Debates of Feb. 12th, 2008

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard all sorts of things today in the House and all kinds of different views. Ours is very clear and has been since the beginning. Ever since 1993 when the Bloc Québécois first arrived in this House, when I first took my seat here, we have thought that the Senate should be abolished for several reasons.

Even the Conservatives say the Senate is blocking some bills now. The Senate is not elected. Even if this bill should pass, how will senators be elected? The Prime Minister would still have the right to decide that someone does not suit him and therefore could appoint someone else. They would still be doing through the back door what they cannot through the front, that is to say, appointing people for partisan reasons. That is unacceptable.

Some people say that the provinces that are not happy with this and do not want a Senate can just withdraw. That is anti-democratic. I remember the time of the Meech Lake accord. We had to open up the Constitution. All the provinces had to agree with the Meech Lake accord, and if they did not, it was just too bad and the accord fell through. I fail to see why we cannot do the same with the Senate. When we are dealing with something as important as the Senate, the least we can do is open up the Constitution because several provinces—virtually a majority of them—are opposed to the Senate.

I went around my riding and did a little test with my electors to see whether they knew who their senator is—their representative in the Senate, the man or woman who is supposed to be representing them in the other chamber. Nobody knew their senator. Why was that? Because senators have no obligations at all. They sit on boards of directors at head offices and are involved in various corporations, which puts them, of course, in a conflict of interest.

They are never seen out in the field. We are the ones who are out there and we are sitting in the ejection seats. We are not appointed for 25 years. We are here and in every election we must prove that we have done a good job and deserve to be re-elected. That is not true of senators who are there for 20 or 25 years, pulling down salaries in excess of $100,000. This bill will not solve the problem because the upper house will always throw another monkey wrench in the works.

Some people talk about the senators' good work. Well, I'm sorry, but we can do good work right here in the House. Things would go a lot faster if we did not have to send each bill to the other place, where things get bogged down because the Liberal or the Conservative senators have decided that bill x should not be passed. The other place gets the word, then they debate the bill, engage in systematic obstruction, and call the shots. That is unacceptable.

I will read an important motion. This is not a sovereignist motion; it is a federalist one. Members of the National Assembly unanimously adopted the following motion:

That the National Assembly of Québec reaffirm to the Federal Government and to the Parliament of Canada that no modification to the Canadian Senate may be carried out without the consent of the Government of Québec and the National Assembly.

That is an inescapable fact. We would save a lot of money. Right now, our seniors, people without adequate housing, and the homeless are suffering terribly. We would save millions if we eliminated the Senate. Imagine: 105 senators being paid over $100,000 per year.

What exactly do they do? They show up here when they feel like it, but make no appearances in the ridings. We never see them. In 15 years of political life, I have never seen a senator attend an activity or an event in my riding. What do they do? They have a pretty sweet gig: they do whatever they want. That is unacceptable. This bill would not even require senators to do anything.

They are not even required to do anything. They are simply elected for eight years. Eight easy years at $100,000 a year. To do what? Some of them work, it is true, but they are few and far between. I do not know the senators. How is it that I do not know them after 15 years? The reason is that we do not see them, because they do their own thing and come here to Parliament when they feel like it. There was even one senator who got the boot because he was in Florida and had not been in the upper chamber for nearly eight months.

I am sorry, but if I went to Florida for eight months, I would hear about it from my constituents. If I did not do my riding work, if I did not go and see my constituents, if I did not listen to them, if I did not write to them, if I did not communicate with them, I would lose my seat before long. I think this is extremely important. We are much closer to our constituents, and there are enough elected bodies already.

There are the municipalities, the school boards, the Government of Quebec and the federal government. I think we have enough already. These bodies cost voters a great deal of money. We have everything we need. Moreover, some provinces have abolished their upper chamber because it served absolutely no purpose.

I do not see why we should do things any differently here. We are totally opposed to this bill. I do not have to draw you a picture, because we have been saying so for 14 years. I do not see why we should do things any differently here. I do not see why the provinces should be excluded from making this decision. In any case, from what I have heard in this House, most members will vote against this bill. I hope so.

If we want real reform, then we should open the Constitution and hold a debate. I guarantee that Quebec will put its foot down, as it did in the National Assembly, and say that it does not want the Senate. We know how things work. If one province refuses, then there will be no Senate and there will be no changes.

Instead of introducing bills like these, I would prefer to see this House achieve constructive things, that we take care of social housing, the poor and the homeless, that we truly address real issues like the forestry sector, which is collapsing, and the manufacturing sector. That is what is needed. There is plenty of money floating around here. The Senate costs us a fortune. Let us take that money and spend it where it is truly needed, and not on the Senate, which, I repeat, has no obligation to voters, no representation obligations and no obligation even to this House.

