Are we actually changing anything?

If the Senate is designed to reduce partisanship in the consideration of legislative proposals, will the proposed electoral process undercut that aim? If the Senate is meant to reflect regional interests, will the force of party discipline and loyalty that is generated through elections diminish that purpose? If the fact of appointment of senators creates a restraint on the Senate to not normally frustrate the Commons, will this restraint disappear with electoral choice? Will the rules of responsible government collapse? Will the underlying requirement that a government must be able to achieve its legislative agenda disappear?

But as sensible as these concerns are, as appropriate as it is to worry about what we might be doing with Bill C-20, the bigger question is actually about process. In the past 22 months the nation has been faced with three government initiatives of major constitutional significance with respect to the basic structure of our national Parliament: the idea of term limits on Senate appointments; the refusal, except in one case since the formation of the current government, to fill Senate vacancies; and finally, the establishment of electoral consultations for the appointment of senators. Each of these initiatives presents serious questions concerning constitutionality.

I believe the first violates section 38 of the Constitution Act, 1982. The second clearly continues to violate by the day section 32 of the 1867 Constitution, where there is a mandatory requirement to appoint senators on vacancy. And the last, the one we're considering today, violates sections 42 and 38 of the 1982 Constitution.

Moreover, each alters or will alter the way Parliament works, the way the branches and agencies of the national government represent and reflect interests, the way that interests will be accommodated, and the way political relationships operate. All of these changes in the structure of government are occurring without analysis, debate, or choice among alternatives. We are experiencing an attempt to reconstitute the national Parliament in the absence of constitutional discourse. This makes sense, of course, if the government wishes to precipitate change, any change, but is indifferent to the effects of that change, notwithstanding the permanence of the changes that are being made.

One of the reasons we have a Constitution and a constitutional amending process is to force governments that simply wish things were otherwise not to unilaterally make changes without reasoned debate and the careful building of consent that is meant to be part and parcel of constitutional politics.

It may be that it is cumbersome or inconvenient to amend the Constitution to provide for an elected senate, but making it cumbersome and inconvenient to change a law or process is of course the purpose of putting that law or process into the Constitution in the first place. The inconvenience of changing the law is designed precisely to force us to have those inconvenient conversations that we might not otherwise have, except for the fact that for one reason or another our predecessors judged it was important that we do so.

In this case, we know the reason of our predecessors. It was part of the Confederation bargain with the existing political communities of Canada—an agreement, by the way, whose force and moral meaning in our nation is not spent. Our fidelity to the constitutional text and process dictates that we live with the determinations made by our predecessors. If we want to change Canada’s Parliament, we must engage in the constitutional processes set out in part V of the Constitution Act, 1982.

I don't want to be naive about this. Intergovernmental constitutional reform of the sort required by sections 38, 41, and 42 is likely to be held up by traditional demands: from Quebec, amendments that could produce Quebec’s consent to the 1982 Constitution; and possibly, through convention, from national aboriginal organizations demanding participation and inclusion in the reforms.

Of course, it might be even more difficult than we imagined. Any change to the Senate may well affect the provisions relating to Quebec alone, the ones relating to regional representation from within the province, and might not be satisfied merely by consent of a seven-and-fifty formula but would require Quebec's actual consent. I don't mean to minimize the difficulty.

This difficulty gives rise to the belief that there must be some route for legislated Senate reform. But there isn’t. We need to be nation enough to conduct these inconvenient discussions. We might benefit from them.

When I spoke to the Senate a year or so ago on Bill S-4, I said that the situation of general discomfort with the current Senate, the apparent small space available for unilateral constitutional amendment, the simple appeal to democratic values, and the mistaken popular sense that the Senate is not terribly significant in national governance have all worked to license constitutional reform that may be initially appealing but is being pursued, I think, irresponsibly.

