As my colleague said, this is strictly a one-man show.
This bill is designed to manoeuvre, manipulate and move toward constitutional change without doing it properly under the Constitution that was passed several decades ago.
We all know the Prime Minister likes to operate, as I said earlier, in a presidential style. We know he likes the system south of the border much better than this system. However, the system south of the border, in terms of its congress and senate, has checks and balances that our chambers do not have. If we are going to make those kind of changes and go in that direction, then we should do it all inclusively.
If the Prime Minister wants to go down that road and make the kind of changes that we know he is thinking about, then he should have the courage to put forward an all encompassing package that proposes the changes and sets in place the processes necessary to do it in a well-debated and well-balanced way.
I am very concerned about the process that the Prime Minister follows on a number of fronts but I will get to those a bit later.
I must point out that instead of saying what this bill would or would not do for democracy and in getting a more effective Senate, government members just attack the integrity of the Senate and follow the negative perceptions that are out there. I believe they do so in order to build and expand on those negative perceptions.
In a former life I was a farm leader and I had the opportunity to make quite a number of presentations before both the Senate and the House of Commons. From my perspective, the Senate usually did a more thorough job because partisanship was not at play. No political games were being played. The Senate does in fact do good work.
The parliamentary secretary who just spoke mentioned a Senate study that he is currently reading. I have a number of studies here that the Senate has done but one that is well worth reading, entitled, “Understanding Freefall: The Challenge of the Rural Poor”, was done by the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
We all know the work the defence committee has done in terms of security at our borders. It is unlikely that same kind of report would have been done in the Commons because the Prime Minister would not allow his members to speak negatively about some of the things that could be happening at the border. However, the Senate is not afraid of doing that and it takes those kinds of positions.
In his remarks on April 20th, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform said:
This bill follows through on the promise made to the people of Canada in the Speech from the Throne to “explore means to ensure that the Senate better reflects both the democratic values of Canadians and the needs of Canada's regions”. More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy.
The House leader never went on to prove his point. He never elaborated in terms of how this would strengthen democratic values and meet the needs of the regions. In fact, it does nothing of the sort.
He went on at great lengths to talk about the importance of the vote, and I agree with him, but a vote must also mean something. However, in the way that Bill C-43 is written, a vote does not necessarily mean much at all. It is non-binding on the Prime Minister. It is piecemeal in terms of its approach. It does nothing to reflect democratic values or to enhance Canada's regions any more than is already the case with appointments.
I want to go back to the member's second point because I want to make a last line in the quote by the House leader. He said:
More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy.
Absolutely nothing is further from the truth. This bill does not strengthen the pillars of our democracy. In fact, it is a manipulation by the Prime Minister in trying to get around the Constitution. That is not strengthening our democracy. That is undermining our democratic values.
If anything, the Prime Minister should absolutely follow the Constitution and do the process in the proper form and in the proper way. The Prime Minister is attempting to get around the Constitution without really going through that necessary process to make constitutional change. In other words, the very process that the Prime Minister has chosen is against the foundation of our democracy, our Constitution.
I want to quote what the Library of Parliament had to say on the proper process. It says:
In 1982, the Constitution of Canada was patriated. It is now expressly provided by section 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982 that an amendment to the method of selecting senators must be agreed on by the Senate, the House of Commons and at least two-thirds of the provinces that have at least 50% of the population of all provinces.
That is the proper process.
The Library of Parliament goes on to say:
At present, members of the Senate are appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.
It then talks about the premise of Bill C-43 and states:
The premise of Bill C-43 is that it does not, as such, amend the method of selecting senators and therefore does not require a constitutional amendment.
I will admit that is what the Library said. The Library goes on to say:
Instead, it establishes a list of selected nominees that reflects electors’ preferences.
What that really means is that the Prime Minister is making the change in a kind of a sneaky way. He is manipulating people, which is what he typically does. I will get to a better example later.
I want to mention one other thing because quite a number of people talked about the day of the vote, polling day. Many have said that it will not cost more because it will be done the same day as a general election, federally or provincially.
Let us think about that for a minute and look back throughout history. When Mr. Mulroney was prime minister there were quite a number of Liberals in the Senate. It balanced the power of this place. When Prime Minister Chrétien was first elected there were more Conservatives in the Senate and it balanced the power of this place again.
However, if there is an election and there is a sweep politically then we do not have that safeguard in the Senate. We no longer have that sober second thought because everybody will be taken. We all know that sometimes happens in elections. We are politicians. We saw it in 1993. If that sweep would have happened in 1993 with a Senate election, we would not have a Senate to give that sober second thought that is direly needed when some legislation is passed in this place.
Let me sum up a few more points on the bill as they relate to what I would call our constitutional avoidance Prime Minister. We believe in the Liberal Party on this side of the House in democratic reform, but the bill is not democratic reform. It allows Senate nominees to be elected but does not make the elections binding. This could lead to potentially wasteful elections that the Prime Minister could ignore at will.
I see some members looking surprised that the Prime Minister might ignore it. I do not think there was a prime minister ever in Canadian history who has broken as many promises at this one did, everything in terms of no appointments to the Senate, a senator sitting over there in the Senate not able to answer questions, his position on income trusts, his promise on the Canadian Wheat Board but not really having the authority to make that promise but still manipulated it to get his way, and the list goes on too long for me to elaborate.
The bill also ignores provincial and regional equity, weakening the voices of the provinces such as British Columbia and Alberta that currently have fewer senators than their population warrants.
The initiative will increase partisanship in the Senate and aggravate the problem of potential deadlock between the two houses of Parliament. As so often the case with this government no meaningful consultations were held with the provinces or Canadians. In fact, Ontario and Quebec are among those who have already spoken out against the idea of piecemeal Senate reform.
Senate reform should not be piecemeal. It must considered as a package: the critical issues of selection, process and term, mandate and fair distribution. Simply put, the Senate election bill tries to skirt around the Constitution and haphazardly elect senators while still doing nothing to improve the representation of British Columbia and Alberta in Canada's Senate. It also fails to provide any kind of dispute mechanism should there be a deadlock between the House of Commons and the Senate.
I want to come back to process. At the end of the day, the tactic of the Prime Minister is a process that implies democracy but really is anything but. No better example is the undemocratic process that the Prime Minister managed to follow on the Canadian Wheat Board file.
Let me make a point in terms of what the Prime Minister considers democratic. He initiated his constitutional process by organizing a secret meeting in Saskatoon on July 25, 2006, to which only declared anti-Wheat Board individuals--