Senators do whatever they like in that other place. They block bills on which we have worked here in the House for months, sometimes years. I remember one such bill that was blocked. It was a bill on the environment act, the framework legislation. We had worked on it for two years, redoing it, revising it, rewriting it, making sure it was much more up to date, since it had not been revised in 15 years. The Senate blocked us. They blocked it for nothing. That situation lasted for months, and we do not need that.

I think we are responsible here in this House. We are capable of making our own decisions. We are all elected members, all in responsible political parties. I think the Senate is an ineffective apparatus that we do not need. Thus, it must be understood, we will be voting against this bill.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, a whole bunch of things went through my mind when the member was speaking.

I hesitate to do this because it is not really in my nature to praise Liberals, but I do need to counter one of her statements. She said that she never saw a senator, that he was never in the riding, that he does not work, et cetera. I have an example to counter that.

Even though every member of Parliament from Alberta is a Conservative, every one of them, unfortunately we are represented in the Senate by people from the Liberal Party and the NDP because they are whom the prime minister appointed.

I want to say something about one of the hard-working members from Alberta. His name is Tommy Banks. I see him frequently at functions in the city of Edmonton where my riding is. He appears there. He participates actively in the annual Remembrance Day ceremonies. He conducts music and does many good things there. One day some constituents were here. We went for a walk. I showed them the Senate. This was at about 10 o'clock at night. We went up into the Senate gallery and who was giving a speech? Senator Tommy Banks. I am not campaigning for him, but some of these people do good work and I would say that he is one of them.

The question is, do they have legitimacy having been appointed? I believe that if we gave them the legitimacy of an election, they could do good work and add to the democracy in our country.

Furthermore, I need to say it is just a hard fact that Ontario and Quebec have 60% of Canada's population. They have 60% of the seats in this place and unless we have a counterbalance in the Senate for the outlying regions, everywhere except Ontario and Quebec, we lose the democratic balance in this country in which the views from right across the country are expressed and represented in our houses. We do have to have a Senate. I am quite convinced of that, but I would like to see it as an elected Senate so that it has full legitimacy.

I would like the member's comments on that. I have always enjoyed listening to the member and I look forward to hearing what she says now.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have known my colleague for many years and we have sat on the same committees. I understand his point of view very well. He is lucky to have a senator come to his riding. That is one senator out of 105. I am delighted to hear it. For the past 15 years, I have laid a wreath on Remembrance Day in two areas of my riding and I have never seen a single senator attend the ceremonies.

We find the Senate to be truly useless. In this place, we are able to legislate, to make decisions and to vote on laws. In my opinion, citizens would appreciate us more because we could do the work more quickly. At present, there are so many instances where a bill can take two to three years before coming into force. That makes no sense. We could easily assume our responsibilities, right here, and ensure that our bills move along quickly. We adopt a bill, it goes to committee and witnesses are heard. They do the same thing in the other chamber, with the same people. It is an enormous waste of time.

We should be able to do it ourselves, without the Senate. We should be able to ensure that, as elected members, we do our work properly and that when there are elections, we can prove that we did a good job. The voters would then decide whether or not we deserved to be re-elected. That is not the case of the senators. I am opposed to the Senate.

I know that my colleague works very heard. I worked with him on a committee for many years. I think that we could act much more quickly if we had all these powers here and not in the other chamber, which I believe is useless.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I enter this debate with great pleasure but also with great remorse because of the intellectual dishonesty that is being perpetrated by the government in bringing forward this bill at this time.

There is a reason that I make such harsh judgment of the government. I know it is not easy and there are certain government members who endeavour to provide honourable discourse and dialogue in this place. Yet when looking through the many pages of Bill C-20, Canadians might be left with the impression that the government is actually serious about Senate reform, somehow serious about democratic reform. This goes back to the days of the Reform Party and then the Canadian Alliance and various incarnations in between in speaking to what I believe was a sincere desire among Canadians to see some sort of accountability in all levels of office.

If the rules that were given to the Senate were applied to any other official body in this country, Canadians would be absolutely disgusted. They would be unable to understand why we would allow such an important function of government to run amok and have so few rules guiding its own merit and conduct. The ethics rules are not adhered to. On simply showing up for work, the attendance is abysmal. Before I entered politics I ran a small business. After looking at the attendance records for some senators, they would not have been hired, or if they had been hired, they certainly would have been let go as soon as possible. They simply do not show up and when they do, their effectiveness is found wanting.