Turning specifically to Bill C-20, the plan to seek electoral advice on whom to appoint to the Senate is quite simply a change in the method of appointing senators: the precise language of paragraph 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982, the precise matter that is precluded from unilateral federal change.

There are four reasons legislative reform through Bill C-20 is constitutionally difficult.

First, paragraph 42(1)(b) talks of the ”selecting” of persons for appointment, not the means of appointment. The method of selection will now be that government will consider—and under the normal imperatives of electoral politics—only those who win elections to determine who should be selected for Senate appointment.

Is it not ironic that in seeking to justify this initiative to democratize the Senate, the reformers assert, and must assert, that they do not at all consider themselves to be bound by the democratic process they now so badly want?

Second, by section 32 of the Constitution Act, the discretion to determine who is fit and qualified to be appointed to the Senate is assigned to the federal cabinet--it says the Governor General, meaning the cabinet. Bill C-20 has constructed an electoral mechanism to advise the Senate as to who should be appointed.

A clear constitutional responsibility specifically assigned to a particular agency of government is to be eroded or constrained by another element of public government--the electors. In administrative law we say that the statutory decision-maker has declined its jurisdiction, or it has submitted to dictation from an external source, or it has fettered its discretion. These actions are all ultra vires.

Of course, it will be argued that the consultation process and its results will not curtail cabinet discretion, and that consultation is not designed to limit the list of those considered for appointment, but to add names to that list--one that also contains names not resulting from election.

If one reads Bill C-20 one will see it is not believable that consultation will not determine for the cabinet who is to be selected. The size of the process; the visibility of the process; the context of a federal general election and its heightened political engagement, in most cases; the political energy and the higher public attention paid to province-wide votes--bigger votes than any member would ever experience--all preclude the possibility of cabinets disregarding these electoral results.

The saving clause of Bill C-20, that this process is to ascertain the preferences of electors on appointments to the Senate “within the existing process of summoning senators”, does not save the bill’s constitutionality. Indeed, the precise process of summoning--orders in council--is not altered. It is the method of selecting senators for summoning that the government seeks to alter, and that is exactly what paragraph 42(1)(b) states must be accomplished by formal constitutional amendment.

Third, the electoral process in the bill does not satisfy the specific requirements relating to appointing senators from Quebec. Arguably, the cabinet could overlay the electoral process in the new act with the constitutional constraint that all Quebec appointments will match the electoral districts to be represented, but in province-wide elections this is not likely to be possible, barring, of course, the decision to simply ignore subsection 23(6) of the Constitution Act of 1867. In fact, that would have to happen, since Quebec would not tolerate a voting system that was not followed in Quebec alone.

There are other differences between Bill C-20 and the Constitution. There are differences relating to qualifications, citizenship, and age. There's the difference between section 32, which makes appointments mandatory, and Bill C-9, where it makes the convening of a consultation process discretionary. There are significant differences between the constitutional requirements and the process established by Bill C-20. This is not necessarily unconstitutional. In operation, the chances of its being unconstitutional are almost absolute, but it is not necessarily unconstitutional because it's possible that the administrators of Bill C-20 will ignore, in order to comply with the Constitution, all its provisions. This seems unlikely.

Finally, the Constitution is not a tax code. It requires fidelity to its structures, its relationships, its designs, and its principles. The proponents of the amendment have admitted that they are unable to institute an election process since they have taken what is obviously an election process, kept all its attributes, and then changed it to a “consultation”. Then, in the “whereas” clauses, they seek to deny both the purpose and the effect of the legislation. The process they call consultation is in fact an election in everything but name.

It would bring Parliament into disrepute, and it would do grave damage to the Constitution, to our constitutional commitments, and to the rule of law, if Parliament attempts an obvious and self-confessed sleight of hand to amend the Constitution in contravention of amending provisions.

[Prof. Errol Mendes, Professor, Constitutional and International Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am going to present my ideas in English, however I would be glad to entertain your comments and respond to your questions in French. Thank you.

