Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this issue as it is an issue of great importance for the people of Alberta and for many Canadians. The Conservative Party of Canada is committed to appointing elected senators from any province that holds elections and we think it is time the Liberals made the same commitment.
The question I asked was very specific. I asked:
Will the Prime Minister keep his word to Premier Klein and use his unilateral power to appoint Alberta's elected senators?
Breaking this suggestion down, I asked two things. First, I asked if he would keep his promise to Premier Klein that he would consider appointing a senator from Alberta. Second, I asked if he would use his unilateral power to appoint a senator that Albertans have chosen in an election.
In response, the hon. deputy House leader and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform answered:
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has indicated repeatedly that we are open to reform of the Senate, but we are not going to do it in a piecemeal manner. If we are to reform the Senate, it will be done entirely. For that, we need a consensus, a wide consensus across this country, which is obviously not present at the current time.
The answer I received is deficient on five fronts. First, it came from the Minister responsible for Democratic Reform. The point is, I wanted to hear from the Prime Minister. It simply is not right that he would make a promise and then hide behind the minister when Canadians ask that he keep his promise, but this of course is something we have seen a lot of from the Prime Minister.
Second, the answer did not acknowledge the promise the Prime Minister made to Premier Klein at the Grey Cup meeting last year.
Third, the Prime Minister did not get up to acknowledge that he has the unilateral power to appoint senators, and he did not tell us whether he thought that was a good thing.
Fourth, we hear a lot about the desire of the Prime Minister to reform the Senate, but we do not know how he would like to reform the Senate. We do not know what policy he has regarding how the Senate ought to be reformed. We have not seen any action on Senate reform from the Prime Minister.
So we do not know what he thinks and we do not know what he would do. On this issue, the Prime Minister has been inert. Albertans are now eager to see what he is planning on doing in relation to the Senate. It is time for him to act.
Finally, the minister did not say whether or not he believes in the overall goal of an elected Senate and whether or not Alberta's senators of choice would be, in his mind, fit for an appointment by him to the Senate. I, for one, trust the electorate. I wonder if the Prime Minister does not. If that is so, why not?
I think it goes without saying that the answer was lacking, but I would argue further that the answer was intentionally vague and lacking so that the Prime Minister can hedge, do nothing and keep his back turned to Alberta as long as possible.
Let us think about it. He said that he is for Senate reform but only if we open up the Pandora's box of the Constitution and do it all at once. He is on the record as supporting wholesale Senate reform as far back as 10 years ago.
If we look at our parliamentary history, both here in Canada and in the history our country has inherited from Britain, much of what we do is based upon convention. The laws that we create are more often than not a recognition of what works or what has been working informally versus radical change.
It is in this light that we ask the Prime Minister to appoint Alberta's elected senators to the upper chamber. Let us see if it does work. It seems that we do a somewhat competent job as elected officials in Parliament, so a precedent does exist for him to at least try.
I would therefore suggest that appointing an elected senator is one way for the Prime Minister to prove to others that his apparent dream of an elected Senate could work, but as with much of what the Prime Minister does, most Canadians are starting to see that it is all a bunch of talk, which is really too bad because more and more Canadians are suggesting that they want a voice in the Senate and that the Senate should be elected.
Other provinces have signalled an interest in Senate reform, so this is not an all or nothing issue. And it is not an Alberta versus Ottawa issue. It is an issue about representation and democracy. Yet the Prime Minister is doing nothing when instead he could show some leadership on fixing the democratic deficit.
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