Clearly there is much speculation in the media and by the pundits that we are on the eve of another election. There is potentially a series of confidence votes. The Prime Minister for some delusional reason seems interested in going back to the Canadian people for a mandate.

The government is showing its true colours in desiring an election because it is clearing the decks of all those bills. The Conservatives want to show some small significance of effort back to their base, that oh yes, they are engaged in the issue and here is their evidence and proof.

Lo and behold, like a gopher, Bill C-20 has popped up its head and pretends at some sincere effort. The government lost any momentum for discussion of the bill because it chose to prorogue Parliament. It chose to suspend Parliament which essentially killed all of the bills on the order paper that were in progress, such as its own crime bill and other bills, including this bill as well. All of that time was lost and it is more than two years since the last election.

The government introduced this bill, but allowed it to fall into the black hole of prorogation, a process which few Canadians understand. However, the government understood it well, and the desperate need for another throne speech was its excuse. It set the bill back 12 months or more and lost any kind of serious discussion.

The New Democrats are deeply interested at our core of finding a way to fix the fundamentally flawed institution that is known as the Senate in order to allow Canadians some sense that democracy is functioning and that they are getting value for money. There are 14 vacancies in the Senate and we get no sense of urgency whatsoever from the government to fill those vacancies, because ultimately those positions are filled through patronage appointments. That is the way it is done.

The government seeks credibility on this issue. It seeks to tell Canadians it is sincere about Senate reform and having true representation in the Senate. One of its first acts as a new government, having just run a campaign on accountability, was to appoint Michael Fortier from Montreal to the Senate. That was one of the first things the Prime Minister did after having spent not just weeks but months telling Canadians how sensible and accountable his government would be, how it would clean up the corruption of the Liberals. How many times did we hear it in this place from the Prime Minister and other people in his cabinet that they would not follow the record of the Liberals and not give crony patronage appointments, that they would do it differently?

One of the things the Conservatives were thinking of doing was reforming the Senate. Lo and behold, when given the reins of power, the first thing the Prime Minister decided to do was to force upon the people of Montreal a representative they did not choose. He chose to put someone into the Senate in one of the most important cabinet positions, one which controls billions of taxpayer dollars, someone who cannot be held to account in this place.

When that ministry, under his guidance, runs amok and spends money unaccountably or perhaps wrongly, he cannot be called to account. He simply cannot be given that direction and focus from this place. Canadians cannot see him, at least on the evening news, presenting his opinions in a place that was constructed to do just that. These walls were built and these desks were put in this place for that. Canadians imbued Parliament with the power to be accountable over many things. One is the law and another is the use of taxpayer dollars.

Yet the government has chosen to put an unaccountable, unelected person into the cabinet and stick that person in the Senate in order to get around this little annoyance called democracy, this little discomfort, which is that people in just about every urban centre in this country decided not to elect Conservative members. Rather than actually appeal to those voters in any kind of sensible way and present a platform on urban transit strategy or the serious issues affecting Canadians living in cities, the Conservatives decided that the appointment process was just so much easier. It is just so much easier to appoint someone to the Senate and allow that person to occupy one of the most critical positions in cabinet.

In this bill, despite the many pages and the many clauses and amendments, the government is clearly playing at the margins. It is clearly tinkering at the edges, because at the end of the day, through all the sections on voting, discrepancy and penalties, it still remains the purview and the power of only one person in this country, and that is the Prime Minister, to choose whom he or she will allow to go into the Senate.

When we craft laws in this place, we do not craft them for any particular current representation or any current manifestation of government. We seek to create laws that will last throughout governments, that will stand the test of time and be a good representation of sound thinking.

It is wrong for the government to present a bill with the pretense that perhaps this Prime Minister may choose to honour the wishes of some of the voters who are constructing some electoral options in regard to it being a truly accountable forum and in regard to this bill somehow fixing a fundamental problem. Earlier in the discussion in regard to the functioning of the Senate, I called it an old beat-up jalopy that simply will not start. It simply will not function. The government's solution is a new coat of paint and some air in the tires, perhaps with windshield wipers if they are needed.

Sometimes there were debates and moments in history where, for some miraculous, rare spot in time, the Senate actually performed a function. It actually did something admirable in one of the current policy debates, but those moments are so rare that they remind me of a strange phenomenon I was looking up earlier. I was trying to find the actual taxonomic name of a flower in the Amazon. It buds only once every 25 years. It is quite rare. No one really knows when that is going to happen and it is a news item every time. Everyone rushes to the Amazon, the cameras show up, the flower buds and shows itself, and then quickly disappears again for some unknown period of time.