I suggest that Bill C-20, entitled the Senate Appointment Consultations Act, is giving a false impression to the regions of Canada, especially western Canada, that substantial democratic reforms are being attempted by the present government to do indirectly what cannot constitutionally be done directly under our Constitution. As many experts have pointed out, this act will entrench, enlarge, and enliven not the triple-E Senate that Bert Brown talks about, but the gross inequality of western Canada, the provinces, and indeed even Ontario in the Senate.

Let me explain further. The present distribution of seats in the Senate reflects the Canada of the 1860s. Due to the then population figures and the participation of the founding parts of Canada, the maritime provinces, Ontario, and Quebec each got 24 seats. Newfoundland, on joining Canada, got six seats. British Columbia, with a population now of four million, and rapidly growing, has six seats, while Nova Scotia, with a population of less than one million, has ten seats. Prince Edward Island, with four seats, has 21 times more power in the Senate than British Columbia, taking into account population. Alberta's growing population is also under-represented. Even Ontario may rightly feel unequal, as it has only 22% of the seats, but 40% of the population. However, this is expected of a federal government that attempts to deny Ontario's significant number of House of Commons seats under Bill C-22, which I have a lot to say about, given the opportunity and time.

So if the Prime Minister goes ahead with this major betrayal of the spirit of the triple-E Senate, or anything that vaguely resembles it, it would add to the democratic legitimacy of the inequality of western Canada. Indeed, any further attempts at constitutional change to redress the inequality could be blocked by the elected senators of the smaller provinces, in perpetuity.

In addition, the elected senators will rightly feel they have as much legitimacy as the elected members of the House of Commons to veto legislation, which again would put western Canada and Ontario at a disadvantage, not to mention the possibility of a gridlock. Bill C-20 has no provision on how to resolve an impasse between the two Houses. It is indeed astonishing that this could have been overlooked.

A disguised election for the Senate would be, in my view, an unconstitutional attempt to circumvent the express wording of section 42 of the Constitution Act, which clearly states that the general amending formula in subsection 38.(1)--namely the Parliament of Canada, plus two-thirds of the provinces, representing 50% of the population--applies to the powers of the Senate and the method of electing senators. In my view, Bill C-20 is an attempt to do indirectly what cannot be done directly without the clear instructions of section 42. It is patently unconstitutional.

I am aware that the Government of Quebec and indeed other provinces agree with this legal opinion, and that alone should give pause to the federal government, which has so enthusiastically passed the motion recognizing the Québécois as a nation. Surely that nation should be consulted and have a say over one of the Houses of Parliament that oversees legislation that could affect that nation.

It should also be noted that the House of Commons legislation gives a federal veto over constitutional amendments to Canada's regions, following the 1995 referendum in Quebec. Should not that veto power now extend to all the regions of Canada in an attempt to change the Constitution, whether directly, indirectly, or by stealth?

It should be kept in mind that the Supreme Court of Canada, in the famous patriation reference case, informed Prime Minister Trudeau that he would breach constitutional conventions if he did directly what he could do directly--namely, seeking the repatriation of the Constitution without the substantial consent of the provinces. In this case, we may have a more serious attempt to do indirectly what cannot be done directly under the constitutional conventions of this country and indeed under the Constitution Act of 1867.

There is even a question, in my view, as to whether the federal government has any jurisdiction under section 91 of the Constitution Act of 1867 to pass legislation that is intended to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. It is hardly a power under the peace, order, and good government provision to undermine the existing amending provisions of the Constitution.

Some justice department lawyers and other constitutional lawyers advising on this bill have argued that as long as the Prime Minister retains his discretion under the existing Constitution to recommend to the Governor General who shall be appointed to the Senate, an advisory federal election framework would be constitutional.

