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 It is an eloquent example of how outdated and obsolete some institutions are.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.