When I deal with my colleagues in the Senate, as admirable as some of them may be, I find that as an institution there is absolutely no lever to pull on. There is no accountability measure. I can recall before the previous government fell that the House of Commons, in the midst of an energy concern regarding seniors on fixed incomes, sought to pass a piece of legislation that would assist low income seniors with their home heating bills. I am sure all my colleagues who were here at that time remember that debate. We all remember how the parties got together in one of those rare moments in Parliament and decided to pass a bill at all stages and allow the bill to pass on to the Senate.

I met with a senator that day on entirely another issue. He told me to go back to my leadership and tell them that the bill, which we could find all party agreement to, had no guarantee whatsoever of getting through his chamber because the Senate had to be accountable. That senator was a Liberal, and of course he had no determinants of influence or bias whatsoever in terms of what was happening here in this place electorally with his elected colleagues, and he guaranteed me that if we rushed to an election too quickly, he assured me that this bill would not go through, and how dare the NDP bring down his Liberal government.

In fact, it was a bluff, of course. The bill passed and the money was received by needy seniors across the country, but the fact, and the point of this illustration, remains, which is that the accountability of that gentleman to represent this narrow, biased and partisan view, rather than the interests of this country and the people who vote for members in this place, shows what is so fundamentally dysfunctional about what it is the Senate has come to represent, which is a minority representation, protecting minority views, those of the powerful and the elite in this country.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley has given the House an eloquent representation of why this bill simply does not address some of the very serious problems with the Senate.

There are two arguments that have been made in the House. One is that this is incremental reform and it is trying to move the Senate in a direction that makes it more accountable to the Canadian public. The second is that it will increase regional representation.

Those of us from British Columbia know how desperately more adequate regional representation is needed. Recently a community trust bill was put forward in regard to the $1 billion going to forestry and manufacturing and we saw how the voices in British Columbia simply were not adequately represented when that bill was developed. British Columbia's forestry industry is a significant part of its GDP, yet because that bill is allocated on a per capita basis, it is not going to deal with some of the serious forestry impacts in British Columbia.

Given the fact that this argument around regional representation simply does not wash in this bill, given the fact that what an elected Senate would do is contribute to more costs to the taxpayer in terms of running elections, given the fact that this was an opportunity for meaningful democratic reform--and perhaps we should have been looking at proportional representation--I want to ask the member what he thinks about the regional representation aspect of this legislation.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan is asking essentially two questions. One is around representation and the other is around value for money.

Since 1993, the Senate has received a 70% pay increase. The cost of the Senate on a yearly basis has been double the cost of inflation for this country. These are expensive folks to keep at the trough. This is not an inexpensive adventure. The government is suggesting that we hold more elections. There is some cost attached to that, although I always am cautious about the cost of democracy in that one moment when Canadians become the most powerful people in the country and cast a vote. There are costs incurred with that.

However, there is a tinkering at the edges in the representation. Most people in Skeena—Bulkley Valley in northwest British Columbia could not name a single senator. Maybe they could name two if they were really lucky. Being so far removed from Ottawa, they often wonder how they have been represented. There was actually representation. A senator did in fact visit our riding, to check on a business proposal in which he was an investor. He also sat on the Senate committee that was going to approve legislation that helped the business proposal get forward.

That was the reason for his visit to my region. It was to check up on his business interests, to understand if there were certain tinkerings with the bill that was before his committee, on which he was meant to be representing the views of all the country, one would imagine, that could aid and assist in his financial endeavours in my region. That was an incredible moment.

What was most interesting to me was that when the senator spoke with me, he was absolutely unabashed by this scenario. On the clear and present conflict of interest that was happening in front of us, he saw no problem with it at all. He did not think he had to recuse himself. He felt it was incumbent upon him to make sure the bill helped his business interests and those associated with him. How ridiculous does this get? This is what the people in my region see and then they wonder why this place is defended so assiduously, particularly by the Liberals, and even in this bill by the Conservatives.

Fundamentally, this bill does not get at the heart of the problem. It does not clear up the ethical gap that exists between what Canadians want and what senators on a daily basis feel is their right and privilege, and that is to defend their own interests rather than the interests of this country.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's comments on our other chamber. I have to say that I understand the member's concerns about some of the issues of accountability and the fact that the NDP still believes the Senate should be abolished, which is not the case with the Liberal Party or, I think, with the Conservative Party. But to criticize the Senate in an unfair way, which is what is happening in this debate, I think is really not becoming of all of us as legislators.

