Debates of Nov. 26th, 1998

Special Import Measures Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The question is on Motion No. 7. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The recorded division on Motion No. 7 stands deferred.

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at the report stage of the bill. Call in the members.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find unanimous consent to defer the recorded divisions at report stage of Bill C-35 to the end of the period set aside for Government Orders on Tuesday, December 1, 1998.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Accordingly, the recorded divisions on the report stage motions of Bill C-35 stand deferred until Tuesday, December 1, 1998.

It being 5.30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's order paper.

Senator Selection Act

[Bill Gilmour, Reform, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

moved that Bill C-382, an act to allow the electors of a province to express an opinion on who should be summoned to the Senate to represent the province, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to have this bill come forward before the Alberta election of senators last month. In my role as opposition Senate critic at the time I put it into the mill. Unfortunately it did not get up before that time. The issue remains very much the same as it did before the Alberta election.

I am pleased to present Bill C-382 to the House today as it attempts to bring democratic reform to the upper house of parliament or our Senate.

The purpose of my bill is to ensure that if a province has a law providing for the expression of the opinion of the electors on who should be summoned to the Senate to fill a vacancy, no person shall be summoned to fill the vacancy unless the electors opinion has been sought and the results transmitted to the Privy Council, or unless a year has passed since the vacancy was published in The Canada Gazette . To break down the legalise, basically my bill allows for elected senators over appointed senators. Our current system is to appoint them.

This can be done without constitutional change. Time and again the government has said it cannot be done, that it requires constitutional amendment. My bill on the election of senators does not require any change to our current Constitution.

This was shown in Alberta in 1989 when Stan Waters was elected and appointed to the Senate by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. I make it very clear to the House and to people watching that this does not require any constitutional change. The confusion comes when we want to change the numbers of senators that represent provinces. That does require constitutional change, but to elect our senators does not.

The Prime Minister would simply be required to respect the wishes of the voters of any province with a senatorial selection act. Two provinces to date have senatorial selection acts, B.C. and Alberta. Alberta has chosen to use its act on two occasions.

Our first senator, Stan Waters, was appointed to the Senate without constitutional change. In 1989 hundreds of thousands of Albertans voted for the first democratically chosen senator in Canadian history. This was an historic first in Canada and clearly demonstrated how easily democratic change can be done without changing the Constitution.

My bill is significant. Electing senators has been an issue that has been around as long as the House. It has been debated over and over again and tossed back and forth. It needs to be resolved, the key point being that Canadians do not want a government by appointment. They want to have a say. A senate going back to the last century and the thinking of the last century no longer works. The world is moving ahead. Canada is dragging behind. It is time we caught up.

Originally our Senate was meant to represent the regions. A senator from B.C. would represent B.C. A senator from Ontario would represent Ontario. A senator from Quebec would represent Quebec. However, as it now stands, the Senate provides little more than political representation for the party in power. It is absolutely essential that we remove patronage appointments from the Prime Minister's hands and put them into the hands of the people. That is what my bill would do.

Last month Canadians witnessed a Senate election in Alberta. There are now two senators in waiting. The final results of that election on October 19 last were Bert Brown with approximately 332,000 votes, Ted Morton with approximately 261,000, Guy Desrosiers with approximately 147,000 votes; and Vance Gough with approximately 131,000 votes. Nearly a million votes is a significant number. There were a million Albertan votes for an elected Senate. Both Bert Brown and Ted Morton broke Stan Waters' record of 256,000 votes, which at that time was the largest number of votes ever received by any elected member in the history of Canada. These two senators beat that record.

Clearly it is time for the government to acknowledge the democratic rights of Canadians and agree to appoint these elected senators to the Senate when vacancies arise. As it now stands it is simply undemocratic.

Canadians are governed by both houses of parliament, the Commons that we are in today and the Senate which is the other house of parliament. In theory both houses have almost equal powers. Senators have powers similar to those of elected MPs. They can write laws, vote on important motions and bills, sit on parliamentary committees and perform other government functions.

Yet most significant is the fact that senators can approve or veto legislation that comes from the lower house. Any bill passed by the elected members of this House must also pass the Senate to become law. It is completely unacceptable that this powerful part of our government is run by political appointees, not by elected representatives.

