House of Commons Hansard #69 of the 35th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was senators.

Topics

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9:25 p.m.

Liberal

Dianne Brushett Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks where is our liberalism and are we not defenders of liberalism. I would say that yes, indeed we are and part of the restructuring that we have done is to secure Canada's financial future and the future for our youth.

When we talk about infrastructure and the past, the program costs over the past two and a half years totalled $6 billion: one-third for municipal, one-third for provincial and one-third for federal. Ladies and gentlemen, do you know that $2 billion-

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9:30 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I would ask the hon. member to address her comments to the Chair, not to ladies and gentlemen. Unfortunately that term cannot be used in the House.

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September 18th, 1996 / 9:30 p.m.

Liberal

Dianne Brushett Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Mr. Speaker, and hon. members of this House, I would like each one of you to be aware that $2 billion-

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9:30 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I am going to stop the hon. member each time she does not address her remarks to the Chair and if she continues to do it I am going to recognize someone else.

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9:30 p.m.

Liberal

Dianne Brushett Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Mr. Speaker, $2 billion of the $6 billion went to the province of Quebec. That is the point. We have shared in that liberalism. It is my hope that the infrastucture program will be part of the next platform of the government. The hon. member believes it is very valuable in the province of Quebec. I know that province quite well myself. I have many friends there.

It is important because of the antiquated infrastructure that exists. It is the same in the province of Nova Scotia and the eastern region. There is much need to build basic infrastructure, sewage treatment plants, water systems for industry, preventing sewage from going into the Bay of Fundy and into our oceans. We have advocated this for many years but it has never been done. It is extremely important as we move into the 21st century that we have another infrastructure program.

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9:30 p.m.

Bloc

Christiane Gagnon Bloc Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure as a parliamentarian to take part in this vigorous debate this evening in order to reject a proposal to renew a $40 million budget for the Senate and demand its abolition.

My colleague pointed out earlier that the Bloc Quebecois is intervening specifically on the motion to renew a $40 million budget for the Senate and not on other budgets allocated to various programs. We could have intervened just as well on the amount of $25 million set aside for social housing, which is clearly inadequate, or on the amount of $15 million to be extended for the status of women, which is also clearly inadequate. However, when $40 million is spent like that, $40 million to produce duplication and overlap, and you know that duplication and overlap have always signalled the call to arms for the Bloc Quebecois.

It is no secret that the people of Quebec are fed up with the Senate and have been for a long time. It is a fact that a broad consensus existed in Quebec on the abolition of the Senate when the Charlottetown talks were being held, but this consensus was reached well before that time, as early as 1980.

During the referendum year of 1980, federalist politicians, without sovereignist leanings, I may add, were already demanding, as expressed by Claude Ryan in his beige paper, the abolition of the upper House. My point is that this is not just a quirk of the big, bad separatists.

The position of Quebecers on the subject has not changed since 1980, on the contrary. Barely two weeks ago, a petition was circulated in my riding and all other ridings in Quebec in support of the motion of my colleague from Rivière-du-Loup, which will demand the abolition of the Senate, no less.

The text of the petition is quite clear, and the reasons introduced to support abolition of the Senate are as follows: Whereas the Senate consists of non-elected members who are not accountable for their actions; whereas the Senate refuses to be accountable for its expenditures to committees of the House of Commons; whereas the Senate does not fulfil its representational mandate; whereas the Senate duplicates the work done by members of the House of Commons; whereas the Senate-and finally, it is necessary to ensure there are parliamentary institutions.

Four hundred senators who are not elected share a budget of about $40 million, at a time when cuts are being made everywhere. That is why today the Bloc intervenes specifically on the appropriations allocated to the Senate. Although the petition has not been publicized in any way, it has already attracted hundreds of signatures in my riding that will be added to thousands more from other ridings and tabled by the hon. member for Rivière-du-Loup here in this House.

I sincerely believe that, in Quebec, my fellow citizens strongly desire the Senate's disappearance. More than two years ago my colleague from Richelieu gave us a very interesting historical background on that institution. I think it deserves to be quickly restated.

My colleague said that the other House is a leftover from colonial times, that it was created to protect the wealthy landowners against the more populist endeavours of the elected members, our predecessors. The proof is that, at the time, senators had to be worth at least $15,000. Do we realize how much that was at the time? Obviously only rich people had that much money. They were protecting the interests of their wealthy citizens, a practice which has not yet disappeared, far from it, although it is now under a new guise.

