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

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, they could have saved the paper and all those trees and simply closed the place. It would have been simple: one act, and one act alone, and then wish them a merry Christmas. On this side, I think we would probably sponsor the party. Being a Scotsman, I know we are seen as being tight, but I would probably put up a few bucks for a few of those bubbly pops if that would be the end of the Senate. We could proclaim that we had done something that Canadians wanted us to do since 60%-plus of Canadians are saying that it is time for the senators to go.

We should not be trying to play around with whether we should elect some. In fact, we would not elect them. If the provinces want to have an election, they can, but there is no guarantee that their selection will get appointed. What is the point? Why would we put someone through the tortures, which we all know well as elected officials, of trying to get elected, then get elected and find out that he or she cannot be a senator because the Prime Minister does not like him or her. It would still be an appointment process. It is still at the whim of the Prime Minister to send the person there. Of course, when people are sent there, they get stay until age 75. It is not a question of taking a senator out if he or she is not doing a good job. At the end of the day, a senator can stay until age 75.

In the spirit of Christmas, I forgive them for all the things they have done wrong, but now it is time for them to go.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I question the member when he says that over 60% of the people want to see the Canadian Senate abolished. I do not buy that. I understand that a majority of Canadians do see value in having a Senate. There is no doubt that many people would argue that there needs to be reform within the Senate but they see some value in it.

Many people who live in western Canada recognize that part of that value could be through a possible appointment in which individuals who bring forward certain regional interests would be appointed. Having a valued Senate could receive support.

If the majority of Canadians agreed with that, would the member then agree that the NDP are on the wrong side of the issue? If the majority of Canadians want to have a Senate, would the NDP still oppose it?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the only value the Senate has is for the Conservative Party and Liberal Party is as a place for their bag people to go and collect money for them. That is the value of the Senate, none other than that. The value of it is for those parties to put their own folks in the other chamber to phone and petition for money for the Liberal Party or Conservative Party.

There is no value in the Senate. My friend is wrong. He ought to look at the reports and read the polls. The majority of Canadians have said that it is time for the Senate to go.

What we say is, “Have a merry Christmas”, and then we will roll up the red carpet, send them on their way and watch them collect their pension. Unless, of course, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party would like to be generous and help the Canadian public pay the pensions that they gave the crew down at the far end. If they are willing to help the Canadian public to do that, then the Canadian public would probably appreciate it.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a tough act to follow, believe me.

I am pleased to rise here today to speak to An Act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits. I admit that the issue of the Senate is one that may seem straightforward at first, but it must nevertheless be carefully analyzed, because we are wading into constitutional waters, as some would say, and into muddy waters, as others would say.

I can think of one prime minister who talked about abolishing the Senate for quite some time and then started talking about an elected Senate. Once he came to power, he suddenly changed his tune and decided to do the same thing as the previous Liberal governments—he started giving Senate appointments to political friends, fundraisers, and as my hon. colleague from Welland so aptly put it, people who work behind the scenes, all paid for by taxpayers.

When I began my legal studies and was studying constitutional law, the issue of the Senate of Canada came up. I had the great pleasure of taking classes taught by none other than the great Senator Beaudoin himself—not necessarily great in height, but great in terms of eminence. He was not a Conservative senator when he was teaching my classes. He taught us about the Canadian parliamentary system.

I grew up thinking that the Senate was indeed what had always been called “a chamber of independent sober second thought”. That title always impressed me. The title is even longer in French: “lieu de la réflexion indépendante, sereine et attentive au sein de la démocratie parlementaire canadienne”. I was so naive that I believed that for a very long time. I thought we had a parliament made up of MPs elected by the public to debate the issues, represent their constituents and engage in dialogue, which might be vigorous but is always supposed to be respectful.

Since then, I have learned that Canadian democracy is not all that healthy. When we want to talk, we end up being silenced. There are time allocation motions. That is a new expression I have heard a lot in the House the past few months.

While I was learning about the wonderful Canadian system, I learned that the Senate was a place free from any influence, a body that would disregard partisan politics and work together to examine issues. I learned that the Senate conducted indepth studies of bills once they passed all the stages in the House and in committee.