Senators must be held accountable. Yet there is absolutely no accountability in the upper chamber and this must change. Canadians expect and deserve accountability in their public institutions, and the Senate is lagging far behind.

The Senate is exempt from any accountability to the people. This was painfully demonstrated last year with the actions of former Senator Andrew Thompson. Thompson demonstrated and showed that once appointed senators do not have to answer to anyone including the prime minister. Once senators are appointed and are in place, if they so choose they are there until age 75. If Canadians are to obtain an effective upper house we must give the Senate a democratic mandate similar to what we have today in the House of Commons.

As I said earlier, Senate elections can be done easily. They do not require a constitutional amendment. Many changes to our country's government require complex constitutional changes but the Senate elections, as we have already seen clearly demonstrated in Alberta with Stan Waters, show that it can be easily done and without major change.

Another issue is that many people say that it will cost too much. Both the elections of Stan Waters and of the senators last month were done during municipal elections. The cost is not great. In fact it is quite minimal because people are already going to the polls in municipal elections. It simply means printing another ballot.

Canadians are impatient with this issue and with the government of the day that has failed to change this system. The national Angus Reid poll conducted last April shows that the public is now divided between reforming the upper house and abolishing it entirely. Very few Canadians want to leave the Senate as it is. There are three options: leave the Senate as it is, which very few Canadians want; reform the Senate; or abolish it.

A poll taken last May shows that Manitobans overwhelmingly want the province's next senator to be elected, not appointed. This survey found that 86% of Manitobans believe that the people, not the prime minister, should fill vacancies in the upper house. Only 7% were in favour of having the prime minister appoint senators and 7% were undecided. In a similar poll in B.C., 84% of the residents want to elect their senators.

Here are two separate and independent polls, one in Manitoba and one in British Columbia with 86% in Manitoba and 84% in British Columbia saying they want their senators elected. This is not a wishy-washy issue. As demonstrated by the polls and by Canadians they want this to happen. Senators such as Senator Gerry St. Germain have acknowledged an elected Senate would be more democratic. He said that it was realistic to hope this would be achieved one day. Clearly an elected Senate would be far more representative, responsible and democratic than what we have today.

Let me list the record because to date the current Prime Minister has made more patronage appointments to the Senate than his predecessor, Brian Mulroney. This is the same Prime Minister who severely criticized the past prime minister for his patronage appointments.

The current Prime Minister has riddled the Senate with political patronage appointments, including eight former Liberal members of parliament which include four former Liberal cabinet ministers; a former Manitoba Liberal leader and long time ally of the Prime Minister; a former Alberta Liberal leader; a former P.E.I Liberal leader; a former deputy premier of Quebec; a former candidate for Liberal leader in New Brunswick who managed the Prime Minister's leadership campaign in 1990; a failed provincial Liberal candidate and loyal Liberal worker; a former Liberal riding president and Liberal Party worker; a prominent B.C. Liberal organizer, golfing and business buddy of the Prime Minister; a Quebec Liberal organizer; the wife of the son of former Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson; and the list goes on.

How can we have a Senate that is unbiased when the Prime Minister loads it up with Liberals who rubber stamp legislation? This was done in reverse with the former government. They loaded it up with Conservatives. This simply does not serve the interest of Canadians.

To whom are senators accountable? Originally they were supposed to be accountable to the provinces, accountable to the regions. However, because of the political appointment system, they are accountable only to the political party that appoints them. That is absolutely wrong.

Recent changes to the House of Lords in Britain demonstrate democratic reform is long overdue. This week Queen Elizabeth removed the hereditary voting privileges of the House of Lords. This was historic, democratic reform. What remains to be seen in Britain is if the election of senators will now become a reality, or whether they would unfortunately go into our system of appointment. It is time to bring democracy to Canada's upper house.

We as members of parliament answer to our constituents. When we do well, as we all hope to do, we go back to the polls and hopefully get re-elected. If we do not do well, we are thrown out as we should be. This is the system that occurs not only in lower houses but in upper houses in many parts of the world.

Why can we not have our senators elected and answerable to the provinces and the constituents that sent them there so that they are accountable to the people who sent them there instead of accountable to the political party that appointed them? This is the real wrong in our Senate.

