Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I always find it extremely interesting to listen to all the opinions we get from legal scholars, none of which seem to agree with each other in many instances.
That aside, we heard from Mr. Hogg, who very clearly fixated on the letter of the law. I found that interesting, because if you view the law as having a spirit--and courts tend to interpret the law as not based purely on the letter, but on the spirit--then the problem here is that if the provinces were to be involved, or if they were not to be involved, to get around the provincial involvement you wouldn't have to challenge the Constitution. Therefore, this is doing that. This is suggesting that.... We're speaking about certain elements of politics, but you have to bring politics into the issue because it is changing a major institution and the way it functions.
The politics of the thing would say that we do not have to listen to the voter. I am using the voter as an advisory committee, so to speak. Now, provinces may get very involved in an election and therefore may not approve of the fact that this bill is not transparent and seeks to get around the Constitution by stealth--some may think it's a good thing and others may not, as you have all rightly pointed out--and therefore provinces may challenge the validity of the election, the validity of the way the selection occurred, and you could have all this debate and argument that could create a huge firestorm in this country. Is that what we really want?
A bill should be transparent. It should say not only what it wants to do in letter but also what it wishes to do in terms of recognizing the spirit of the law.
Given that on July 20, 2006, the Council of the Federation issued a communiqué endorsed by all provinces and territories and asserting the principle that the Council of the Federation must be involved in any discussion on changes to important features of key Canadian institutions such as the Senate and the Supreme Court, and given that this is not being done because there is no consultation, then we could face that as well; the provinces will feel they were slighted, and so will the Council of the Federation. That's a very recent decision.
The Canadian Bar Association made a suggestion. I would like to know what you think of the suggestion, and if you think it's a good idea, what questions would you put? They suggested that Bill C-20 go to the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court to decide whether it is constitutionally valid according to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. If you think that should be done and if governments are transparent they would have no problem doing that because then they would be proven to be right or accept that they are wrong, what are the questions you would pose to the Supreme Court?