Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) Committee on March 5th, 2008

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for joining us, Mr. Van Loan. It's a pleasure to meet with you again. You stated that many people are unaware of who their senator is. That's very true. I would have to say that a great many Canadians don't know who their MP is either. Everyone in my riding knows who their senator is. If MPs don't know the name of their senator, then I'd have to say that it's up to us to do our job. This is part of our mandate.

I would like to talk about one senator in particular. I think you know where I'm going with this question. I'm talking about Senator Fortier. Since setting foot in this room, you've been going on about an unelected Senate which is not accountable to the House of Commons. And yet, your leader, the Prime Minister of Canada, himself appointed someone to the Senate who is now not only a senator, but also a minister. According to our Constitution and our traditions, a minister is accountable to the House of Commons and must answer the questions put to him by elected officials during Question Period.

Therefore, I'm having a very hard time understanding your government's position and Mr. Fortier's situation in particular, all the more so given that people say the Senate should be more representative of the people. Mr. Fortier ran for office at least once, in 2000. I should know because he ran against me in the riding of Laval—Les Îles. The voters in this riding rejected Mr. Fortier. When the last elections were called, he said that he had no intention of running as a candidate. He preferred instead to stay in the Senate.

How do you reconcile your belief that an elected Senate would be democratic with the fact that your leader appointed a person to the Senate and gave him a portfolio and that this individual sees no need to run for office, regardless of the constituency?

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

Actually, Senator Fortier has made it quite clear that he is going to be running in, I believe, Vaudreuil-Soulanges in the next election. He obviously has no problem with that, and he's also made it clear that he believes we should democratize the Senate. His view is that it very much needs to change.

As for those comments, I think that's a position entirely consistent with that of the government, and one that is strengthened by his own experience, which is illuminating to all of us.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

And yet, Mr. Van Loan, anyone who serves in the Senate or the House of Commons should be a person of principle. If Senator Fortier truly believes that the Senate should be abolished, then why, first of all, did he accept this appointment and secondly why did he accept a ministerial appointment and opt to remain in the Senate? Thirdly, why is he still in the Senate to this day?

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

We also have Bert Brown in the Senate. He believes in an elected Senate and was asked by Albertans, through a popular consultation that took place, to represent them there.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I'm talking about Mr. Fortier, Mr. Van Loan.

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

I know, but there were two appointments made. That's the other one—someone who was actually elected popularly. The proud tradition of our democracy is that we encourage criticism from within. The greatest changes come from within. That's how the system evolved from the one invented in 1867 to the one we have today. We've changed the rules and representation.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Excuse me for interrupting, but there is very little time, Mr. Van Loan. My only comment, Madam Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

We may need second thought here, but we can only hear one speaker at a time.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you for that answer.

I would like to add something now. Excuse me for cutting you off, Minister. I would like to say that in popular parlance people say, put your money where your mouth is. That's what I would suggest to Senator Fortier, with all due respect of course, Minister.

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

Certainly that is his intention. That's what he's going to do, and he said that clearly.

Since Confederation, in probably most governments, there have been members of cabinet who have come from the Senate. What we have now is nothing new. But should Bill C-19 be introduced, and should it become the practice that all senators take office as a result of popular consultation, which would be the case within a number of years should this be adopted, then you would never again have members of the cabinet who were not the product of a democratic process. I think that would be a measure of improvement for our country all around. I think everybody agrees with that, and I hope this committee will keep it in mind in considering this proposal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Hill, over to you.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think, in all fairness, this is an excellent discussion today and certainly a good kickoff, if I can call it that, to our deliberations about Bill C-20 and the future of the Senate.

I'm quite interested in the process that led the government to come forward with this bill. In particular, Mr. Minister, perhaps you could enlighten us as to some comments made earlier about the process for actually going about selecting senators, were this bill to come into force. You yourself were remarking earlier about how this differs from the first-past-the-post system, which most Canadians, and certainly most parliamentarians in the lower House, in our House of Commons, are familiar with.