Of course the role of senators has changed, but nevertheless they are no longer needed. As with many other institutions, the theoretical role and reality are very far apart. The wealthy landowners have been replaced by faithful political lackeys. All sorts of abuses have been noted and publicized. There is no need to come back on that. The work done by members of that House has a lot more to do with the political agenda of the major parties than with fundamental research. The Senate has become the tool used by the government to avoid contradicting itself publicly and preserving its reputation when it realizes that it has made a mistake. It is now a very discrete and reliable tool, used by elected members of the main parties.

A very good example of this is the process used for the bill on electoral boundaries, where the party in office benefitted greatly from this redistribution of representation. It was so blatant that several members condemned this practice in the House.

Recently we were also able to see how undemocratic was the Senate. Last June, we could read in all the newspapers that the Senate had refused to pass the bill on the Pearson airport. There is no better example of what the Senate is and what power it has. How can we accept that people who are not elected, who are not accountable to the people, can decide on their own authority to reject a bill that was seriously examined and debated for several hours here in the House?

Even though I was opposed to the bill in question, the fact remains that I am shocked to see people who were appointed for political services rendered either to the Conservatives or to the Liberals-it often boils down to the same thing-people who are not accountable to anyone, giving themselves the rights to decide the future of the biggest airport in Canada.

How do the members of the party in office, the members of the same party that made sure to get a majority in the Senate, feel today, knowing that even some of the people they appointed to be their standard bearers in the other House helped defeat a bill that a vast majority of them in this House were in favour of? How do they feel knowing that, instead of proposing amendments, the other House rejected the bill outright? That is not very flattering for the Liberal deputation. This is ridiculous. Some elected representatives

bring in a bill, which is later rejected by a group of non-elected representatives called senators. This is the best example of what is so absurd about the Senate and the best reason to call immediately for its abolition.

Whether they like it or not, Quebecers are paying for an institution that they do not support any more. The costs are very high, at $43 million, and there might also be some other expenses related to the senators' functions. In 1995-96, the budget is set at $42 million.

In the supply motion debated today, the amount shown is $40 million. Unemployment benefits were reduced to allow the government to save on the backs of the unemployed. Single mothers living under the poverty line could see their welfare benefits reduced because provinces are receiving less from the federal government.

Young people, looking for a first job are suffering from the absence of a job creation policy. The elderly could see their pensions cut.

Can you imagine the frustration felt by all these people who know that huge amounts, to the tune of $40 million, are spent year after year on an institution that lives off the fat of the land, an institution that does not serve any more its initial vocation and that these people have not wanted any more for a long time now. Since 1980, the people of Quebec have pronounced themselves in favour of the abolition of the Senate. That being, some wonder why our fellow citizens drop out, why that have become so bitter with regard to the politicians.

Far from approving these supplies of $40 million for the Senate, the Bloc Quebecois is asking for its abolition pure and simple because the Senate has lost its raison d'être. We have to modernize our institutions, but the Senate is an outdated institution. Its raison d'être is no more justifiable with people suffering cut after cut in social assistance, in unemployment insurance, in youth programs, women's programs, day care centres and so on. These $40 million are used to make duplication and overlapping.

When will this government have the courage to abolish that institution serving only partisan purposes? Today in this House, I am calling for its abolition pure and simple. Let us allocate money to programs aimed at helping women, at creating more day care places. I am waiting for this government to take the right decision at last.

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9:40 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, this evening in dealing with the main estimates I have had an opportunity to listen to a number of members discuss the Senate. The Reform Party has spent a lot of time outlining its policy of an elected Senate and each and every speaker from the Bloc Quebecois has used this aspect of the estimate to say that the Senate should be abolished because it has outlived its time.

As all members know, there has been a lot of work done over the years on reforming the Senate. Even as this place has to reform itself from time to time, there are things that can be done to improve it.

The member indicated that the Senate killed the Pearson bill and was it not awful that this unelected, unaccountable body can kill a bill. The bill was stopped but the government can still bring back a further bill if it wishes to pursue it further.

I want to ask the member a question about accountability. Notwithstanding that she has suggested that the Senate should be abolished, she mentioned that it is an unaccountable body. She knows that there are 104 Senators which is about one-third the number of members of Parliament. That means that each senator effectively represents somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 300,000 people. It also means that if they were elected and were accountable the way the member suggested they should be, then they would have to run in ridings three times larger than the member's own riding. In addition, they would have to have some kind of constituency facility and a bureaucracy within the constituency to be able to serve their electors.

Then there is the problem of how we rationalize the responsibilities of an elected senator and an elected member of Parliament. Who do the constituents go to?

It is very easy to reach conclusions to abolish, reform or elect the Senate. But none of the impacts of making bodies such as the Senate accountable have been thought through. What would be the implications to the whole system?

The Canadian Parliament has three parts: this Chamber of the House; the Senate; and Her Majesty the Queen as represented by the Governor General. The Senate is an integral part of Canada. It is very clear that the position of the Bloc-and I hope the member will comment on this-has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility but very much to do with the need to break up Canada.

