Mr. Speaker, It is my honour to weigh in on this debate. It is a critical debate and it is an issue which, quite frankly, Canadians have been waiting for Parliament to get on top of and deal with for some time. In fact, I have heard members speak of how Senate reform has been contemplated for some three decades with various efforts being thwarted, for lack of a better word.
This bill makes great strides in the right direction. We have to go back to why this bill has been reintroduced and what the government is ultimately trying to do. This is another example of a government doing what it said it would do.
Let us go back to the throne speech, which was democratically passed by the members of this House, and look at what the throne speech said. I would like to remind hon. members that they did vote in favour of it. The throne speech said:
Canadians understand that the federation is only as strong as the democratic institutions that underpin it. Our Government believes that Canada is not well served by the Senate in its current form. To ensure that our institutions reflect our shared commitment to democracy, our Government will continue its agenda of democratic reform by reintroducing important pieces of legislation from the last session, including direct consultations with voters on the selection of Senators and limitations on their tenure.
What the government said in October is exactly what the government is saying today in this bill. We are saying that Canadians should be consulted on who represents them. I heard the hon. member for Crowfoot a few minutes ago talk about how the constituents in his riding could not name the senators who represent them. I find that remarkable. In fact I find it sad that in a modern democracy such as Canada people do not know who their representatives are.
I would hazard a guess that virtually none of my constituents could name who represents Ontario in the Senate. However, I also would hazard a guess that close to 90% of the constituents in my riding know who their member of Parliament is, because I work for them each and every day, and they know that.
These constituents deserve to be represented in the Senate. They deserve to be democratically represented in the Senate. That is what this bill proposes. It does not propose constitutional reform that would enter the country into a debate that we certainly do not need to go into right now. What this bill provides is a mechanism for the governor in council to seek the views of electors in a province about appointments to the Senate for that province.
The bill also proposes strict rules of accountability for the Senate nominees. It creates a framework for governing the actions of political parties and spending by third parties. It establishes rules for the single transferrable vote and defines the roles and responsibilities of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, who will be responsible for administering the consultation.
I cannot understand why anyone in this House would be opposed.
I understand that the Liberal Party is opposed on the basis that it would prefer that the Senate continue to be a house of cronyism and partisanship. It is how it looks after its political friends and allies, the bagmen that deliver the money, but our party does not believe that is the way the Senate should work. We believe the Senate can play a crucial role in Canada's democracy, but not in its current form, not as long as Canadians are not represented democratically in the Senate.
I am sympathetic to what the NDP has to say about the Senate. The New Democrats say that the Senate has existed for years, that this is the way it has operated, that they do not agree with it and they feel that the Senate should simply be abolished.
Our party has taken a different position. We have said that the Senate must change. It must become democratic. It must become more modern in the way it functions, or it must be abolished. We are not prepared to accept the status quo any longer.
Maybe the Liberal Party would like to go to Canadians and put forward its position that the status quo on the Senate is acceptable, but I do not believe anybody in my riding believes the status quo on the Senate is acceptable any longer.
We can see example after example of bills that have been sent to the Senate, bills on which the people of Canada have weighed in and have provided their opinions. They have put their weight behind bills that the government has brought forward. What has the Senate ultimately done with them? It has delayed and obstructed. Why? Because it does not take its direction from the people.
Senators take their direction from the political party or the leaders that appointed them. That is not right. That is not acceptable. The Senate is supposed to represent the various regions of the country. The House of Commons is supposed to represent approximately by population the various populations of the country. There is supposed to be representation by population in the House, and while I would argue that we need to make a bit of progress on that, I think that largely that is true of the House of Commons.
The Senate is supposed to represent regional interests. It is there to represent the various regions of Canada. It is not supposed to be the place for political bagmen, for the people who are owed favours and for pure partisanship, but that is the way it exists today.
I hear a number of my Liberal colleagues piping up with comments. I know they like the status quo on the Senate. Perhaps they have friends they would like to appoint. Maybe they owe some favours to some people who helped them get elected in the various regions. I am not sure, but I will say that the Senate must change.
Again, I can cite all kinds of examples. If we look at the tackling violent crime act and the various measures in it, we will see a bill that has been obstructed for years. Our government has been in place for more than two years. These were measures that we ran on in the election. We introduced these bills. We fought to get the measures in these bills through committee. That has not been easy, because while all the parties ran on an agenda of cracking down on crime, once the Liberals got here they fell back into their old ways of being soft on crime and not really being concerned about tackling crime the way it should be tackled or about restoring balance in the justice system.
However, we did fight to get them through and we did get deals from the various parties to make these bills work. We have sent them to the Senate. All of the witnesses have been heard. We believe the balance of justice is in these bills.
We know what Canadians, in significant numbers, believe. Last night on the news, there was a story about a poll. I watch the news quite often. Last night on the news, there was a story about a poll on dangerous offenders, specifically on the reverse onus portion of the tackling violent crime act and whether Canadians felt that the reverse onus for dangerous offenders was an important measure and something they supported. Seventy-six per cent of respondents said they believe this is necessary and that it needs to be done.
There is also the age of protection bill. A pastor in my riding said to me that he really appreciated the fact that our party has moved on the age of protection legislation, as it is something that they have been supporting for a long time. He said that we need to protect our children from sexual predators. I told him that I appreciated the support, but that we had not been successful in getting it through the Senate yet. He wanted to know what he could do. I told him that the first thing he can do is support us in the democratic reform of the Senate. That is why it is ultimately very important for us to do this.
Senators very often do not speak the same language as our constituents. Senator Carstairs, for example, last week said that she does not support the age of protection bill specifically because 14 year old and 15 year old prostitutes might be afraid to be tested for HIV and STDs and we would force them underground.
Why does she not understand that the point is that we want to protect them? We do not want 14 year olds and 15 year olds being exploited for sex any longer, but that is how the Senate works. Senators do not have to deliver democracy. They do not have to listen to Canadians. If she had a conversation with the church pastor who spoke to me, or with his congregation, would she speak the same way if she had to be democratically elected? I doubt it.
I would also say in regard to the Senate that many senators never leave Ottawa. If they never leave Ottawa, they cannot possibly represent the people of my riding or the people of the various regions in this country, because this area has a beat all its own, one that is not necessarily representative of all Canadians.