Bill C-7 (Historical)

Senate Reform Act

An Act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits

Part 1 of this enactment establishes a framework for electing nominees for Senate appointments from the provinces and territories. The following principles apply to the selection process:
(a) the Prime Minister, in recommending Senate nominees to the Governor General for a province or territory, would be required to consider names from a list of nominees submitted by the provincial or territorial government; and
(b) the list of nominees would be determined by an election held in accordance with provincial or territorial laws enacted to implement the framework.
Part 2 alters the tenure of senators who are summoned after October 14, 2008.

Senate Reform Act

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good hypothetical question. I love hypothetical questions.

One of the problems is that when measures pass in the House of Commons, they go to the Senate. As we saw with the climate change bill that was twice adopted by the House of Commons through a democratic majority vote, it was sent to the Senate and was completely buried under whatever business was taking place, which was thoroughly undemocratic.

On the very important issue of asbestos, every medical authority internationally and certainly in Canada has pointed out the dangers of this carcinogen to our health and population. On that very important issue, if we had managed to pass the motion and it had gone to the Senate, we have a Senate that is now chockablock full with the most appointed senators we have ever seen by one Prime Minister under the Conservative government. It speaks to the inability of the Senate to act in a proper manner and comes back to the question of the need for real democratic reform.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will agree with the member's party that the Senate needs to be reformed. There is an argument being made that I made once before but I think is wrong, and that is making a comparison to the provincial legislatures which do not have upper houses. The difference is that provinces are much more homogeneous than Canada as a whole.

The Senate was created partially because there are very different geographic regions of Canada with different histories and requirements that need to be balanced. There are parts of the country which just do not have as many people as other parts of it. In order not to disadvantage those regions, the Senate was created.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether there is a real qualitative difference between Canada as a whole and the diversity across the country as compared to, say, a provincial legislature.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very thoughtful comment. The differences we face federally are much greater than provincially, but they still exist provincially. If we take any province, whether it is Quebec or my own province of British Columbia, we will see a wide variety and diversity of regions, interests and people.

We live in a vast country. Our provinces are enormous territories. The fact is that our legislatures have been able to operate very effectively, which is not to say that New Democrats agree with everything they do as there is obviously very vigorous political debate that takes place. But they have been able not only to survive but function properly without the necessity of a senate. The same argument is true here.

I would much prefer that we focus on things like proportional representation for the House of Commons as a true, meaningful, genuine process of democratic reform than mucking around with the Senate and coming up with some kind of strange hybrid, when in actual fact we should be asking the people of Canada if we need the Senate, in any event, and should it be abolished.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the bill entitled “An act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits”.

Although the bill may appear to address one of Canada's most egregious democratic deficits, I am afraid that the approach being taken leaves much to be desired.

Essentially, Bill C-7 restricts all senators appointed to the Senate after October 14, 2008, to a single nine-year term. Provinces and territories would then be given the opportunity to hold elections at their own expense to determine which names would be submitted to the Prime Minister for consideration, and only consideration.

While on the surface this approach might appear to bring heightened accountability to an unelected institution of the Crown, restricting Senate term limits while holding non-binding Senate elections fails to consider the most logical option for improving Canadian democracy, namely the abolishment of Canada's Senate.

I recall one of my constituents, Craig, telling me that he did not support a triple-E Senate. He supported a single-E Senate, and that single E stands for empty.

Before I get into why New Democrats believe that the Senate has outlived its raison d'être, I would like to highlight some specific criticisms of the bill as it currently has been presented to Parliament.

First, it appears that, as it is currently written, Bill C-7 contains a glaring loophole which would completely undermine the spirit of what the government is proposing. This is because the government is clearly attempting to pass legislation which should require a constitutional amendment and making unclear how much force the bill would actually carry.

For instance, by taking an approach which fails to crystallize the changes in Canada's Constitution, the Prime Minister would not be constitutionally required to appoint anyone elected by the provinces. Therefore, the bill does not actually change the way senators are currently appointed as the Prime Minister would still be free to appoint whomever he or she chooses.