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9:45 p.m.

Bloc

Christiane Gagnon Bloc Québec, QC

Mr. Speaker, I never said in my comments that senators should be accountable to the electorate. When I say that they are accountable, I do not mean they are accountable to the public, because they are not elected representatives. I never meant to say senators should be elected by the people.

What we are demanding is actually the abolition of the Senate, pure and simple. I cannot figure out how the member could draw these conclusions. The abolition of the Senate is what we want. I do not want an elected Senate.

I think these $40 million for the Senate is just money thrown out the window. What the Senate does is nothing but duplication and overlap. After bills are discussed here, there are debated once

more, which delays the passage of some of them. An appointment to the Senate is a kind of old age security for deserving friends of the Liberals or the Conservatives. In these days of fiscal restraint, when we cut different programs for the young, for women and for the destitute, it may be a good idea to consider areas where there is some fat to pare.

Senators are not accountable to the people and they are not elected by the population, but I repeat for the sake of the hon. member that I do not want senators to be elected by the population. What I want is the abolition of the Senate in order to get these $40 million back and use them in areas where they are badly needed. Quebec is not the only province subjected to federal cuts. That is why we should turn to areas where cuts can be made.

What do we need the senators for, nowadays? To pass bills that have already been passed by this House? I do not see the rationale. I am pretty sure many people in Quebec and Canada are in full agreement with the Bloc Quebecois position, which is the abolition of the Senate, pure and simple.

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9:45 p.m.

Bloc

René Laurin Bloc Joliette, QC

Mr. Speaker, you have the pleasure of hearing me as the last speaker tonight. I will try to be interesting for you, Mr. Speaker, for my colleagues and also for all those who are watching us on television.

I believe it would be worth recalling the motion on which will have to vote in a few minutes. It reads as follows: "The President of the Treasury Board requests that the House concur in Vote 1, in the amount of $40,713,000 under Parliament-Senate-Program expenditures, in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997."

Forty million dollars, and we should add to that a few more millions provided for services offered by different departments and other federal agencies to maintain that honourable and noble institution. In fact, the exact amount of the funds granted to the Senate will be close to $55 or $60 million at the end of the year.

Before granting such an amount of money to an institution like the Senate, we must ask ourselves what purpose it serves. We must ask ourselves what the Fathers of Confederation had in mind in 1867 when they created a Parliament with two Houses. During those 22 years, the senators had to debate 18 bills from the House of Commons, which did not received royal assent either.

More than 125 years ago, the Fathers of Confederation thought it was a good idea to have these two assemblies, one of which is non elective, namely the Senate. But it would be interesting to look at the Senate's record since the birth of our federation. I examined the list of interventions made by the Senate from 1867 to 1996, the last year for which statistics are available.

Let us round the numbers off and take the period from 1867 to 1900. In the first 33 years, the Senate proposed amendments to House of Commons bills which never received royal assent. There were 105 bills during the Senate's first 33 years of existence.

During the next 25 years, from 1900 to 1925, there was a slight decrease. The Senate proposed amendments to 93 bills which never received royal assent. That gives us a cumulative total of 198.

From 1926 to 1963, that is during the next 37 years, the work of senators decreased even more. They proposed amendments to 49 House of Commons bills which, after having been passed in the Senate, did not receive royal assent. So from 1867 to 1963, a period of 96 years, the Senate made a grand total of 247 interventions with regard to bills presented in the House of Commons.

Starting in 1963 there was a period of lethargy that lasted 11 years during which the Senate did not propose any amendments to House of Commons bills. It is probably during this 11 year period that senators fell into a deep coma that they are still having great difficulty getting out of.

Then suddenly, from 1975 to 1996, that is during the past 22 years, the work started again. During those 22 years, the senators had to debate 18 bills from the House of Commons, which did not received royal assent either.

Overall, during its 129 years of existence, the Senate had to examine 265 bills from the House of Commons that never received royal assent, which means these bills were discussed in the Senate but never became law. So, with 265 bills in 129 years, for an average of 2 bills a year, I can understand that the senators fall asleep and can not stay awake even in front of television cameras.

Now, lets look at the bills that were introduced in the House of Commons, amended in the Senate and received royal assent. I went back to 1960 only. In the 22 years from 1960 to 1982, 35 bills were amended in the Senate, sent back to the House of Commons and received royal assent.

In the following 14 years, from 1982 to 1996, the Senate recommended amendments to 30 bills that were later adopted by the House of Commons.