Could you explain a bit more about the process of how this particular system, which seems on the surface to be quite complicated, came about as the preferred method in the bill and why we didn't just go with something that all Canadians are more familiar with, which would be the first-past-the-post system?

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

I think that's a good question, and it's one that I hope you as a committee will be turning your minds to, because it is an important part of this bill. One of the reasons this was sent to the committee before second reading was so that you would also have an opportunity to look at that voting system and consider whether you think it appropriate or whether another alternative voting system is considered more appropriate.

I'm not going to try to explain the formula, because you have to be really smart to do that. I know that's why you're asking the question, Jay, because you understand it, but I'm not surprised that others haven't asked the question, because that would mean they would have to have worked out all the math and sorted it all out, and it is a challenge to do that.

To boil it down into its simplest aspects, the objective of the voting system here is to respect some of the unique characteristics that people say are important about the Senate, that it is a little less partisan, and by adopting a type of proportional representation, you will be diminishing the partisan nature that you have from a first-past-the-post system and it would heighten the independence of senators.

The campaign financing aspects of it, for example, would prohibit, in our proposal, the transfer of funds from a political party to a candidate—that way, again, strengthening the independence of an individual senatorial candidate. The same kind of contribution limits would apply that we have for political parties and local elements of political parties, the $1,000 index, which is now about $1,100 a year or event contribution. That would ensure that you didn't have a situation where a wealthy individual could buy a Senate seat or where they could, through wealthy networks, have the financing to do it, that there's a fairly level playing field with a reasonable number there. So it's trying to maintain accountability, trying to maintain that notion of independence, introducing a concept of proportionality that we haven't seen elsewhere before, and diminishing that role of political parties so that it's more the individuals we're focusing on as senators.

A single transferable vote has been used in other places. There are three national legislatures elected directly using single transferable votes today: Australia's Senate, the Irish Dáil, which is their lower house, and the Maltese House of Representatives. We of course have significant Irish, Maltese, and Australian communities in Canada that are familiar with that model.

There are others where it has been used. It's one of the options for election to the European Parliament, and it's used by, I believe, three member countries right now for their election of representatives in the European Parliament. There are some states in Australia that use it. And I could go on.

But while it's the position that the government is putting forward as the preferred approach, you might want to look at other proportional models. You might want to say the American model or our first-past-the-post model is a better approach because it's easy to understand. All these things are legitimately on the table, and they are, again, very legitimate, valid debates and discussions that can be had about which would produce the best outcome that best reflects the interests.

What's fascinating about the single transferable vote as well is that it has a different effect in a single-seat situation. Suppose you're voting on only one vacancy. Suppose you're in P.E.I. and there's only one coming up in the next 10 years and you put that to a vote. You could have multiple candidates for it. It doesn't become first past the post. It becomes a form of transferable vote, where you wait until somebody has a clear majority of transferred preferences from those who drop off. And anyone who understands leadership conventions in the old-fashioned sense understands that model. That again would be a different way of mediating those hard party lines and bringing together diverse interests in a consensus.

So it's a novel approach, and it takes a little bit of work to understand and to study, but that's the work of this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Maloney, you have the last five minutes.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I found some of the comments tonight very interesting. Mr. Lukiwski was seeking out the positions of the various parties. I don't have a position. I don't know what the position of the Liberal Party is. I'm here--and this is our first witness--to listen to the various stakeholders who have come before us, and then I will take a position.

On Madame Guay's criticisms of the Senate, quite frankly I've heard those same criticisms levelled against members of the House of Commons. Perhaps it's a lack of understanding or perhaps an ignorance of the responsibilities and functions of the Senate. I hope we'll be hearing from some senators to address that problem.

Minister, you indicated you had two legal opinions from two of your former law professors. I hope you would file these with the committee. Perhaps we could also hear from them as witnesses.

Getting back to the nuts and bolts of how this might work, when would you propose that an election would be in fact called? If it's going to be fixed terms--whenever it's decided what those would terms be--would it be at the beginning of the year, on June 30 of a year? Do you have any thoughts on that?