Many people are becoming jaded because they have a Senate they feel simply does not work. We get wrangling and haranguing, no change. In my view as a politician this is why many of us are held in low esteem. We simply do not have an upper house that is accountable to the people.

Before the 1993 election the Prime Minister proposed an elected Senate when he said:

Reform of the Senate is extremely important. I believe in it. We must look for a division of powers that best serves the interests of the people, all the Canadian people.

The Prime Minister also said in the House:

To meet the hopes and dreams of those who live in the west and the Atlantic, a reformed Senate is essential. It must be a Senate that is elected, effective and equitable.

It is long overdue for the Prime Minister to give Canadians what he promised, an elected Senate. It is my hope that my bill will give the Prime Minister the prod that is required to allow him to live up to his promises.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to speak on this issue. It is an issue that I have thought long and hard about during the 10 years that I have been elected.

To put the remarks I want to make tonight in context, I am reminded of a poster that a friend of mine has on the wall of his office. It says for every complex problem there is a simple answer and it is wrong.

That is the problem I have with this bill. Reform of the Senate is a very important issue. It is one that members on this side of the House have been wrestling with for decades. It is one that the Senate has wrestled with.

I really find it very difficult when I see Senators depicted in the way the Reform Party chooses to depict them. I am not certain what cause is advanced by slandering honest, hardworking Canadians who choose to serve their country. I do not understand how that furthers the cause of democracy.

There are a lot of very talented Canadians who work in the other place. They do good work on behalf of the country and they want reform. When hon. members read the joint Senate reports of 1984, 1987, 1992, Senators were calling for reform of the Senate, calling for election.

What is a little confusing in the Reform's approach to this is that the very election cited, the appointment of Stan Waters to the Senate by former Prime Minister Mulroney, was done out of respect for section 4 of the Meech Lake accord which called for a process of appointment upon the recommendation of the province.

This is the example the Reform Party would put forward of how this should work. It was an example that was part of Meech Lake and yet, as I recall, it was the Reform Party that campaigned against Meech Lake and fought for its demise.

[An hon. member]

And the Prime Minister.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

I as well.

In 1992 with the Charlottetown Accord we moved to a point in this discussion that we have never been able to get to before. We actually had a proposal for a triple E Senate. We actually had the agreement of all the provinces that the Senate would be equal, 6-6-6; 62 members. We made provisions for aboriginal representation. It was something that I think many people who are seized with this issue would never believe we would get to, but we got there. What did the Reform Party do? The Reform Party had a proposal for an equal, effective and democratically elected Senate. It opposed it. It fought against it. In the end it was voted down.

The Meech Lake accord failed, so the process that was used under that failed along with it. It was rejected. I supported the Charlottetown accord for those very principles. I think a triple E Senate is a very good thing, particularly for western Canada.

Now we are into this debate that sort of capitalizes on people's desire to make fun of the Senate or to continue to denigrate a group of people who I think do marvellous work on behalf of Canada and put forward what they say is an important improvement. I am astounded, frankly, that the Reform Party would support this bill or even think of proposing it.

The two provinces the Reform Party is most populous in, Alberta and British Columbia, represent 23% of the population. They have 11.5% of the Senate seats. The Reform Party is proposing that we enshrine that, that we give that inequality legitimacy. I do not understand why it would want to make legitimate a process that contains a real inequality for the west. There seems to be no particular advantage to be gained from that. It is true that the Senate needs reform but if we want to have a democracy, a democratically elected Senate, the member himself said part of the functioning of a democracy is at the end of the term that we are elected for we go back and stand in front of the people again and ask for a renewed mandate. A one time election of a senator into a position until he or she is 75 does not allow for any ability to go back in front of the people. On the issue of how the rest of the Senate functions, we have a few who are elected democratically and a few who are living out their terms in the Senate. How does this lead to a competent, functioning, well organized approach to improving democracy?

I support the goal. The goal is laudable. But the approach taken by the Reform Party to produce a reform of the Senate is simply too glib and I think somewhat misses the point.

If we want a Senate that gives true balance to the disproportional rep by pop that we have in this House, one that becomes a true house for the regions or the provinces, which I would like to see it become, surely we need to reform the entire institution.

