Debates of May 28th, 1996

Supply

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the comments of my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois.

Perhaps I could read the first two paragraphs of a column by Mike Scandiffio which appeared in the Hill Times a few weeks ago. The Senate is underfunded and needs a minimum of $4 million more to meet its objectives'', said the senator who chairs the committee which sets out the budget for the upper chamber.The budget leaves the Senate little room for ongoing operations'', said Senator Colin Kenny who chairs the internal economy committee. ``$4 million, that is a low ball figure. I would like to see $7 million''.

We get the idea of the seriousness of the motion the Reform Party has brought forward, notwithstanding the fact that we hear all sorts of laughing and chuckling from the peanut gallery over there. They do not realize that the people of Canada are sick and fed up with the notion that the senators, along with their porky pension plan, keep on going to the people of Canada and to the trough. They just do not understand that the people of Canada are fed up with the Liberals and all the old line parties constantly swilling out more and more money.

I have a question for the member. The motion gives notice of opposition to the Senate estimates. Its purpose is to put pressure on the Senate to make it account for the $40 million of spending. We would need a majority in the House to indicate that we are prepared to vote down the Senate funds if it refuses to appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations.

I realize that he and I are just members of a caucus. He does not have an official capacity in the Bloc Quebecois, at least none that I am aware of. I would like to ask him, though, what the Bloc position is on this point. Does he agree that in fact the Board of Internal Economy of the Senate should be brought before the standing committee to account for its $40 million so that the people of Canada have a legitimate say into the expenditures?

[Maurice Bernier, Bloc, Mégantic—Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc's position has been explained by my colleague who spoke this morning immediately after the mover of the motion. As for me, I am saying, as I have throughout my speech, obviously, that I find that the requirement that the Upper House submit accounts according to the formula set out in the motion is not only acceptable, desirable, but strikes me as a minimum, that the senators provide an accounting of their administration.

I will therefore repeat that I am, of course, in agreement for this motion to be passed, but I am convinced that the government will not be brave enough to follow up on it. This gives me the opportunity to recall another expenditure the auditor general found with respect to telecommunications. I have already referred to the number of sitting days attended by a goodly number of senators. If records are broken over there, it most certainly has nothing to do

with attendance. There are no marathon sittings, no one dropping down from exhaustion afterward-

[An hon. member]

Just falling asleep.

[Maurice Bernier, Bloc, Mégantic—Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, they nod off, but they do not collapse exhausted from having sat too long.

What does the auditor general have to say about telecommunications? It is important to pay attention, and I am talking to my Liberal colleagues, who should think about this. The auditor general says that about $10,000 per senator is spent annually on the average on telecommunications, but that the figure varies considerably. He reports that, in a ten month period, starting April 1989, the expenditures of seven senators exceeded $2,000 a month on 26 different occasions overall.

Two thousand dollars in telephone costs a month. I understand why they do not sit often, they are always on the telephone. It reminds me of my teenagers. I hope they have the call waiting service so people can reach them sometimes. Other senators, however, spent less than $500 a month.

This sort of example is important. I repeat this is not gossip about politicians people are sharing on street corners. This is what the auditor general, a credible individual recognized by all politicians in Canada, had to say. This kind of example is in his report.

In response to my colleague, I repeat that we in the Bloc want the Senate abolished, purely and simply. The motion by our Reform colleague is the minimum in terms of political decency.

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague. Although everyone understood what he just said, not everyone accepts it. It is our colleagues across the way who do not accept it. The auditor general came up with these figures and everyone can see them.

Yet, when I explain to my constituents that the Senate costs $43 million, while some industries are being cut by 30 per cent because the government does not want to invest in forestry, they find it hard to take. It is indeed very hard to take.

I fully agree with the motion put forward by my colleague from Comox-Alberni, but it does not go far enough. As my colleague from Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead was saying, the Senate must be abolished. We must give some serious thought to this.

I attended the speech from the throne and saw senators sleeping and being filmed by the TV cameras. Is there better evidence of how hard some senators work? Of course not. This scene was shown several times on television. The people in my riding asked me what those people were doing there.

The government is making cuts to forestry, to agriculture, to unemployment insurance, to everything-The people in my riding have a much more appropriate name for unemployment insurance: poverty insurance. Meanwhile, senators travel in first class, quaff champagne and run up extravagant communications bills. When they travel to foreign countries, senators arrive around five o'clock and have a sip of champagne before laying down for a nap; that is about the extent of it. I am not making anything up, as you well know.