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

First, on the issue of the legal opinions, it's not I who went to these former professors of mine; they just coincidentally happened to be that. These are opinions that were derived before I was even minister responsible for this file, under my predecessor, Minister Nicholson, who is now, of course, Minister of Justice.

On the question of when the elections would occur--“consultations” is a more accurate description--that's set out in the bill. It would be a decision of the Governor in Council when a consultation would occur.

There are two options available. One is during federal general elections and the other is during a provincial election, provided there is notice posted in the Canada Gazette at least six months before that actual election event takes place. We don't have fixed dates; that involves a bit of speculation. But in the increasing situations where you have fixed dates, that's quite easy to deal with.

The number of spots you would elect would be up to the Governor in Council as well. The notion isn't that you would wait until there was a vacancy and then hold an election, but rather that you could hold an election for a number of seats that would create a list that would await appointment by the Governor in Council when vacancies arose. So there might already be some vacancies, but you also might elect three, four, or five members, or you might have them selected as nominees for appointment in anticipation of the vacancies that would arise in the next year or two, or, say, until the next potential general election event in that province or federally.

That format ensures that elections happen, or when they're going to be happening anyway. You have an electoral vehicle in place. You have a certain saving and minimization of costs in carrying out the consultation. The consultation can ensure that you have adequate representation on a go-forward basis in the Senate.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

I believe you indicated that both Houses would be considered equal if this bill goes through. What would you do if there was an impasse, a logjam? How would you resolve that? It sometimes happens in the U.S. government. How would we resolve that if both Houses were equal?

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

The reality is that there's no difference on that question from our situation today.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

All right.

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

If you're suggesting that somehow there is a difference from today, then you're accepting the notion that the Senate doesn't have legitimacy today. But they do have all the powers that go with that, and those same kinds of impasses can exist.

The strange situation right now is that the resolution of an impasse, as happened in 1988, is by the democratic body seeking a dissolution and going to the voters for a mandate to make it clear and put some kind of moral pressure on the appointed body. That is a bit alarming in a democracy, that an appointed body could effectively force, hamstring, or tie the hands of the duly elected body and create that kind of impasse.

If you move forward with Bill C-20, in a situation where most senators are the product of a consultation process, at least the impasse you have that creates that situation is one that has a democratic body on either side. The solution would still be the same--seeking a dissolution in the House--but at least it would be prompted by others with a legitimate basis for their mandate.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

There has been considerable discussion about consultation with the provinces this afternoon, and whether it's good or bad or we should or shouldn't do it. You indicated that B.C. would be in favour of abolishing the Senate. Mr. Hill took some question of that. If the provinces are in fact representatives of the people who elect them, would it not also be incumbent upon us to consult with those provinces as well?

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

I'm sorry, I missed the end of that question.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Is it not incumbent upon us, as part of our responsibilities and our mandate, to consult with the provinces on their views on the Senate?

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

Of course the Prime Minister has discussed this with the premiers, and various ministers of the government do so on an ongoing basis. The positions of most of the provinces are quite well known, as I said, with the exception of some where there were recent changes. B.C. would rather abolish than reform the Senate. It's not a high priority, but that's their official position. Again, as Mr. Hill suggested, that is a change from what was the position when they had a law in the books.

This is one of the problems. We talked earlier about the Charlottetown accord and the difficulties you have achieving that kind of consensus. I can't help but conclude that those who say we have to take the smallest tiny change and subject it to a constitutional process are doing anything other than seeking excuses not to reform and modernize the Senate.

There is a bill put forward by a Liberal senator, right now in the Senate, that seeks to change the membership qualifications for the Senate, which is a change to something laid out in the Constitution. I'm unaware that anybody has engaged in any form of consultation on that. If it's the position of the Liberal Party that this bill cannot go forward until there's been a first ministers conference and agreement of the provinces and a 7/50 formula, then you should talk to your colleague over at the Senate about that bill. That bill, being pursued by a Liberal, is being done on the exact same basis as this bill.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Perhaps that discussion is for another day.