It is too complex an organization to play around with one little item, to change one or two facets of it. We need to sit down and reform the Senate. We need to do it in the way we have been trying to solve all the problems we face right now, piece by piece, looking at the problem, coming together with the provinces, with our partners, having the discussions, arriving at a consensus and acting on that consensus. That is the way we will get to true constitutional change.

That is the way, working through and carefully solving problems one at a time, we have managed to get from the very difficult financial circumstances we were in when we came to government in 1993 to today. That is a process I hope all members would support. But to jump into this debate to change one small facet of this I suspect makes the problem worse, not better.

I support the member in his desire to continue this debate on the reform of the Senate. I certainly will be among members of the House who will spend a lot of time and energy attempting to produce a more effective parliament for Canadians. But I cannot support this particular approach.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn to speak on this bill introduced by a member of the Reform Party on the method of appointing senators.

I must confess that I have not spent hundreds of hours preparing for such a debate and my constituents will surely forgive me, because many in Quebec believe the Senate to be an obsolete institution they could quite happily do without.

In our opinion, any change to the way senators are appointed, or any other Senate reform, will meet with considerable skepticism among Quebec voters, who attach little importance to this institution, and most certainly have no emotional attachment to it. I understand that attitude, and fully share it.

Whether rightly or wrongly, people often express much cynicism, and skepticism about the role of elected representatives, and politics in general, and generally discredit it. Seeing an institution like the Senate, I believe people's considerable cynicism is justified. It is an eloquent example of how outdated and obsolete some institutions are.

Looking at it from the ordinary citizen's point of view, one may well wonder what use the Senate serves, period. What concrete or useful effect has it had on our lives? And you could go as far back as the day of your birth, Mr. Speaker.

There are serious reservations about the fact that we spend close to $50 million per year on such an institution. That is a lot of money. Fifty million dollars is a lot of taxpayers' money which, year in and year out, is wasted on an institution to which friends of the Prime Minister are appointed. Whether it is the Grits or the Tories, the party in office appoints its friends to the Senate, as a reward or to crown a career of one kind or another. It is not necessarily needy people who are appointed.

Still, I can understand why some, who want that institution to be effective and play a specific role, would like to change the appointment process. I can understand that. If indeed we must have a Senate, people should wonder about the appointment process.

When decisions are made in a democratic system, there must be a minimum of accountability. What is being proposed is to allow the provinces, and ultimately the public, to decide who will represent them in that institution.

This does not in any way change my firm belief regarding the role of that institution. The proposed system would at least have the merit of being much more respectful of the public. But of course, we should first ask the public if it wants a Senate or not.

Last summer I travelled outside Quebec and I realized that many people, particularly in British Columbia, share my opinion that the Senate should be abolished. In Alberta, there is a very strong movement in favour of a new appointment process. Elsewhere, people are less concerned.

In Quebec, the issue is basically settled. In my own riding, during the previous parliament, we had a petition circulated in convenience stores and other locations. In just a few weeks, close to 8,000 people signed that petition to abolish the Senate. Some even asked me where they could sign that petition. We had limited time to circulate the petition, but we still got 8,000 signatures. This is a lot in a riding like mine or, for that matter, in any riding.

When we talk about the Senate, we immediately realize that it is a sensitive issue with the public. People say we are wasting money for no good reason. They are absolutely right, particularly in the current context.

There is never any excuse for wasting money. But when people are asked to tighten their belts, when they see the federal government reducing provincial transfer payments, in the health sector, for example—payments to Quebec were cut by several billion dollars in recent years—and at the same time $50 million is squandered on the Senate, people do not think their tax dollars are being put to good use, and they are right.

It costs $50 million a year. Think about it. Over the last 20 years, that adds up to $1 billion. Since the government did not have that money, because it was spending more than it was taking in, it borrowed $1 billion over the last 20 years to pay for this institution.

Is there anyone in the House who will tell me this makes sense? How could we get rid of the Senate? Of course, those who want another Senate, or another institution, could hold a debate, but I think the first thing would be to get rid of it. Then, those who want such a body or who want another level of political intervention, a level of wise individuals overseeing the government, could hold a debate. In the meantime, we would at least not be throwing $50 million down the drain.

The thing to do would be to hold a vote in parliament, but also in each of the provincial legislatures. I am sure this would meet with widespread approval. Ultimately, and this is where the problem arises, the senators themselves would have to vote. One wonders how willing they would be to vote themselves out of a job when they have such a comfortable arrangement. They are hardly killing themselves working. There is not a lot to do. They have no duties in the various territories they represent.