There is valuable work being done in the Senate. The Senate has existed for a very long time. It is in the founding of our Constitution and our federation. If members have an issue with the Senate, they should put it out there, but to attack members of the Senate who actually have been appointed because of the fact that it is part of our Constitution I think also challenges the Constitution and the very foundations of this country.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a riveting debate and there is an enormous number of Liberals here. As for the question or the fundamental that my esteemed colleague talked about, I think that what is fundamentally unbecoming is relying upon an ancient tradition and institution that has seen zero reform in its time and has enormous ethical implications on the work that we do here in this place.

I am seeing this with my own bill. It passed unanimously through the House, but the Senate has seen no urgency whatsoever to deal with it. There is no care or concern whatsoever for a bill that would help protect children from harmful chemicals. There is no concern that the bill will die if they do not take it on with urgency. They have put my bill off for some months. That is not becoming. That is unethical.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-20.

Let me begin with this statement, which members might find familiar: our “federation is only as strong as the democratic institutions that underpin it”. It might be familiar to members because this statement was affirmed by the House when it adopted the government's Speech from the Throne for this sitting of Parliament.

We might not agree on everything in this place. In fact, across the country we disagree on a variety of things related to our political process, but whatever else may divide us, I think we agree that we share a commitment and a loyalty to federalism and to democracy. We have shared loyalties to those things.

As members of the House of Commons, as representatives of Canadians, we are all committed to continuing to strengthen our federation by strengthening our democratic institutions. We can look back at the history of Parliament and see that electoral and institutional reforms aided us as we moved down the pathway of making those federal and democratic reforms.

Because of the efforts of our predecessors in these respects, Canada is a free and democratic society. In fact, we are a model for aspiring democracies the world over. Our federal structure is looked to as a guide for constitution makers and nation builders everywhere.

We have merited this reputation because we have been willing to change. We have aspired to reflect democracy's and federalism's proudest ambitions. As members of the House, we share the responsibility to carry on that proud tradition.

I am proud to represent the beautiful province of British Columbia. From time to time, I speak to people about democratic reform. They might talk to me about proportional representation. They might talk to me about the voting age. They might talk to me about a variety of things, but inevitably what I hear most about is Senate reform. This system that we have today bothers them. We need to respond to that.

The Senate must be reimagined. It must be recreated in the image of a democratic and federal Canada. I believe that our shared commitments to democracy and federalism should lead us all to the conclusion that we need to do something about the Senate.

Maintaining, protecting and promoting the reputation of Canada is a responsibility of Canadian lawmakers. The subject matter of our present debate, the Senate appointment consultations act, gives us an opportunity to fulfill this responsibility.

The extent of reform that is possible is no small undertaking. We could aim for comprehensive reform that will satisfy the full scale of federal and democratic change in the Senate. To do that, though, constitutional change is necessary.

However, short of comprehensive reform, some change can be effected by this present Parliament. I believe it is our responsibility to do what we can now and to hold on to the hope that we can do more in the not too distant future.

I believe the bill before us is a promising legislative initiative. It speaks to both the federal and the democratic ambitions of Canada and seeks to reform the Senate to promote those ambitions.

With this legislative initiative, the opinions of Canadians will be sought on whom the Prime Minister should recommend for appointment to the Senate. That is basically what the bill is all about. With this single act, we can effectuate immediate reform that will answer part of the Senate's democratic and federal deficiencies. To neglect to pursue this opportunity is to fail in our responsibilities as members of the House.

In a democracy, citizens should understand that they are participating in the law-making process and they should have that opportunity. By having the opportunity to choose their representatives, as they do in the House, they engage in that very participation.

In fact, I never lose sight of the fact that I serve here at the pleasure of the people of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission. Citizens have participated in the selection of every member of the House. However, citizens currently have no participatory role in choosing who sits in the Senate.

Given that the powers of the Senate in the law-making process are similar in many respects to the powers of the House, citizens similarly should be participating in the selection of senators. The Senate appointment consultations act would give them that opportunity. To deny Canadians that opportunity is to deny them their proper place in both Houses of Parliament.

In pursuit of Canada's proud democracy, we should support giving Canadians the opportunity to participate in deciding who shall sit in both Houses of Parliament.

Now in days past the decision to divide Parliament into two Houses was made in the light of the federal aspirations of Canada. The House of Commons was designed to reflect proportional representation, or at least mostly so, of all Canadians, whereas the Senate was designed to reflect Canada's regions.

The Senate appointment consultations act proposes not only to give citizens of Canada an opportunity to speak to their preferences on senatorial appointments, it also allows the regions to speak, not just individual citizens. By allowing for consultations per province, the attachment of a senatorial nominee to his or her region will be strengthened.