To be honest, some senators do a certain amount of work, but 90 per cent of them are a waste of time, energy and money. The people of the great Lower St. Lawrence region, of Matapédia-Matane, will never be able to understand this.

If you do not believe me, you should hold a referendum asking whether we should keep the Senate, whether we should keep feeding senators or get rid of them. I can tell you right now that there would be a strong majority in favour of abolishing the Senate.

Following a further inquiry from the table officers, having just replaced the previous chair occupant, I will look to the government side for a speaker. Then, of course, I will recognize the Reform Party in whose name the opposition day stands.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate this afternoon.

I am somewhat shocked by the remarks made by the hon. members of the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party who just spoke. In their speeches, they made remarks to the effect that several members of the other place are not working, which are insulting to the members of Senate. It is not true. Many senators work hours on end at the Senate and the hon. members of both opposition parties know it full well.

They are perfectly aware of the fact that many senators sit on Senate committees, often splitting their time between these committees and the Senate itself for weeks on end, and they work very hard for the residents of their province, whom they represent in the other place.

For hon. members opposite to dump on the Senate in this way may be popular and may be fun, but I suggest that in respect of at least some of the hon. senators, quite a good number of them, it is unfair. Many of them are extremely hard working and do an excellent service for Canada and for the Parliament of Canada.

I know it is a popular sport to criticize the Senate. I will have some remarks of my own in respect of the Senate. I have made them in the past. That is fair game. However, there are many hard working Canadians in the Senate and for hon. members opposite to make those remarks is improper, in my view, and contrary to our rules and practices.

The motion before the House is questionable. It is not surprising when one considers the source. The hon. member for Comox-Alberni put forward the motion which says the Senate failed to respond to a message from the House requesting that a representative of the Senate committee appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations to account for $40 million of taxpayer money. Talk about crocodile tears.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

That is a fact.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

If the hon. member for Kootenay East could control himself for a few minutes he will have a chance to ask questions a little later. He says it is a fact. Yes, it is a fact. It is also a fact that this kind of request has never gone to a Senate committee chair before from this House. It is also a fact that it is quite improper for one House to demand the attendance of members of the other House in their capacity as representatives of the House.

I suggest to the hon. member that if a request came from the Senate for members of this House to go down to defend their expenditures before the Senate, the request would be treated with some disdain.

The hon. member for Kootenay East wags his head. Perhaps he would go to the Senate to explain his expenditures, but I do not regard it as my responsibility to go there to explain anything to the Senate about my expenditures.

The hon. member says he is elected and that, of course, makes a difference. It may, but the Senate has certain powers and rights under the Constitution. Senators may not be elected but they are appointed under the Constitution and their powers are derived from the same act, the Constitution Act, from which our powers are derived.

While the hon. member may have a point that there is a difference in the way we are appointed, if I received a request from the Senate to come hither to answer questions, I would say no, I will not, thank you very much. The Senate has exercised that right.

What the hon. member for Comox-Alberni is trying to do by the motion is make it appear that somehow the Senate is being undemocratic because these non-elected people are saying they will not appear before a group of elected people to explain the way they are accounting for their money.

There are procedures for doing this. There are procedures for bringing the Senate to account in respect of its management of the funds it has. Members can ask questions with respect to the Senate estimates when they are here in the House. They can move a motion, as they have today. They can ask a minister of the crown to discuss the estimates. They can ask the President of the Treasury Board questions about the Senate estimates. They can also arrange for members of the Senate to ask questions in the Senate.

The hon. member opposite seems to suggest the Senate is one big happy club, but he knows, as I do, the Senate is made up of partisans from at least two parties.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

The old line traditional parties.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

There we are. We are hearing it, what we have been listening to throughout this debate from the opposition today, the politics of envy. Here we have two opposition parties screaming and ranting about the Senate. Why? They do not have one of their own in the Senate. We did not used to hear these criticisms of the Senate when Stan Waters was there.