The senators have an assigned designation, except the last eight appointed by the Conservative government, which ran into some deadline problems with senators blocking the GST. So eight new senators were added. The Prime Minister can add positions in the Senate as he likes. There is a problem there too.

The other senators have designations. Are there people among our audience who recall having seen their senator? Do they even know who their senator is? I assume not. Certainly, had they been elected, people would recognize them and know them better.

On the other hand, I am really not in favour of electing these people for, once elected, will claim that legitimately they should have more of a say in managing things. We will end up with—and here I return to my role as a voter in any one of the provinces—a municipal, a provincial, a federal and, on top of it all, a senatorial level.

At some point accountability gets a bit thin. We are familiar with the federal government's knack of meddling in jurisdictions not its own—a very strong tendency here in Ottawa. There is nothing to indicate that things will be any different in an elected Senate. We can therefore appreciate that nothing is going to simplify the efficiency of the political system from a Quebec or a Canadian point of view.

We on the other hand are working hard to eliminate one level of government. We would like the federal level to disappear, and Quebeckers will decide to do so, I hope. We are not for adding more levels, on the contrary. We are for streamlining the process and giving more power to the local levels, which are much closer to the people.

It is something of a waste of time to be dealing with strengthening their role, the selection process and so forth. The first thing to do is to abolish the Senate, sending the clear message that this kind of institution and the $50 million a year it costs are no longer government priorities.

This could get things moving. Interested provinces might pass similar legislation and, eventually, the senators would be alone to assume the blame for preventing the will of the people to abolish the Senate, as expressed by their elected representatives, from being acted on.

All the renovations under way on the Hill at this time are costing a fortune. Some work is being done to accommodate our friends in the other place, who were complaining last year about not having access to the parliament buildings through a tunnel, something they want. The public has a problem with this.

I urge members to focus, within reason, on a single resolution, which could be passed, stating that there will be no more Senate. This would be better than making cosmetic changes that will change very little to the fact that the Senate is a completely obsolete institution that no longer serves any purpose in our modern political system and in the real life of ordinary citizens, the people of Quebec and Canada.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to enter into the debate. I have enjoyed the two previous speeches. I learned a little bit and much of what I heard was easy to agree with.

Reform of the Senate has been a goal and objective of most political parties that come to this place. I was doing some reading prior to coming here tonight. As early as 1919 the Liberal Party had Senate reform as part of its platform. Prime Minister Mackenzie King was in power. With our own party and its founding convention in 1933 the CCF was adamant that Senate reform would be a real priority. Again when the NDP was formed in 1960 that found its way into the priorities of our political platform.

The flaw I find in the bill we are debating is that we would not see any serious reform. Even if it may be achievable to put in place an elected Senate through this piece of legislation, it would not be the triple E Senate the member's party is usually promoting.

The equal side of the triple E is where the real barrier is. Even though we may institutionalize or help to formalize the institution through the democratic process of voting senators in, if we do not have the other aspects of Senate reform, we have not made things any better at all. To this day, after all the constitutional wrangling and all the best laid plans of political parties coming and going, no one has managed to implement true Senate reform, especially in terms of equalization of representation.

The member for Winnipeg South is quite right that we came very close in the Charlottetown accord. That is one of the reasons I was happy to work for the Charlottetown accord. I went to the five meetings across the country as an ordinary Canadian. I learned a great deal and I was very enthusiastic about the opportunities Canadians had within their reach with the Charlottetown accord, a real reformed triple E Senate. That I could have supported.

We have chucked that away. We chose not to avail ourselves of that opportunity. It is no longer there for us. I do not have any optimism that we will see it back in the national forum in my lifetime. Most Canadians would rather poke themselves in the eye with a stick than go through another process like the Charlottetown accord and all the constitutional wrangling and frankly, I am one of them.

The Reform Party member from Nanaimo cited a number of polls and surveys that they have done which indicate broad support for an elected Senate. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those polls. What we did not hear was that some of those polls gave a number of options: Do you want an elected Senate? Would you rather see an abolished Senate? Would you rather leave the Senate exactly the way it is?