I have met senators whom I admire a lot. They are strong people, people with whom you can have extremely interesting and deep conversations. Unfortunately, the very politicized and partisan side of the system seems to have drifted down the hall to that sacrosanct chamber, where we do not often have the right to enter, except on rare occasions, and even then, only in the hall. In any case, we do not go in very far.

As co-chair—with a colleague from the Senate—of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, I learned that no matter where it goes, the Senate always has priority over the House of Commons, the people's house.

Partisan appointments have always tainted the quality of the Senate. Once people were appointed, they were there until the age of 75. We saw Senate reports that were not necessarily partisan and that did not reflect the views of the party that had the majority in the Senate. It was not uncommon to see bills come back to the House of Commons with amendments because they had been carefully studied.

The problem with the current situation is that not only do we have an ultra-partisan House of Commons that hardly debates any more and is often democratic in name only, but we also have a Senate that is the same in nature. That is of great concern to me. In this context, when examining the issue of changing and improving the Senate, I take everything with a large grain of salt. I see nothing in any of the changes proposed by the government in Bill C-7 that will ensure that the Senate will serve as chamber of independent, sober second thought within Canada's parliamentary democracy.

There are even some aspects of the bill that are of great concern to me. On the one hand, we will end up with a sort of patchwork Senate, made up of senators who may be elected, who are not really elected, who are almost elected, who are not elected at all, and who are elected but not appointed, and this will really create a rather unusual situation. As for its fundamental role, we must be honest and members of the House of Commons have to take a good look and ask themselves what the purpose of this Senate is, other than having a Liberal or Conservative wing that, depending on who has the majority, does the prime minister's bidding.

Canada is probably the country where power is most concentrated in the hands of only one person. I challenge even my colleagues opposite to say that they have a lot of power. What the PMO says is what the PMO does. The rest just trickles down and people fall in line. There is only the official opposition to stand up to and serve as the counterweight to the government. Thus, under the circumstances, I went one step further and asked myself what the purpose of the Senate is. To my mind, it serves no purpose. The NDP nevertheless realizes that there are very important constitutional issues involved in abolishing the Senate. We are very much in favour of putting the question to the people, and I believe that they must decide if we should continue to have a senate.

Since 1968, I believe, every provincial senate has been abolished, and the provinces are doing just fine without their senate. This solves my problem. I am acutely aware that we have to discuss this with our partners in the federation, namely the provinces and territories. We cannot come up with this type of change and be paternalistic about it and presume that it is up to us, because this has a huge impact on how the Canadian Constitution operates. I am also well aware of the position of Quebec, which challenges the constitutionality of the Conservative government's proposed changes.

We have a much simpler suggestion: it might be time to put the question to the Canadian public. The Liberals are saying they do not want more MPs. But we keep asking the wrong questions. The real question is: what is a reasonable number of constituents for an MP to represent? Once we establish that, we stop playing political games, we respect the fact that some provinces are less populous, and we respect the nation of Quebec. That would work.

The same goes for the Senate. Let us put the question to the public. If we put our trust in the public, we might be surprised by the result. They might say something intelligent. They might say that the Senate is indeed a waste of time, that it is redundant and full of people who get pensions that cost the country a lot of money, when other people are in real need of that money. I am not talking about the people here in this House, but those outside the walls of Parliament. Perhaps we could find a better way to invest that money than in a stronghold of partisan players who are working at our expense to help the Liberal or Conservative cause.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we proceed to questions and comments, it is my duty to inform the House that although the House had been informed that 30 minutes would be added under the normal time for government orders, according to and subject to article 67.2 of the Standing Orders, the only time that the 30 minutes is added for government orders is when the said bill that was the subject of the motion on the recorded division that we just took is in fact the bill that is before the House for the remainder of government orders.

Since the bill that is before us, Bill C-7, is not that said bill, the time allocated for government orders will be the normal time until 5:30 p.m.