Here was the hon. member for Beaver River shedding crocodile tears earlier because Stan Waters won a popularity contest and was appointed to the Senate by Brian Mulroney. He was appointed just like every other senator was. He was as big a hack as Lowell Murray and Lynch-Staunton and all those Tory hacks in the Senate.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The hon. member for Kootenay East can protest all he wants. He can say what an awful thing it is but when it comes right down to it, Stan Waters was appointed the same way the others were.

Listen to the protests. There is no provision in the Constitution Act for the election of a senator. The only way one gets to the Senate-I urge my hon. friends to read the Constitution Act-is by a nomination of the governor general on recommendation from the Prime Minister. There is no other route. One can win a popularity contest for Mr. Beauty Queen and that person will not get into the Senate unless the governor general summons them to the Senate on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

Stan Waters managed that feat. He got into the Senate but he got named by the Prime Minister. If he had not been, he would not have been there. I do not care how many election campaigns he ran in Alberta or anywhere else. He could not get there without that little slip of paper signed by His Excellency the Governor General of Canada.

He got it and he loved it. He sat in the Senate and while he was there we had the hon. member for Beaver River here in the House. She did not rant and rave about the evils of the Senate and its expenditures then.

[An hon. member]

You did not let her speak.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

We were treated to the speeches of the hon. member for Beaver River all the time. She gave us another sterling example this afternoon.

We all listened with bated breath to the member for Beaver River when she got a chance to speak. I remember many times the Liberal Party gave up space in its speaking list in order for the member for Beaver River to get on the record. We wanted to hear her views. We were enthusiastic about hearing her views. We still are.

Here she was today telling us all about the Senate and how her friends had been appointed to the Senate, friends of hers she thought were in favour of a democratically elected Senate.

The position of the Liberal Party on this is very well known. We favour an elected Senate. It will come in the fullness of time. In the meantime, we operate under the existing Constitution. That requires the Prime Minister to fill vacancies in the Senate by making recommendations to His Excellency the Governor General of Canada who then summons persons to sit in the Senate.

I am sure my hon. friends opposite would not want to have the Senate continue to be dominated by the party that formed the government and that was so soundly thrashed in the last election campaign.

They say they are very democratic and that they support democratic principles. I found it passing strange that when I came into the House today I saw that the two Conservative members have been shifted away so that they are not sitting so close to the Reformers any more. We know why that happened. It is that they were treated so rudely by the Reform Party members, being shouted at and screamed at so that they could not hear themselves think where they were sitting. They got moved closer to the Bloc. For a party that is so democratic as the Reform Party, I am rather surprised it would take that approach.

Anyway, there they are moved. It is bad enough to see them mistreated in the election campaign, having been reduced to two seats, but then to have them treated this way in the House by the Reform Party is a shameful thing.

The Conservative Party still controls the Senate; well not quite anymore, but it still has a very large number of members in the Senate. Until recently it exercised effective control of the Senate. I am sure hon. members opposite who are after all professed democrats would not want that to continue.

The government has continued to appoint Liberals to the Senate to redress the imbalance that was the hangover of the Mulroney years in the Senate. It was a hangover that Canadians were tired of. The government took the right approach. It has continued with that approach by appointing Liberals to the Senate to fill every possible vacancy to make sure we are not confronted with Tory dominance in the Senate any longer.

Some of my colleagues may not be aware of this but hon. members opposite have been in cahoots with their Tory colleagues in the Senate Chamber. I go back to Bill C-69 and that ill fated attempt to amend the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act which was introduced in the House and which members on all sides worked on so hard to come up with a good bill.

That bill was adopted in this House and sent to the other place. I recall going down to a committee meeting to answer questions about the bill as chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee as parliamentary secretary to the government House leader at the time. I went down to the Senate to answer questions with regard to the bill. Who did I see down there but the hon. member for Calgary West. He had run down and climbed into bed with Senator Staunton and Senator Murray. He was in cahoots. He was whispering away at the committee table, saying "ask him this, ask him about that", and giving all kinds of asides to these senators to stir up trouble with respect to a bill that had passed in this House.

This is the Senate that we are hearing about today which is so undemocratic, autocratic, so unfair and full of all these awful people, according to the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois. Yet when Bill C-69 was there, boy, there was the member for Calgary West, who the last time I checked was still in the Reform Party, down there talking those Tory senators and trying to get them to jump on the Reform band wagon and block the bill. They succeeded. He succeeded abundantly. He so convinced the Tory senators that this bill was a bad thing that they blocked the bill. They held it up for months and months. Now the hon. member for Beaver River is losing her seat.