There was an interesting trend in the most recent and the largest nationwide poll which was the Angus Reid poll in April. The real trend to watch on the graph in that survey is the growing support for abolition. From the polls in 1987, 1989 and now in 1998 the number of people who want an elected Senate is almost equal to those who want the Senate abolished. Forty-five per cent say they would like an elected Senate. I believe most of those voters are really thinking of a triple E Senate, not just elected. In a scientific poll across the country, 41% now say abolish, abolish, abolish. That is the camp I am in and I am happy to promote that position on behalf of our party.

We find that the current situation cannot be fixed. Some things are irretrievably broken. Tampering and fooling around with it in a minor way is not going to give us the satisfaction we need. We believe the abolition of the Senate could actually become the next unity issue, just as the Charlottetown accord was supposed to pull the country together finally and let us get passed the differences we have. I think the abolition of the Senate will become the single one issue we can all agree on and move forward together on in a very united front.

The Angus Reid survey shows much higher levels of support for abolition in the province of Quebec than in the rest of Canada. The figure is 57% or 59% for abolition. The member from the Bloc who just spoke points to a petition that was recently circulated in that province. He was talking about the last parliament.

Last summer a petition was circulated broadly across Canada. I know one member of the Bloc took a copy of this petition and got 11,000 signatures. I believe that is the figure. We have not seen the tally yet. Again, that was done in the course of a couple of weeks. I will read some of the preamble from the petition.

This is what Canadians are signing in droves across the country and presumably this is what they believe: “We the undersigned”—etcetera—“that the Senate of Canada is an undemocratic institution composed of non-elected members who are unaccountable to the people; and that the Senate costs taxpayers some $50 million per year;”—another sore point certainly—“and that the Senate is redundant, given the roles played by the supreme court and the provinces in protecting minority rights and providing regional representation; and that the Senate undermines the role of MPs in the House of Commons; and that there is a need to modernize our parliamentary institutions; therefore, your petitioners call upon parliament to undertake measures aimed at the abolition of the Senate”.

The petition is getting a lot of support right across the country. There is multiparty support. An NDP MP and a Liberal MP put this petition together. We have quotes from a Reform MP saying he would like to abolish the Senate. We have members from the PCs saying that Reform would have to modify some of its policies on the united alternative, one being its position on the Senate. We have the Reform Party quoted in articles saying that would be something it would be willing to do. It would be willing to back off its position on the Senate in order to allow the united alternative to go forward. I would be happy to share the quotes with the member from the Reform Party.

We find that no single issue has galvanized Canadians quite as much as this one lately. It is a very tangible, visceral issue. Although I am not going to dwell on this, isolated cases of abuse have brought the issue to the forefront.

I am the first one to recognize that there are many fine people in the Senate of Canada doing valuable work right across the country. I have had the pleasure to meet a few since I have been here. I do not think those fine people would stop doing the fine work they do if they were no longer senators. I know they got to be senators because they were fully engaged and seized of these issues. They are not going to drop them because they are no longer housed in that building.

Frankly, with the $50 million we would save, who is to say that the Prime Minister or the government of the day would not make people special emissaries on certain issues.

There is one senator I had the pleasure of working with on the child labour issue. She is a champion of social justice in that regard. Who is to say that if she no longer sat as a senator that the Prime Minister would not put her in charge of a task force on child labour and be our representative overseas at the international forums.

That is all within the realm of possibility. Canadians would see that as money well spent because we would not have the same issue of the undemocratic and in fact a barrier to democracy that exists on the other side.

I would like to spend just one minute on the numbers. The province of Manitoba was cited in the Reform Party's speech. The actual figures in the province of Manitoba according to the Angus Reid poll as of April 1998 were that 45% said to reform the Senate and 41% said to get rid of it. We were exactly on the national average for getting rid of it and we were one or two points higher in terms of reforming it. Those are the real numbers. It was not 87% want an elected Senate and it is intellectually dishonest to craft the figures in that way.

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, previous speakers dealt more with whether the Senate should be abolished or maintained than with Bill C-382. I would like to get back to focusing on this bill.

