Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate to support the amendment moved by the member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. Under the proposed electoral reform, the Senate, that group of wise individuals who represent the financial interests of Canada's economic elite more than they represent the Canadian people, is to be consulted.
I think that these people, who are not elected, should not impose their view of how members of this chamber should be elected. This would give them a power and authority that they do not legitimately have because they are not elected.
Nor can I let pass without comment the views of the Canadian Alliance member who is all for what was described in the Charlottetown accord as a triple-e Senate: elected, effective, and I forget what the third e stands for.
I would like the member to give this some thought. The Bloc Quebecois is saying that the Senate should be abolished; it no longer has a role to play. The Senate had a purpose in the time of Caesar in ancient Rome. But I ask the member who is waxing on about the beauty and grandeur of an elected Senate what happens when an elected Senate opposes a policy of the governing party.
We have experience of this in Quebec. At one point there was an independence party in power in Quebec and 75 federalist MPs representing Quebec in Ottawa. The federalist MPs said “We represent the views of Quebecers just as well as MNAs do”. What happens when an elected Senate tells the elected representatives of this House “We represent the Albertans who elected us just as well as the Canadian Alliance, 23 of whose 26 candidates were elected. We are just as legitimate as the Alliance”?
This is where things get tough and complicated when a second elected House wants to have its authority recognized and sometimes claims to have greater authority than the elected members of this House. Instead of solving the problem we are inviting squabbles between elected members in both houses.
We used to have that situation in Quebec. This is nothing new. Until 1965 when it was abolished, we had a second chamber called the executive council. Nobody in Quebec has ever asked for the reinstatement of this provincial institution. It has never been said in print or elsewhere that this was a great loss for democracy or for the Quebec people. For all intents and purposes, this assembly of unelected members did not represent in any way the day to day interests of the public.
Now that my distinguished colleague of the Alliance who spoke so highly of the triple-e Senate has finished his discussion with his colleague, I would ask him to think this over. He said that in Alberta his party won 23 seats out of 26. If we had an elected Senate, senators elected in Alberta would be able to work against the elected Alliance members of Alberta. We would end up with the same kind of situation we had with Trudeau. He was a member from Quebec in Ottawa and he said that he represented Quebecers as well as the Quebec government did. He even said we were a tribe and many other things besides.
Members can see the dichotomy this created within the population of Quebec between the federalists and the sovereignists. At this point there would be a similar split between the Alliance partisans and the Senate partisans, if we can put it that way.
The position of the Bloc Quebecois is to abolish this outmoded institution which dates, as I said, from ancient Rome before the time of Caesar. It is very costly, adds little and defends little or rather does not represent the day to day interests of the public. These are people who are, more often than not, being compensated for services rendered.
I agree with the member who said that in the United States a person has to be elected to become a senator. In Canada, a person has to be defeated. A person must have run in a riding during an election, lost or been rejected or revoked by the public. This is the way to become a senator. This is the history of the Senate in Canada.
Most of those who sit in the Senate are being thanked. It is a way of recognizing service which, at times, has nothing to do with the administration of a country. It is pure and simple recognition for support, a hand up, a kind word with respect to the Prime Minister during an election, for example, or an attempt to influence the public during a vote which is compensated by an appointment to the Senate.
For example, there are appointments in other areas. I learned that my adversary in 1993, the person running against me in Chambly, is now the president of the Canada Post Corporation. I am delighted at his appointment as, he is a competent individual. This is perhaps not the usual way to get this sort of job, but luck arranges many things. The current president of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is, in my opinion, a competent individual, and I am delighted at his appointment.
However, I know lots of others who had absolutely not one ounce of administrative ability or anything else. As a reward for running or for getting absolutely slaughtered in the polls—because they knew in advance that there was no hope of victory in a given riding—they were told “Run, and you will get your reward”. Depending, I presume, on people's qualifications, they ended up at various levels of government bodies or agencies or crown corporations. Some of them are here on the Hill in ministers' offices when their only qualifications are to have been a defeated candidate.
We are saying that this change to the Elections Act, is necessary. The chief electoral officer, a neutral citizen, must be given authority. Until now his neutrality in performing his duties has never been questioned. The Elections Act contains many shortcomings.
All members here are elected. As the hon. member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans has said, no one has ever been elected to this place after campaigning at gun point in his or her riding. We are all representatives of the people, democratically elected and entitled to hold a seat in this place, even if this does not always suit those who are seated on the opposite side of the floor. The opposition has a right to be here under our parliamentary system and it plays an important role.
In my opinion, there are many things that need changing. Surely electronic voting will be one of those changes. The bill permits electronic voting to be used, but there are some other points that are questionable. For instance, for the owner of a nursing home to be able to vote for all his residents is somewhat undemocratic, in my opinion.
Thought should perhaps be given to having a voter's card because there is too much of this kind of substitution. There are people who vote eight, ten, twelve, fifteen times on the same voting day. Unfortunately the legislation governing the last election was new as well. It had been substantially amended and instead of improving matters it made them worse.
In the future, I hope that electronic voting or some other process will bring about an improvement instead of the opposite.