We have seen previous examples of the Prime Minister acting in contravention of existing democratic reform legislation which has passed through the House. Specifically, I can point to the fixed election date legislation. Why then should Canadians trust that the government would actually abide by the legislation that we have in front of us today? Call me a pessimist, but this is certainly one concern that I have with Bill C-7.

Let me make this clear. We know how the House of Commons works, but we have no idea what would happen with an elected Senate. That brings me to another major concern arising from Bill C-7, which is the inevitable gridlock which would arise from having two separately duly elected Houses of Parliament.

Since the Senate would have virtually the same powers as the House under Bill C-7, an elected Senate would have greater legitimacy to introduce legislation or oppose bills sent to it from the House of Commons. On the surface this seems like a good idea. However, when we dig deeper into those proposals, it would illicit the real fear that we could end up with the kind of gridlock we see in the U.S., something which no Canadian wants to see our Parliament descend into.

This brings me to my final point that the best approach to take in order to reduce Canada's democratic deficit is the complete abolishment of the Senate. Personally, I am of the belief that when it comes to the Senate, Canadians do not need it. It is expensive. It has been packed with party insiders and we cannot trust what the leaders are going to do with the Senate.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly used the unaccountable and undemocratic Senate to kill legislation that had been passed in the House of Commons, twice killing Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act and, this spring, killing Bill C-393, a very important bill which would have facilitated the movement of generic antiviral drugs to Africa to help people living with HIV-AIDS.

These pieces of legislation, supported by wide swaths of the Canadian public, were killed by the Prime Minister's appointed senators in the Senate with no sober second thought. How can we have sober second thought when we have a bunch of Conservative Party organizers and fundraisers with obvious conflicts of interest? It makes a mockery of our democratic system.

As I noted earlier, even should the bill pass during the 41st Parliament, there is no guarantee that the government would actually abide by the rules it has put in place. Thus, we could end up with a patchwork Senate filled with a mix of elected and unelected senators.

I will put forward a hypothetical situation. What if the government refuses to appoint a senator who has been elected by residents of a province because it disagrees with the party banner under which that senator was elected? After all, the prime minister would not be constitutionally obliged to actually appoint them to the Senate. That is why I firmly believe the safest and most obviously beneficial approach to the Senate is to abolish it.

I will conclude my statement today by drawing attention to what the provinces, our partners in Confederation, have been saying about the Senate, both in terms of the status quo and the proposals in front of us. Both the Ontario premier, Dalton McGuinty, and the Nova Scotia premier, Darrel Dexter, have openly called for the abolition of the Senate. The B.C. premier, Christy Clark, has said that the Senate no longer plays a useful role in Confederation, while Manitoba maintains its position of eliminating the Senate. Even more worrisome is that Quebec has called this legislation unconstitutional and has said that it will launch a provincial court appeal if this bill proceeds without the consultation of the provinces.

Why, then, is the government moving ahead with a plan that is not supported by the federal government's partners in Confederation? It seems that without the full support of the provinces this proposal will merely be a paper tiger dressed up as a solution to bring Canada's democracy into the 21st century.

What happens if certain provinces refuse to participate in the system? Citizens of those provinces would certainly be shortchanged. Even more dire is the thought that this bill would lead to a constitutional crisis with multiple provinces taking action at the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of this legislation. Without proper provincial consultation, which I fear has not taken place, this is an inevitability and something that should be avoided at all costs.

Therefore, I ask that the government reconsider its position on the bill until such a time as the provinces are properly consulted and sign on to these proposals.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the presentation by the hon. member for Sudbury and I thought it was very thoughtful and insightful from his perspective. He talked about the potential for a constitutional amendment if there were to be changes to the Senate.

In the absence of the possibility of actually abolishing the Senate, would he not agree that having term limits for senators is something that Canadians would support?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will have much debate about that tomorrow night when we have a little hockey game with one another, all in good fun, of course.