We heard the member for Beaver River today. She was preaching politics of envy. She wants a Senate seat.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Oh, right.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The hon. member for Kootenay East says I am right. He knows I am right. Her seat disappears in redistribution. She wants to go to the Senate. Here she was making a speech today, wanting to create vacancies in the Senate by exposing some kind of scandal down there. If she could make it account for this $40 million and found something had been misspent, maybe there would be a vacancy and she could get appointed to the vacancy.

She listed her three friends who have all gone and she wants to be with them. I can understand her desire. I guess if I had three close friends all go to the Senate maybe I would want a Senate seat too. In the meantime I am quite happy to stay here.

I am not finished yet. I know hon. members opposite want to ask me questions and that is why I made this speech. I want to give

them an opportunity to ask me questions, but they will have to hold their horses until I am finished.

The other thing about the Senate is how is it that the Reform Party, which says it is so much in favour of democracy, can favour a triple E Senate? Why does a triple E Senate make so much sense to the Reform Party and so little sense to almost everybody else?

I will try to explain it. Under its proposal for a triple E Senate, it is to have the senators elected on a province-wide basis in each province and there will be an equal number of senators per province, say 10 per province.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

What is all this I hear?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The hon. member for Beaver River has reappeared. Like the phoenix from the ashes she has come back. I am so glad she has made it. I hope she has not missed the point of the beginning of my story.

Reformers want this triple E Senate, 10 senators per province, elected on a provincial basis so that they can all get huge numbers of votes.

The hon. member for Beaver River in her remarks spoke eloquently about how her friend, Stan Waters, got a huge number of votes, the biggest number anyone had ever received in an election in Canada, because he ran in the biggest constituency anyone had ever run in, in this popularity contest in Alberta. I can only tell the hon. member that if we had a similar election today across the country in each province, in the province of Prince Edward Island the winner might get as many votes as I did.

[An hon. member]

Not that many.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The hon. member says not that many. I know he is flattering me. We could then go to another place like Ontario where the winner might receive 10 times as many votes as the person in Manitoba, Saskatchewan or some other province, but it would be many times more than Stan Waters received in Alberta.

Let us go on with this case for another second. Then we get these people into the Senate and the Senate becomes effective. It has all the powers the current Senate has, the power to block any bill. We would create a newly elected body of 10 people from every province, representing the people of their provinces, with the power to block the elected will of the House of Commons.

What happens to the democratic principle in this case? The five smallest provinces could get together and effectively block the five largest provinces because there would be a tie vote.

[An hon. member]

What is the matter with that?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The hon. member asks what is wrong with that. In a democracy we normally go with the majority, the numbers. We have compromised the majority somewhat by tying the number of seats into the population in provinces with certain floors, certain guarantees, and so on and so forth. Those exist in the country. It is this House which is the basis for government in the country, not the Senate. It has unlimited powers in theory but in practice very limited powers. This House has virtually unlimited powers.

The hon. member knows the way this House works is that the different regions of the country are represented here. However, what is sought in this triple E Senate is a power in the smallest provinces to block the larger provinces.

Hon. members opposite must know that if about one-quarter of the population of the country were able to thwart the wishes of over three-quarters of the country there would be something wrong. If they do not think that, their idea of democracy is pretty weak.

Have I said something in a way that is too complicated for the hon. members opposite to understand?

The country should be governed by a group of people elected to represent their geographic areas based on some system of equality of representation. What hon. members opposite are suggesting is exactly the opposite. They are to turn the Senate Chamber into something that will be able to dominate the Canadian political system big time and in a way that is most undemocratic despite their protests of democracy.

It makes me very suspicious when I combine my hearing of their views on the triple E Senate with the hon. member for Calgary West's sliding into bed with these Tory senators on Bill C-69 and the hon. member for Beaver River in her enthusiasm to get a Senate seat to make up for the loss of her seat in the redistribution. All those things make me very suspicious. I begin to think that maybe I am paranoid or something. However, when I speak with my colleagues they all agree with my views as to what Reform really wants here.