I would like to begin with a few comments. There has been much talk of the polls on abolition of the Senate and on Senate reform, but I would like to cast some doubt if I may on them because, in any poll of Quebeckers and Canadians on politicians, the terms “abolition”, “lack of confidence”, “not credible” and “dishonest” keep recurring. If a poll offers Canadians the opportunity to show how little they trust the entire political machinery, they will take advantage of it and say so.

Yet, if time is taken to explain to Canadians why the Senate exists, then we can initiate a period of reflection and a far more positive debate.

The hon. member of the Reform Party has spoken of polls. The one I have looked at often these days is the poll that shows Reform dropping and the Progressive Conservatives rising. It may well be the only poll of interest to me at present.

I would like to address the bill, a bill that unfortunately lacks credibility. The Reform member told us that the bill could come into effect without any constitutional change. That is absolutely false.

As it is worded, Bill C-382 would require a constitutional amendment. The member should look further into this.

Changing section 42 of the Constitution Act requires a close look at sections 38 and 41 which stipulate that, if the method of appointing senators is changed, there must be a constitutional change using the 7-50 formula: 7 provinces and 50% of the population.

The hon. member may want to look into this, particularly in light of his clause 4, which provides that neither the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, the Prime Minister nor any other minister of the crown in right of Canada can appoint someone to the Senate, contrary to what is provided in the Constitution. Therefore, this bill is unconstitutional and out of order.

However, we have something interesting to propose. Bill C-382 does not solve anything. The Reform member told us about the context in which the bill was introduced. It was on the eve of an election to elect a senator in Alberta. It was merely to put more emphasis on the election of an Alberta senator.

But again, considering what the Reformers are proposing in this bill, a constitutional amendment would be required: seven provinces with 50% of the population would have to agree. So, the Reform Party has to go back to the drawing board.

However, while waiting for a constitutional amendment such as the abolition of the Senate, a change or whatever else Canadians may want, we could start working here in this House and make certain changes. First, we propose to limit a senator's term of office to 10 years.

This would not be a precedent. Yes, it is a constitutional amendment, but it is a change that was done through an act of parliament. For example, the first change regarding the number of years that a senator can sit was brought about under Lester B. Pearson, who added a clause (b) providing that a senator could only sit until age 75.

We could adopt a similar procedure and decide that a senator can sit for a period of ten years, through an act of parliament and a constitutional amendment. However, such a constitutional amendment would not be subject to the 7-50 rule, that is seven provinces accounting for at least 50% of the population.

This would be the first step. Of course, this measure would not be retroactive, but it would send a message that parliament is ready to make changes and to open the debate on the Senate and the whole parliamentary system.

If the Senate were abolished, the role of this House would change automatically. It would be a major change. Would the number of members be increased? Would it be written into the Constitution that a specific number of members must come from a particular region? That is how Quebec protected itself in 1867. The number of senators from Quebec is protected under the Constitution. Would the number of members from a particular region, western Canada, Atlantic Canada, Quebec or Ontario, be protected under the Constitution? Maybe.

Let us stop using senators as a political currency. Let us be serious. The first serious step would be to limit the term of office of senators to ten years. I am sure most of the senators will agree and will ask for greater changes in the Senate.

Once again, the Reform members have a problem with the Senate and they are trying to make use of it. However, they are going about it in a negative fashion. Even in their document on a new Canada, it is incomplete. Perhaps there should be a review of the way the Reform Party works on the Senate.

They often discredit the Senate, but when Reform Party or other members propose such things they are not helping the senators, the Senate or Senate reform. They add even more to the lack of credibility of the people in the Upper House.

They could take the time to explain why the Senate exists, then good ideas and the positive side of parliamentary reform could take effect.

It may be interesting, but I would like people, before sweeping changes are made to the country from one end to the other, to look at what we can do here, as in the matter of denominational schools for Newfoundland and Quebec, for instance. We did that here. We did not need the rule of 7 provinces and 50% of the population.

We could take a step forward in the case of the Senate. It could be 10 years, 7 years or 12 years. I think that if the current government is serious about sending a signal on Senate reform, if all opposition members are serious about the Senate as well, this initial step could be taken.

There may be abolitionists in the Senate. We abolished its equivalent in Quebec, the legislative council, at the end of the 1960s. We had reasons to do so. My colleague from the Bloc Quebecois has said that, for them, it was not just a question of eliminating the Senate, but rather of eliminating a level, the federal government. I would just like to remind the House that Premier Bouchard has said that, regardless of the outcome, there will be a type of European-style federal government to manage Quebec-Canada relations, if Quebec becomes sovereign.