The member raises a good point. Canadians do want to have a say on this. Canadians do want to express their opinions on what they feel about the Senate. I am encouraged to hear that because I would really like to see a referendum brought forward. We should put this to the Canadian people and let them have their say on what they would like to see their Senate represent.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the position of Manitoba. I am not too sure if any other province has done this, but Manitoba had an all party task force, with a majority of the members being New Democrats. I was actually a member of that task force. We canvassed the entire province of Manitoba, heard numerous presentations on the Senate and the overwhelming feeling was that there was value to having a Senate.

If we look at the public hearings that were conducted in Manitoba and, I suspect, if we were to canvas most Canadians and talk about having a valued Senate, we would find a majority of Canadians would support it because they see the potential value of it.

Having said that, if a majority of Canadians do support the Senate, would the member be prepared to come on side, recognize and support having a Senate in the future?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do think Manitoba did the right thing by consulting its constituents and having that conversation. It goes back to my last answer to my previous hon. colleague. If we can get this to the Canadian people and they dictate to us that they see the Senate as something valuable, whatever position that is, then, of course, we need to listen to what they are telling us.

However, until we have the opportunity to have a referendum, to hear what Canadians want, we are going on what we are seeing from the data that we are getting. More and more Canadians are saying that we should eliminate the Senate and go with what we have in the House of Commons.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Sudbury for his eloquent speech on the Senate. I really like his idea, or his constituent's idea, of a single E senate.

Aside from that, the Senate costs Canadians $90 million a year, each year.

The current Prime Minister and the previous Liberal prime minister appointed bagmen to collect money for their parties at taxpayers' cost. Taxpayers pay their salary, their expenses, their employees and their travel so they can go across the country from coast to coast to collect money for the Liberals and the Conservatives.

I would like to hear the thoughts of the member for Sudbury on that subject.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Where do I begin on that, Mr. Speaker? We have conversations in the House and we debate policy on many issues that affect all Canadians and costs that are associated with that. Some of the things we have been saying is that many of the decisions that are made in the House we need to flip on their heads.

If I could go to the one bill that was defeated in the Senate, which was Bill C-393, the cost associated with providing anti-viral drugs to children and adults in Africa suffering from HIV and AIDS would have been minimal and we could have eased the suffering of people. Instead, we are spending money on, as the hon. member said, travel and everything else.

The decisions that are being made in the Senate are affecting the decisions that we have made in this House. We make these decisions in the House based on what we think is in the best interests of Canadians.

We need to ensure those best interests continue to be brought forward and we need the Senate to actually support these bills until they are no longer around.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak for a few moments to the bill. I would like to be able to commend it as being an important piece of legislation that had been well thought out and something that was worthy of the attention of all members of the House but I am kind of flummoxed by the condition of this legislation. It does not make sense. It is ill-conceived. The ramifications of the bill, if it passes as presented, are quite extraordinary.

I know that the government is determined to get its way with most legislation that it brings before us in the chamber. It has invoked closure on eight bills, already seven in this session alone since the middle of September, which really boggles the mind of most democratic-minded Canadians.

This is legislation that proposes to make an extraordinary change to the parliamentary system that has been in place since the 1900s, that was originally based on the British parliamentary system, on the House of Lords, and yet it is striking in how badly written it is. I will talk for a few moments about some of my concerns.

I will deal with the role that the Senate plays in this Parliament. The current Prime Minister made reference in the past to how the Senate was a relic of the 19th century, that it was developed in another time under different circumstances. I do not disagree at all with that description. However, to then move in with a proposition to change it from the purpose and the terms on which it was established and suddenly say that we will make it elected is incredibly radical. I say radical from the comments that were made in the decision by the Supreme Court in 1980 where it said:

The substitution of a system of election for a system of appointment would involve a radical change in the nature of one of the component parts of Parliament.

We have heard members of the opposition say that our solution for dealing with the problems of the Senate is to abolish it. As the member who spoke previously said, one of his constituents recommended a single E Senate, that it be known as an empty Senate. Those sentiments are well-founded because we have seen a Senate, which was originally established to represent regional voices in our country in opposition to, or in juxtaposition to, or perhaps in concert with, the elected House of Commons. that has now become, frankly, a place where former partisans of either the Liberal or the Conservative Party are allowed to sit.