The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley who spoke previously is right, I think, that most Canadians cannot name very many of the senators who represent their region. He is right about that, even in B.C. where we have a relatively small number of senators, something that also has to be fixed along the way.

I think part of that is due to the fact that we do not have any way of participating in the process. In fact, if we follow this bill and put in place a consultation process, an election by all accounts would give the opportunity for those nominees to better connect with the people in their region. So the relationship between Canada's regions and Canada's senators will be promoted by allowing citizens to have a say in who should represent them.

This may be the most important point of all, senators will owe their allegiance to the region that nominated them and elected them, and not to the Prime Minister or party that appointed them. That is a very important point. I believe this will allow the Senate to regain its constitutional status.

Some will maintain that Senate reform may well be necessary, while the democratic and federalism deficiencies are obvious, and while change is within our grasp, there are other more pressing matters than Senate reform. No doubt the members of this House face many important matters that warrant our attention. We consider them day after day. However, when properly understood, Senate reform should be recognized by all members of Parliament to be a priority.

First, this House committed itself to Senate reform by approving the government Speech from the Throne. This House committed itself during the lifetime of this Parliament to the priorities set out therein. This House has acted on many of those priorities, and now it is time to devote itself to this one.

Second, Senate reform is not a challenge that will be forgotten should we neglect to act now. The Senate is an essential component of Parliament. Unlike the position of the NDP, I believe it has an important role to play. Few actions of this House and no bill passed by this House may proceed without Senate approval.

It reflects poorly on this House that we have had for so long the possibility of correcting the democratic deficits of the Upper House and have failed to do so. Yet, we now have more than the mere possibility of acting, we now have the opportunity to act. A bill is before us and it would be to ignore our responsibility not to stand behind this legislative initiative.

Third, the call for Senate reform has been expressed both democratically and in each one of Canada's regions. Canadians, when polled, have responded enthusiastically to the proposals for Senate reform put forward by the government, including this bill, the Senate appointment consultations act. In a federal democratic state like Canada, when the democratic expressions of citizens throughout the regions affirm a legislative initiative, that should be the guide by which Parliament should act.

These are all reasons that encourage the members of this House to stand in favour of the Senate appointment consultations act. As for me, I will be proud to tell my constituents that I have fulfilled my responsibility to them as their representative in Parliament. I will be proud to tell them that when given the opportunity to support a measure that would further Canada's democratic and federal ambitions, a measure that enjoys decisive, regional and popular support, I voted in favour. I encourage all members to do the same.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the chance to speak to this bill entitled An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate.

From the outset I would like to say that we are against referring this bill to committee before second reading. In fact, we are against the very principle of the bill, and we believe that no amendment in committee could make it acceptable.

I would add that a lot of hypocrisy surrounds the tabling of this bill. To support that claim, consider that the Senate currently consists of 61 Liberals, 24 Conservatives and 4 independents. I say it is hypocritical because the current government is very uncomfortable with the Senate and the people in it. It is also uncomfortable with the work done by the Senate.

We are against this bill because we think that Canadian institutions cannot be reformed. Just look at the Meech and Charlottetown accords. Twice Canada has rejected the aspirations of Quebec.

Furthermore, the Bloc Québécois was born in 1990, as hon. members will remember, precisely because Canada could not be reformed. Even the Harper government admits that Canada cannot be reformed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. We do not use the surname of an hon. member in the House. Please refer to him by title or riding.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, excuse me.

So I will say that even the Conservative government admits that Canada cannot be reformed. It is trying to reform the Senate piecemeal. It is trying to take things away from the Senate piecemeal, rather than by a constitutional amendment. To the Bloc, it is obvious: it is impossible to amend the Constitution in any meaningful way.

Attempts have been made to reform the Senate on numerous occasions, but nothing has ever resulted. History is repeating itself. You are quite young, Mr. Speaker. We who are a little older have read widely. If we look back a few years, we see that attempts have been made to reform the Senate on numerous occasions. Senator Serge Joyal, who is still living, has written a book about Senate reform. In that book, he listed 26 proposals for Senate reform, in only the last 30 years. So the problem of Senate reform is not a recent one. We assume that we may again find that we have to say it is not possible to do it.

In the opinion of the Bloc Québécois, the Senate is a useless institution. Originally, in addition to being the Chamber for sober second thought about bills, the Senate was also supposed to protect regional interests. Clearly equal representation of the regions in the Senate should, in theory, provide a counterbalance to representation in the Commons.