I would like to ask those experts, what would happen the very first time the Prime Minister refused to recommend an appointment of a duly elected person under the advisory election framework if all the others who had been so elected were appointed? What would the Supreme Court of Canada say about this refusal to appoint someone who has been elected? What if the court declared the whole process unconstitutional, so that those who were appointed were in limbo as to whether they could continue sitting? What would happen to the legislation that the Senate, which may have been partially elected, had passed? Would it be valid, or would it be null and void?

The enormity of these potential consequences requires, at a minimum, a broad consultation with all the partners in the Canadian federal state, and preferably a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the constitutionality of the entire framework, not only of this bill but the attempted Bill C-19, which deals with the eight-year limited term for senators, on which the Senate, in my view, rightly withheld judgment until the Supreme Court of Canada pronounced judgment.

The greatest of ironies lies in the professed reasons for introducing this bill. It refers to the need for Senate reform to reflect the democratic values of Canadians, one that equitably reflects Canada's regions, and to maintain the Senate as a chamber of independent, sober second thought. I suggest that if this bill passes, it will entrench regional inequality, create democratic gridlock, not enhance the democratic values, and even call into question the independence of the not really elected senators.

As has been pointed out by Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, there are problems even in the political financing aspects of this bill. While party-sponsored advertising is not permitted under this bill, there is a possibility of massive spending in the transfer of goods and services, which, again, could make them beholden to deep pockets for the elections.

In addition, the House leader, Peter Van Loan, in introducing the original version of this bill, argued that it was the accumulation of the historic struggle for the rights of women, minorities, and aboriginal peoples to vote. Will they be represented under this framework if it passes? Undermining the Constitution is hardly a democratic value of Canadians. And the bill also, as I've mentioned, entrenches the inequity of Canada's regions.

Perhaps most ironically, the principle behind the consultative election for the Senate is that it reserves the right of the Prime Minister to ignore the results of the vote of all Canadians. That is hardly democratic. This may lead many, especially those in western Canada, and perhaps even in the rest of Canada, to the conclusion that the real reason for this attempt at an indirect and, in my view, unconstitutional amendment is to create an illusory perception of actually doing something on Senate reform for election purposes.

In my view, it is very dangerous to play politics with the most fundamental documents and institutions of this country.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Prof. Peter Hogg]

I didn't have a good sense, in reading Bill C-20, of exactly how it was all going to work. I notice that the nomination process is not restricted to the parties, so there will obviously be nominees who don't come from parties. The question is, can they get elected if they're not supported by a party? It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out and whether you really need the support of a party to get to the top of that preferential list. If you don't, then we will have a body of independents who ameliorate, to some extent, the partisanship of party political institutions.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Through you, Chair, thank you to our guests for coming. I've enjoyed the discussions we've had on this bill.

I have a comment and then a question.

I've had the opportunity to travel with the parliamentary Commonwealth group, which has given me a great opportunity to meet some of the smaller countries in the Commonwealth: Barbados, the Turks and Caicos, and so on. What I noticed there was that we have countries that are run, frankly, by small numbers of members of Parliament—15, and in some cases 8 or 11. As good a job as they do, it became clear to me that to have a second upper chamber, an area of second thought to go over some of the decisions made by the members, was probably a good idea. But when we have a Parliament as large as ours, with 308 members, with all the facilities offered to us—the researchers, the analysts, witnesses, the funds to bring in experts like you—I remain unconvinced that we need a Senate to continue.

As you had mentioned, institutions tend to change in time, and perhaps it's time. That's a decision we are wrestling with and will continue to wrestle with, but it's a point that I make.

The question I have here is that as I read through Bill C-20, I understand the issues with constitutionality, but I'm gathering from you, for the most part, that at the end of the day this is not in direct violation of the Constitution. Would you say that this is a significant move in democracy, in a democratic way, toward a Senate that reflects better the nation and the needs of the nation, the opinions of Canadians, and a move toward reforming the Senate in a democratic way that does not violate the Constitution? Would you agree with that statement?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. I apologize for having to step out for a bit, and I also apologize if my question covers some of the ground that you've already covered.