If the hon. member for Calgary Southwest were here, although I am sure he is here in spirit, and if he had to act as Prime Minister I can just imagine what he would have been doing the last few weeks if he had vacancies in the Senate at his beck and call. I could see the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan in the Senate. I could see the hon. member for Athabasca in the Senate. I will bet if she had played her cards right, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast might even have made it to the Senate. I will bet it is a good place for them. It is just as well there as it is at the back of the bus.

The poor hon. member for Calgary Southeast is now sloughed off in the back row over there with the Bloc members. The poor soul, she is off with the Bloc members. The hon. member for Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead is back after his speech and he and the hon. member for Calgary Southeast can commiserate on

what life would be like in the Senate. I am sure they would share views on the importance of appointment to the Senate and what useful lives they could lead there after the next election.

The hon. member for Calgary Southwest is not the Prime Minister of Canada and that is why we are hearing this politics of envy. If he were the Prime Minister of Canada we would not be hearing all these complaints about the Senate because there would be some Reform members in the Senate and so they would stop complaining.

It would not stop the Bloc, I admit, since it is not running to be the Government of Canada. It is unlikely that we will have any appointments from that party, which would silence it.

I assure my colleague for Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead that if the Prime Minister, once there is a Liberal majority in the Senate, chooses to appoint one of his colleagues to the Senate he too will agree the Senate is a great place, that its members work very hard and he will repent all the words he spoke today. He will withdraw those words and apologize to his friends in the Senate for the nasty things he has said.

I hope all hon. members in their remarks and in their questions will be temperate in their criticisms of the other place because I believe it does good service for Canada.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Given the huge interest in the intervention from the member for Kingston and the Islands on questions and comments, I will try to recognize as many members as I can.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we have been at this for years and years. I can hardly believe he is ranting and raving right now against an elected Senate. I ask him to agree or disagree with the proposal in the resolution his party came forward with at the 1992 convention that said be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada is in favour of an elected Senate.

It would hardly seem he is following his party's policy right now in ranting against it. His friend, the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, for whom I have quite a bit of respect, said to me earlier "well, that was then".

Something happens from this side of the House over to that side of the House. In opposition the Liberals could say all kinds of things. Then of course at their assembly in 1992 before they became government they could have all these wonderful documents come forward.

The interesting thing that is different about his party and mine is that when we have an assembly and the delegates at that assembly vote on party policy, heaven help any MP who thinks they can vote against it because the people have the last word. I could never sit in the House and say that was then but now that I am in government things are so much better. Does he agree or disagree with that resolution?

He spent more time talking about me than he did about the Senate. I could not help but notice he was wondering aloud if I really wanted a seat in the Senate because of the redistribution of the constituency in Beaver River.

Let me put on the record in Hansard that if I ever think that I might get a seat in the Senate of Canada it will be because I run as an elected person for a seat in the Senate of Canada. It will be democratic, it will be legitimate and I will have some mandate for being in the Senate, not because some hack threw me in there.

He also says there might be Reformers in the Senate. I dare say there will be someday, but it will be because we are running there. It will not be because some political hack says to me "well done, thou good and faithful hack, go to the Senate". It will not happen, but that is his dream of getting to the Senate.

Perhaps there is a little disappointment because his name did not come up on the list. Several people have been put in the Senate since he was heaved down there by the glass doors. How much farther can you go before you are out of this Chamber?

He did not get a chance to get into the Senate. I wonder if he would agree with me, being that he did not get a seat, how important it is not to just make fun of the whole issue of election and talk about a fraud or whatever in Alberta, but would he stand with me and say he does not believe in some political person throwing him into the Senate, that he will be hanged before he will let some pot licker put him in the Senate without running to be there effectively and legitimately.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the protestations of the hon. member for Beaver River, I have no intention of being hanged before or after any possible chance of going to the Senate.

To answer her question, I support the Liberal Party resolution of 1992. If I had my choice, I would abolish the Senate. I see there will be a debate on Friday on a motion moved by the hon. member for Kamouraska. I hope the hon. member for Beaver River will support the motion so we can get rid of the Senate for now. If we can agree on an elected Senate at another date, I would be to have an elected Senate. It will have to be by some kind of agreement.

I also suggest the proper thing to do is put some restrictions on the power of the Senate, whether it is elected or not. The hon.

member for Beaver River can discuss that with me at a later date. I would be more than happy to have a lengthy debate on the subject.

With respect to the Charlottetown accord, when we had a chance to have an elected Senate, I actively campaigned for the yes side.