What we see at present is that party affiliation has got the better of regional representation, thereby nullifying the very objectives of that Chamber, which instead tends to replicate what goes on in the House of Commons. It is as if the Senate has become a second House of Commons.

The indirect election of senators would not improve this situation, in the Bloc’s opinion. On the contrary, the electoral process tends to strengthen the role of political parties, to the point that indirectly elected senators would likely be more concerned about the interests of their party than about those of their region.

How can this government justify preserving a Senate that would have responsibilities similar to those of the House of Commons, of the parliamentarians who sit in this Chamber? This would create duplication and would cost an estimated $81 million. If we elect senators and they have the same powers as the members of this House, we are going to be creating duplication that will cost a great deal in public funds.

Term limits for senators and indirect elections of senators do not make the Senate more democratic. Under the bill that has been presented to us, in our opinion, it would be virtually impossible to unseat senators. The public consultation is not binding on the Prime Minister.

As well, electors are not all equal before the Senate. And eligibility for the position of senator is not open to everyone, again under the bill. An indirectly elected Senate would undermine the existing parliamentary system in the event of a deadlock between the two chambers. And lastly, the senators have the power to oppose measures enacted by the House of Commons, which is elected.

Do you see all of the hypocrisy in this? I would add to this that by strengthening the legitimacy of the federal Senate, Stephen Harper is trying to infringe the authority of the provincial premiers. And we know that the provincial premiers have—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Once again, the hon. member must name the member's riding or title, and not the member's name.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I must be very drawn to the current Prime Minister, since I keep referring to him by name.

By further legitimizing the federal Senate, this government wants to undermine the authority of provincial premiers. This Prime Minister is marginalizing the Quebec nation by creating an elected Senate. Under the pretext of an orthodox reform of federalism, this Conservative government is proposing shattering the balance of the federation.

In Australia and the United States, having an elected senate has enhanced the legitimacy of the federal government and has nationalized public life rather than serve the representation of the federated states within federal institutions. To be heard in Congress, the American states have been reduced to being lobbyists. Senators elected to represent an entire province would overshadow the authority of the provincial premiers and run the risk of supplanting them as regional representatives.

Quebec has always asked that the Senate be abolished for the simple reason that it wants, above all, to have powers of its own. This is what Robert Bourassa and Gil Rémillard asked for through constitutional laws at the time of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. It was never accepted. A constitutional amendment was never possible for Quebec. This time, since this Prime Minister is incapable of making a constitutional amendment for the senators, he is asking that we gradually strip away their mandate and eligibility.

We are definitely against the Senate. Clearly, we are against the very principle of the bill. No amendment could make it more constitutional, equal or legitimate for us.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's remarks and I see great logic in her arguments. That it exactly the position of the Bloc Québécois.

However, I heard a Conservative member say this morning that the Bloc wanted to see the Senate abolished because there would be fewer federalists representing Quebec in Ottawa. He added that that was the reason why the Conservatives wanted to make changes and, through Bill C-20reform the Senate.

I would like my colleague to tell me if there is a consensus in Quebec with regard to the potential abolition of the Senate—which some of us hope for.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

There is no consensus as such on the idea of totally abolishing the Senate. It is not a top priority. However, the Bloc Québécois has noticed that the minimum condition set by successive governments in Quebec on Senate reform has always been clear: there will be no Senate reform without first settling the question of Quebec's status.

I mentioned earlier that in 1989 Robert Bourassa said that he did not wish to discuss Senate reform before the Meech Lake accord was ratified. In 1992, Gil Rémillard said that Quebec's signing of an agreement on Senate reform would depend on the outcome of negotiations on the concept of a distinct society, the division of powers and the federal spending power.

Finally, with Bill C-20, the government is proceeding with piecemeal reform of the Senate without satisfying the minimum conditions stipulated by Quebec.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for her eloquent speech. I learned a lot from listening to it.

My question is theoretical because I share my party's reservations about this bill. Theoretically, an elected Senate would mean more elected representatives from Quebec in Ottawa. Perhaps some Bloc senators might even be elected. It could happen; it happened in the House of Commons.

Is the member against the idea of increasing the number of elected representatives from Quebec in Ottawa, and perhaps even increasing the number of Bloc members elected in Quebec?

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question, which I find very funny.

First, I hope that there will never be any Bloc Québécois senators in Ottawa. There should not be, because the Bloc Québécois is not here to occupy seats in the Senate. It is here to stand up for Quebeckers' interests.

Second, nowhere in the law or the bill that has been introduced does it say that there would be more elected senators from Quebec and Ontario.