Some of them sit in an honourable fashion and they bring a lot of experience, knowledge and honour to what it is they do. They conduct themselves and their business in an honourable way that most Canadians would be proud of. Unfortunately, they have no basis on which they have reached that, other than the fact that they are partisans.

Now we see that some of those partisans travel this country from coast to coast to coast at the behest of the Prime Minister's Office, raising money, managing campaigns and knocking on doors for provincial parties that are affiliated with their party. Their time is basically spent on partisan purposes. Surely that is not serving anyone's interests other than the partisan interests of the Prime Minister or previous Liberal prime ministers.

I recognize that something needs to be done in order to deal with this situation, but the answer is not to come in with an ill-founded piece of legislation like that, which, as the Supreme Court said in 1980, would make for a radical change.

For the provinces, in order to effect the appropriate change in the balance between the two chambers, there would need to be a constitutional change. Constitutional changes need the input and consensus of a majority of the provinces. Here we have a piece of legislation that has not even been run by the provinces nor has it received any consensus whatsoever from the provinces. The bill proposes that the provinces would hold elections, but some of the provinces have said they would not participate. Some of them have said that if they participated, they would hold elections on this basis or that. The Province of Quebec has said that this is unconstitutional. The premier of my province of Nova Scotia, has said:

My position on the Senate in the past has been that I think the House of Commons is elected for the purpose of representing the people of the country. The upper house is not necessary.

The problem is that the government is trying to propose a change to the status of one of the houses of Parliament which would have quite an impact on the provinces and yet the provinces clearly are not on side. They have not been consulted. In one case there has been a clear commitment to take this matter before the Supreme Court.

Why are we dealing with this? If the government were serious about dealing with the role of the Senate, which I think is something that needs to be done, then I would suggest, as members on these benches have said, that we should take the matter to the people. Let us put a referendum together and ask the people of Canada what they want to do with the Senate. I have an inkling that they would say to get rid of it. I am not going to prejudge what the outcome of that would be, nor should the members opposite, but why do we not do that?

If the government is serious about this and if it has some respect for the chambers, instead of bringing in an ill-prepared, ill-conceived piece of legislation before this House, why does it not take the matter of a constitutional change to Parliament, of dealing with the Senate, to the people of this country in the form of a referendum?

It has been a pleasure to rise in this House, as it always is, although I wish it had been a better piece of legislation before us.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the discussion we are having in the House today, but I require greater clarity from the hon. member of the opposition. He was all over the map. It seems to me that he is challenging the human rights of the members of the Senate. It is not clear to me what the NDP's policy on Senate reform is. I would ask for that to be clarified by the member.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will not take personally the fact that the member said I was all over the map. Unfortunately, I was trying to follow the key points within this piece of legislation, and it takes us all over the map because it is an ill-conceived piece of legislation.

I was pretty clear on two points. One, my position is that the Senate should be abolished. Two, my position is and the position of the official opposition is that the matter should be put to the people of Canada in the form of a resolution. Let us do it now. Let us put the bill aside and deal with the issue once and for all.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the NDP's position is to eliminate the Senate, but let us set that aside for the moment.

The legislation would permit a prime minister to use his or her discretion in choosing as senators those people who were elected in a province. Frankly, that is a situation I cannot see arising if, in this case, NDP or Liberal senators were elected in a province. I cannot see thePrime Minister exercising that discretion. I wonder if the member sees this as one huge ruse by the Prime Minister to deflect the attention of Canadians away from the real issues that are facing Canadians today.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member has brought up an excellent point. The bill says to the provinces that individual provinces will have elections for senators, but that is not the end of the story. Then they have to come and kneel at the foot of the Prime Minister's Office. They have to come and kneel before the Prime Minister to get proper dispensation from him before the individuals can become senators.

If some of the things that come before this chamber were not so serious, it would be laughable.

I have to say that I agree to some extent with the member's premise that it is meant as a distraction, as something perhaps to say to the Conservative Party membership in a fundraising letter, “Look at what we're trying to do to get a fully elected Senate”. It is a ruse. It is ill-considered, and it is beneath the people of Canada.