Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to the private member's motion put forward by the member for Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam. I commend him on the motion. It is important for us to debate issues of such importance here in the House. This is part of an institutional reform debate that I think we ought to be having more frequently.
As many of us reflect on our views of parliament and what we expected from parliament prior to being elected, I think most of us thought we were coming to a place where this would be the kind of issue we would sink our teeth into, debate, constructively propose ideas and then arrive at solutions for some of the problems facing Canadians.
Instead, sometimes we find we are put on a treadmill once we arrive in Ottawa, fed parliamentary gainsburger and kept busy so as not to offend the sensibilities of the Prime Minister's office and the cabinet. I am not saying that specifically as a representative of the opposition, but these are comments that frequently reflect the views of members opposite who are sitting in the backbenches and not regularly consulted.
I enjoyed the comments of the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle as to the need for a more holistic approach to institutional reform and to address the secular decline in the role of a private member that has occurred over the last 30 years. I think that is absolutely essential.
On the issue of an elected Senate, when I look at the qualities of some of our senators and at some of the very positive work that is done in our senate, particularly at the committee level, I think the committee that most closely reflects my activities on the House of Commons finance committee would be the Senate banking committee. I would have to say that in many cases, and perhaps the public is not as aware of this as it might be, we have a very effective Senate and some very effective Senate committees.
Some of our Senate committees have a depth and breadth of experience that would be impossible to duplicate here in the House for a number of reasons. I would not go as far as to say that sometimes the qualities required to develop public policy are mutually exclusive with those required to be elected but, that being the case, there are many people in our Senate who take their jobs very seriously, who work extremely effectively and who can draw on a level of experience that does not necessarily exist in the House and who might not be compelled to run as elected representatives.
Of course my party and former Prime Minister Mulroney appointed Stan Waters as an elected senator from Alberta, so there is a history to this. However that was an ad hoc appointment and the member is suggesting something much more significant.
One challenge or an unintended consequence that I think the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle alluded to is that currently, in terms of constructive opposition to government legislation, the Senate is actually more effective at this particular juncture than is the House of Commons opposition in many ways.
If we look at the House, it is not our fault specifically and there has been a decline of the role of the private member over the last 30 years, but we do not give adequate scrutiny to legislation in the House. The government railroads legislation through the House. We do not even give adequate scrutiny of spending.
There was a time when estimates were debated on the floor of the House of Commons. Now it is a perfunctory approach to the estimates. They are introduced and there is a tiny bit of discussion but there is very little substantive debate. There was a time when ministers, par for the course, had to defend their estimates on the floor of the House of Commons and that was the regular practice.
My concern is that if we were to move toward an elected Senate without fundamentally changing and reversing some of the decisions made over the last 30 years in terms of the role of private members in the House, we would actually be strengthening what Jeffrey Simpson referred to as the friendly dictatorship.
In some ways, we could have an elected body in the Senate that actually would be elected along the same lines and could reflect essentially the same numbers as would be in the House and the Prime Minister would ultimately have even less opposition than what exists currently.
With time allocation, the government, the Prime Minister's Office and, to a certain extent, the Cabinet continues to railroad legislation and initiatives through the House. If we look at the recent anti-terrorism legislation, the most effective and most constructive opposition to that legislation, I believe, came from the Senate. We have the minister today agreeing to I think 100 amendments. I do not think that level of compromise emanated from the House of Commons as much as it did from constructive opposition in the Senate.
I would argue that since 1993 the Senate has acted, in many ways, more effectively and, not through the fault of any party or any individual in the opposition based on institutional memory, there were some skills that were inherent in the experience of those in the Senate that were drawn on that actually provided very effective opposition during that period.
Ministers are more easily compelled to go to Senate committees than they are to House committees. When they go to those Senate committees, I would argue that in many ways they are grilled more comprehensively than they are at House committees.
Those are some of the issues that I think we need to address. However I am sure the hon. member would not want to see a greater of level of power transferred as a result of this, and through some unintended consequence, to the Prime Minister's Office and to cabinet.
That being the case, we have supported, in fact on our last platform, studying and moving toward an elected Senate. It makes a great deal of sense in the context of overall institutional reform and reversing many of the changes that have occurred over the past 30 years which have reduced the role of the private member in the House. To move toward an elected Senate without making those changes would be a very serious mistake.
Further to that, we also have to give thought as to the length of terms. In some ways, one of the benefits we have in terms of an appointed Senate is that many issues I believe are dealt with in a more long term way by senators, where they have a greater respect for the long term public policy implications when they are not focused necessarily on elections in three years and on public opinion.
We have seen such a movement toward poll based public policy in this country and elsewhere in democracies. Sometimes when we base our decisions on short term polls as opposed to long term impact of public policy initiatives we are very badly served.
If we were to move toward an elected Senate, I would posit that we should seriously consider eight year or six year terms or terms that would be of greater length than those of the House and would provide an opportunity for a more Burkean approach to some of the issues. I am sure the hon. member, based on our previous discussions, would support that.
If we were to not move in that direction, I would be afraid that we would have an upper chamber with many of the same faults that have evolved in our lower chamber which have emanated from a power hungry PMO and an all too malleable cabinet. I think we have to approach this in the very long term.
I have a document in front of me entitled “A Legislative and Historical Overview of the Senate of Canada”, October 1993. It is a summary in point form of some of the issues and some of the contributions of our upper chamber.
I am certain that the hon. member would not want to leave Canadians with the wrong idea that our upper house has not been working actively to provide sound and constructive opposition to the government during the last seven or eight years. He would probably agree with me that the Senate has played a very vital role with a divided opposition over the last several years in terms of holding the government's collective feet to the fire during these confusing political times.