In all, from 1960 to 1996, for the 36 years of statistics that I noted down there were 65 bills. This is just short of 1.8 bills a year or less than two bills annually. At such a pace, one can hardly stay awake and justify a salary. This is why those people do not feel the need to go before the public and account for what they do.

It would be embarrassing to show such a record to their employer, the taxpayers who pay the salaries of the senators. It

would really be embarrassing to face taxpayers and say: "My friends, this is the work we have done in 129 years on bills introduced in the House of Commons which did not receive the royal assent and other bills introduced in the Commons which we managed to amend and which were then passed by the House of Commons".

No wonder there is a temptation to reform the other place. Since 1960 only, 52 bills on the Senate have been introduced in this House to modify its role or its functioning or even to abolish it.

Those 52 bills aimed at abolishing the Senate. Stanley Knowles, an honorary member of this House, alone has attempted 18 times-between 1964 and 1981-through motions presented in this House and through private bills, to have the Senate abolished.

Despite all these attempts, it has never been possible to make any significant changes to the operations of the Senate or to its very existence.

Its role was understandable at the time of the creation of the federation, in 1867 and in 1900. The Senate was seen as a sort of chamber of sober second thought. Its members calmly considered the legislation, free from public pressure. This was understandable in 1867, but the role of the Senate today is far different because of the practical limits on its powers.

Is what is called in English "double checking" or in Quebecois "double vérification" still necessary nowadays? The primary role of the Senate was to double check the laws passed by the House to ensure that the first chamber had not made any mistake, had not made serious mistakes for the taxpayers, and it was the role of the Senate to correct any mistake or to propose amendments to bills.

But nowadays, given the modern means of communication, television, the Internet, it is no longer possible to pass laws expeditiously without arousing among people increasing interest, which leads the lobbying groups to come and tell the government it is making a mistake or is being unfair towards a certain segment of society. This is why we no longer need this double checking institution.

In the five provinces that used to have a Senate, this type of political institution has been abolished. That was the case in Quebec in 1968. Quebec was the last province to abolish the Senate, and it did so because this institution was no longer needed. The same thing could be true for the Canadian Senate.

When, in 1968, the legislative council was abolished in Quebec, if it had not been commented in the media, we would still not know that it was done away with, because we went on passing laws, and the same thing is true in the four other provinces where the legislative council was abolished.

Nobody complained that laws had become unfair or less equitable for the people. We now have a public that is better informed and members of Parliament that are better prepared. Nowadays, with the political and legislative systems we have, members are able to get all the information they need.

I do not believe it to be necessary to spend between $50 and $60 million a year to keep an institution that does not double check, to all intents and purposes, but mostly acts as a place where some friends of the party in power are sent as a reward for services rendered-and when their senator's earnings are not enough, they are appointed as lieutenant governor. Fortunately, there are only ten positions of lieutenant governor. Otherwise, there would not have been enough of them for all the senators interested in a new job.

For these reasons, we think it would be improper to support appropriation for an institution which does not have our confidence and which we would like to see not only changed, but abolished outright.

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9:55 p.m.

The Speaker

We have about 60 seconds. That means a 30-second question and a 30-second answer.

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9:55 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the Senate, as the member knows, also provides an important opportunity for women to be represented in the Parliament of Canada. One member I can recall very specifically, whom the hon. member may want to comment on, is the Senator from Etobicoke, Joan Neiman. Although no longer a senator, while in the other place she chaired a wonderful committee dealing with euthanasia.

I wonder if the member would comment on the value that women in the Senate contribute to the Parliament of Canada.

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9:55 p.m.

Bloc

René Laurin Bloc Joliette, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is not the presence of the Senate that allowed women to sit in the House of Commons because, for decades, the Senate, in its wisdom, never introduced legislation suggesting to the House of Commons that it give women the right to vote and to sit in the House.

If there are women in the House today, in increasing numbers, it is because women took matters into their own hands, because women are better informed and they have made their case. No Senate allowed women to reach the status they have nowadays.

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9:55 p.m.

The Speaker

It being 10 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply. The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

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9:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

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9:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

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9:55 p.m.

The Speaker

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

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9:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

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9:55 p.m.

The Speaker

All those opposed will please say nay.

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9:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

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9:55 p.m.

The Speaker

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

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9:55 p.m.

The Speaker

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

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10:30 p.m.

The Speaker

I declare the motion carried.

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10:30 p.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it, I believe you would find unanimous consent that on vote 10 under Canadian Heritage, vote 1 under Treasury Board, vote 5 under Treasury Board and vote 15 under Treasury Board and the concurrence to the main estimates, that a question be deemed to have been put, that a recorded division be deemed to have been requested, with the result of the vote taken on vote 1 being applied to the motions I just read.

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10:30 p.m.

The Speaker

Is it agreed?

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10:30 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.