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech. She spoke very passionately and clearly expressed her point of view. However, it seems to me that her position is somewhat contradictory in that her party, quite rightly, wants to respect the Constitution when it comes to Senate reform but flouts the Constitution when it comes to making changes to the House of Commons. Of course, the NDP was unable to prove that a province's representation in this House could be forever frozen through a parliamentary decision. The NDP spoke about one case, but it involved provincial elections. The drawing of provincial riding boundaries would not in any way give Parliament the right to ignore the provinces' prerogatives in terms of the constitutional rules pertaining to their representation in this House.

Could the NDP be consistent and respect the Constitution when it comes to both Senate and House reform? The Conservatives are flouting the Constitution when it comes to Senate reform. Does the NDP intend to flout the Constitution at all costs when it comes to House reform?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we could have a very interesting debate with the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. The NDP's position on the distribution of seats and on maintaining Quebec's political weight, which the hon. member has deemed to be unconstitutional, simply recognizes the unanimous motion adopted by this House giving Quebec the status of a nation within a united Canada. We did not hear any province or territory object to this fact.

When a motion such as this one is adopted, members play politics to look good, but when the time comes to act on such a motion, they are happy to ignore it. The NDP's positions on Senate reform and maintaining Quebec's political weight are not inconsistent in any way.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments. I would like her to explain why it is important that this issue be taken to the people and that they take part in the debate.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what a great question. The people should be consulted because it is their House and their Senate. The Senate was created to ensure that all regions of the country would be well represented and to serve as a counterbalance to the House of Commons, where members are elected and where the system is not based on proportional representation. This allows Conservatives, for example, to have a majority with only 39% of the vote.

We want to transform the Senate, which is supposed to represent the Canadian people. We have reached this point in our constitutional life. Seventy-one per cent of Canadians want to have a say in the lifespan and viability of the Senate.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since it is related to the debate, I would like to talk about the Senate's financial statements from March 31, 2010. The costs were: pay and benefits, $71,685,000; transportation, $12,883,000; facilities, $11 million; and professional services, $4 million. The total is $107 million. Since we have a deficit budget, I think it is appropriate to bring up the costs of an unelected, undemocratic and unrepresentative Senate. I thank my colleague for mentioning it.

There is something strange in the Conservatives' Bill C-7. The government says that it wants to respect basic democratic principles, but at the same time, candidates for election to the Senate must be nominated by a registered political party, meaning that the Conservatives would refuse to accept an independent candidate. What does my colleague think about that?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question, but I do not want to start a debate with the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

When I first read the bill, that was the impression I was under. However, there is indeed an additional clause that provides for the possibility of having an independent candidate. That is how I understood it.

Nonetheless, in my opinion it is nothing but tricks—there is no other word for it—because the thing that comes out of all this is the fact that the Prime Minister is never required to choose the person who was duly elected by the public. That alone leads me to believe that once again this is just smoke and mirrors to give people the impression that the Conservatives are being democratic.

When the Conservatives were elected in 2006, they said they were going to start doing what the Liberals had stopped doing and that is to govern properly. The Conservatives were going to be transparent, do things better and be scandal-free. Look at them now. It did not take long before they were up to their eyeballs in alligators. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie criticizes their antics almost every day.

Somewhere along the way, we traded one bad thing for another, and that is what has to change.

The House resumed from December 7, consideration of the motion that Bill C-7, An Act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

When this matter was last before the House, the member for Bonavista--Gander--Grand Falls--Windsor had the floor.

[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.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Liberal Party for his views on Bill C-7, the act respecting the selection of senators.

Earlier today, during routine proceedings, there were no fewer than three pieces of legislation introduced in the House of Commons that had their origins in the other place, the unelected, undemocratic Senate. I would like to ask him if he shares my view that it is completely inappropriate for the democratically elected House of Commons to be guided by and, in fact, have its business interrupted and interfered with by bills originating in the Senate, which take primacy and bump the business of the House of Commons.

Regardless of the fact whether he shares the NDP's view that the Senate should be abolished, does he at least concede that it is inappropriate and wrong for the Senate to be dictating the course of action and the debate in the elected chamber, the House of Commons?