Mr. Speaker, we have already gone through quite a few of the details of this technical bill and I think most people watching, unless they are in the banking business or are dealing in the buying and selling of depository bills and notes and so on, are going to find this a dry and dusty debate.
I want to point out one thing about this bill that makes me a reluctant convert to agree to it. I do not claim any expertise, but the contents look pretty straightforward. They remove the requirements for actual physical transactions under the depository notes and bills. In other words, we can go electronic as we are heading into the 21st century and all that.
The number of this bill is S-9. S stands for Senate, Senate-9. There are other words that start with S that could also perhaps describe the Senate.
The reason I am not totally happy with this bill is that it originated in the Senate. The Senate has this privilege, but it is interesting that increasingly the government chooses to use the Senate to start the debate on these bills. It is happy to do so because the official opposition is not present in the Senate.
The Senate is filled with good, loyal, elderly statesmen, shall we say, who thrive on protocol, alcohol and geritol and are able in their collective wisdom to give so-called sober second thought. The problem is that this bill is not going there for sober second thought. It went there for the semi-sober first look.
The difficulty that many of us in the House of Commons have with that, all of us on the opposition side, is that commonly bills should originate in the House of Commons. They should go through first and second reading. They should go to committee. They should come back. They should go through the report stage. They should suffer through the amendments. They should endure the slings and arrows of the opposition.
They should go through the close scrutiny this place provides over a course of weeks usually and then having done all of that, they should then go through the Senate. It should not be that type of Senate, but be that as it may, we are stuck with it for now. Then they should go to the Senate. The Senate should give bills that sober second look and then, having done that, they should go for royal assent and away we go. That is normally the way bills go.
This bill originated in the Senate where there is no opposition. The official opposition is not present in the Senate. It goes through whatever machinations go on through there. I do not even know how the system works in that other place. Then it comes here and we are sort of supposed to rubber stamp it. That is what bothers me about this bill.
We are now up to S-9. I do not think we had nine in the entire last parliament and now we are up to nine bills already originating from the Senate. The Senate gets the first crack at it. It gets the first amendments. It does the hearings. It does whatever it is going to do to it all without the official opposition. At the end of it, it is just handed to us and we are expected to get out the rubber stamp, flop the approved sign on it, off to the GG it goes and Bob's your uncle.
Unfortunately we are not able to do that in that proper order. That is why this bill is less ideal than it could be. The government should bring legislation into the House of Commons. That is the proper way to do it. It should be dealt with by all parties in this place because this is a representative place of the Canadian mosaic. This represents people who support the government, people who oppose the government, a diverse group of ideas. No one has the monopoly on the truth, but at least you get a little exchange of ideas here. It goes to committee, the same thing, and so on.
But when it originates in the Senate, the process is wrong. It is skewed. It is wrong. The other place gets legitimacy that it does not deserve. Although I will vote in favour of this bill because the contents seem in order and I believe it will help to modernize our banking industry, the process is wrong. It is flawed.
In that sense the government is thumbing its nose at Canadians, saying it does not matter that we voted in members of the government, members of the opposition. We are just going to bypass that process and go directly to the Senate. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Just live with it. That should get them a go to jail card. The big halt should be put on it right there because the process is flawed.
I wanted to talk about the number of the bill, Bill S-9. Every time the government starts a bill in the Senate I will speak against it for that reason alone. That place does not deserve to have the first crack at it. It deserves to be here with us who are elected and not with those who are appointed.
I will support the bill, but I will oppose where it originated.