An in-depth change is being made, but in the end an important level is still being maintained, a federal level.

The Senate is important. It must be changed, must be amended, must be improved. We also need to take a look at what is happening in the House as far as parliamentary representation is concerned. This must, however, be done with credibility, and this the Reform Party lacks.

Credibility is needed with respect to the role played by the Senate, and there must be credibility in particular with respect to analysing polls. As I said at the start of my speech, any time a reference made to a politician, it is always a negative one, and this is wrong. Let us stop fiddling with polls and let us tell it like it is. Let us inform people about the history of their country, because, unfortunately, they do not know it.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but hear what the Liberals are saying about this. During the election campaign in 1993 the Prime Minister said that he was going to revise the Senate. He was going to reform it. The Prime Minister said, and I know this almost by heart, “Within two years of forming a government we will have an elected Senate”. Then he went on to say, and I have memorized this, “As Prime Minister I can make that happen”. It is a broken promise.

I want to respond to the member from Winnipeg who said that Reformers were against the Charlottetown accord, which shows somehow that we have waffled on it. The answer is no. We have many reasons to be against the Charlottetown accord and the one little carrot it gave us regarding the Senate was not one of those reasons. If that was all there was in the Charlottetown accord, of course we would have supported it.

The Senate that was proposed was not equal and its election would have been by the provinces. It was not to be by the people of the province, it was to be by the legislatures of the province, if they so chose. So it was not a truly elected Senate, nor was it an equal Senate. Furthermore, there were a number of inequities in the accord.

I think the real reason this government wants to keep the Senate is for a haven for its buddies when it wants to give them a bit of a reward. That is the way it looks. That is the perception of many people. I strongly think that we have to revise it. We have to redesign the way the Senate is selected.

Why not? I have no problem with the fact that I am elected and accountable to the people of Elk Island. If my constituents do not like what I am saying or what I am doing, they can get rid of me. In fact, with a Reform government, they would not have to wait until an election because we are in favour of more democratic control by the people. We say that our constituents could recall us between elections if they were really offended by what we were doing.

But with senators Canadians can never do anything. Senators are appointed by someone else. Canadians do not have any say in who gets appointed and there is never any accountability. There is no reason in the world for a senator to pay attention.

We certainly have that example right now in a senator from Alberta who is totally misrepresenting what the people of Alberta believe and want. At the same time this senator is collecting his salary he is working full time as the election campaign manager for the Conservatives. He is their Alberta campaign manager and he gets a full Senate salary while he is doing that. Our people find that offensive. There is no way we can ever get rid of him because he is appointed for life.

Mr. Speaker, I think my time is up. I could speak a long time on this subject. I am certainly not finished, but I am going to stop.

[Bill Gilmour, Reform, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as is often the case, the Liberals missed much of the point of my bill. They were talking about a triple E Senate. I was talking about one of the Es of a triple E Senate, the elected part. That is the part that can be done today without any constitutional change.

I was amazed at the Conservative member who said that it cannot be done without a constitutional change. It has been done. It was done with Stan Waters. It is doable. But for the Liberals, basically, it is all or nothing. We have seen the nothing part. We have seen the nothing part for basically 100 years from consecutive governments on that side of the House.

My bill addresses only the elected part. It means that senators would be elected and accountable to the people who sent them there, instead of the political party that sent them there.

It does not fix all of the problems. As the member from the NDP said, most Canadians would rather get a stick in the eye than have constitutional change. I understand that. Canadians are not ready for constitutional change. I agree with that. But this part, the elected part, could be done today.

Let us fix it in short bursts, rather than wait to do it all at once. We have seen that it was not done by the accord, and it will not be done by this government. Let us do it in bits and pieces and fix it, so we are crawling before we move. Fix it bit by bit, but at least we should have some political will in this House to attempt to fix it, rather than the rhetoric that we have been hearing from members across the floor. The bottom line is, they do nothing.

I believe my bill is doable. It has been proven to be doable by elections already held in Alberta. I would suggest that we move forward.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would ask for unanimous consent that my bill be deemed votable.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.