Mr. Hogg, I look at your conclusion in your brief that you submitted to the committee: that if the act were challenged in court on constitutional grounds, the challenge would be unsuccessful, and that the Parliament of Canada does indeed have the power to enact Bill C-20, and if it were enacted, it would be a valid act of Parliament. Obviously I agree with that.

I'm looking at the first page, your last paragraph, and you didn't go over that in your opening remarks. So I just wanted a bit of a review.

It says that the bill stops with the counting of votes and the report to the Prime Minister. It does not go on to declare that the successful nominees are elected; nor does it say that they will be appointed. The bill does not impose any duties of any kind on the Prime Minister or the Governor General. And it says that obviously the bill assumes that the Prime Minister would be under a political imperative to respect the outcomes of the consultation that he has ordered, but this is not a legal imperative.

Can you explain how you reached that conclusion, but also explain why that is important for the constitutional validity of the bill?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Your opinion is that Bill C-20 does not affect the provisions of the Constitution. But the government is presenting us with Bill C-20 as Senate reform.

Let me quote once more. It would be a slight exaggeration to say that it is from my favourite author, but it is from my favourite government House leader. He says this:

However, members of this committee should note that if change cannot happen through reform...then we believe that the Senate should be abolished.

If I understand you correctly, your are of the opinion that this is not about a change to or reform of the Senate constitutionally. In fact, you do not think that it is about Senate reform period. You feel that it is simply about a new form of consultation that the Prime Minister could use. Officially, I mean. Am I mistaken?

[Prof. Peter Hogg]

To start, it would be an improvement to Bill C-20 if the consultation were with members of the legislative assembly of the particular province. I suppose that could have been an alternative mechanism. But surely if that person believes that Senate appointments should be made in consultation with the National Assembly of Quebec, the consultation of the people of Quebec would at least be second best, if not first best. And since it doesn't make any changes in the representation that Quebec has in the Senate, which is very large compared with its proportion of the population, it seems to me that there isn't a strong federal-provincial issue here—at least that I can see.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My question concerns Bill C-20 in light of the upper house reference of 1980, and specifically some of the provincial concerns that have been raised here and previously about these pieces of legislation. I'd like both of you to respond to these concerns and give us your opinion on them.

The Province of Quebec has traditionally demanded that the National Assembly play a role in the selection of senators to the Senate of Canada, and has also raised issues about the constitutionality of Bill C-20 in the Senate committee hearing. At that committee hearing, Mr. Pelletier noted that in his view the federal bills on Senate reform represent not limited change but fundamental change to the nature of the Senate.

So in that context, and in the context of the upper house reference of 1980, which stated that the Government of Canada could not unilaterally alter or change the fundamental features, or central characteristics, of the Senate with respect to its regional representation and its other essential features, do you agree or disagree with Mr. Pelletier's view on this, or do you share some of his views and not others?

Maybe you could tell us what your views are of this.

[Prof. Fabien Gélinas]

There is a question of how risk-averse one is, and people have different temperaments. If it's really a question of how much you want to control the risks, outcomes are never 100% certain--never. It's really a question of degree we're looking at; at least, it seems so to me.

This is a point I had forgotten from your first question concerning the wisdom of going to the Supreme Court. My view is that Bill C-19 is more suspect than Bill C-20, which isn't suspect if taken on its own. Of course, if one goes to the Supreme Court, it would be more effective to send both at the same time to the Supreme Court, but again that is a political decision.

[Prof. Peter Hogg]

I suppose that some alternative to Bill C-20, supposing there's a vacancy in Alberta, could give the Prime Minister the power to consult the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. I don't think that would be very different from what is now being proposed in Bill C-20, so I think it would probably be okay as well, if that were the route chosen.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I think all of us are finding this discussion today very interesting.

I'd like to ask Professor Gélinas, if Bill C-20 stated that the consultation process will be the manner in which senators are chosen, would that put us across the line?