Third, this bill was introduced because the current makeup of the Senate is making things difficult for the current government. The government is doing everything it can to discredit the Senate. I happen to think that those people work very hard. Nevertheless, we in Quebec do not want to get involved in Senate reform because we do not believe in a second, upper house. Not only is this a historical fact—as I said earlier when I talked about Gil Rémillard and Robert Bourassa—but Quebec has always wanted to be recognized and has always wanted provincial governments to have certain privileges. Governments of the other provinces will want exactly the same thing.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak about Bill C-20.

Electoral reform is something that I hear about often from my constituents in Leeds—Grenville. Always at the top of their list is what we are going to do about the Senate. I would like to take this opportunity to give a bit of the history of discussions about changing the Senate in our country.

First, dissatisfaction with the Senate as produced for us by the Fathers of Confederation--the Senate being something which they spent more time talking about than any other subject at the conferences leading up to Confederation in 1867--began almost immediately.

In 1874 there was an extensive debate in the Parliament of Canada about reforming the Senate and in particular, the appointment process, but nothing happened.

In 1887 at the first interprovincial meeting of premiers, there was a call for an elected Senate, but nothing happened.

In 1906 through to 1909, there were extensive debates in both federal houses about Senate reform, but again, nothing happened.

In 1921, Liberal leader Mackenzie King included Senate reform in his party's election platform. This was followed by extensive debates in both houses in 1924 and 1925 on the need for reform of the Senate, and again, nothing happened.

At the 1927 Dominion-Provincial Conference, Senate reform was a main topic of discussion. All the politicians said there was a need for reform, but again, nothing happened.

There were extensive debates in the Senate in 1951 and in the House in 1955 on the need for Senate reform. Again, nothing happened.

In 1965, the Pearson government, following up on a bill introduced by the previous Diefenbaker government, was able to have passed through Parliament an amendment reducing the terms of senators from life to age 75. That was not very revolutionary, to say the least. And that was it. There has really been no change in the formal structure of the Senate since that time.

In 1972, a special joint House and Senate committee, the Molgat-McGuigan committee, held extensive hearings across the country and recommended the need to reform the appointment process for the Senate, if nothing else. Again, nothing happened.

In 1978, the Trudeau Liberal government proposed a bill which would abolish the Senate and replace it with a new body to be known as the house of the provinces, with at least half of the members chosen by the provinces. Again, in the end, nothing happened.

After that, there was a series of commissions and studies: the Pepin-Robarts committee in 1979; the Quebec Liberal Party beige paper in 1980; the House-Senate joint committee, the Molgat-Cosgrove committee in 1984; the Macdonald commission in 1985; the House-Senate joint committee, the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee, in 1992. All recommended basic reform in the appointment process, with election most often as the preferred option, but again, nothing happened.

One of the reasons there was this continued pattern of engaging in public discussion of basic Senate reform followed by no action was that often the argument was made that such reform could only be tied in with other more comprehensive constitutional changes. Thus, attempts at that method, such as what happened in the Charlottetown efforts, failed. The other reason is that the government could then use all of that as an excuse for why nothing gets done.

I am hearing the same refrain and the same arguments coming now from those who still do not want to reform the Senate, in particular, those in the Liberal Party. That is because continued inaction on this file is in their clear partisan self-interest.

However, this government, unlike all previous governments, has chosen not to hide behind these excuses and long history of non-achievement. We have decided to boldly move forward with that incremental reform that we know for sure the federal Parliament and government can initiate and accomplish on its own without going down the complicated path of formal constitutional amendments involving the provinces or some kind of wholesale reopening of the Constitution, something that we know would be very difficult.

In the first session of this Parliament, we introduced two quite modest bills to get the ball rolling in a very serious way to achieve Senate reform. There was Bill S-4, to reduce the term of all future Senate appointees from the current potential of 45 years, something which my constituents find quite offensive, in that someone who is appointed at age 30 is able to sit until the mandatory retirement age of 75. We wanted to change the term to eight years.

The bill would provide for the ability of the Prime Minister to consult Canadians on their preferences as to who should serve them in the Senate before making such appointments.

What is the actual atrocious record of Senate appointments that both major political parties, while in government, not including the current government, have been of guilty since Confederation?

Sir John A. Macdonald, our first prime minister, in 19 years of office appointed only 1 Liberal and 1 Independent. The rest were all Conservative. I would personally not see that as a bad thing.

However, as I go on, Sir Wilfrid Laurier in his 15 years in office appointed only Liberals.

Sir Robert Borden, in his nine years of office appointed only Conservatives, except when he led a union coalition government during the war.

Mackenzie King in his 22 years in office appointed 103 senators and all but 2 were Liberals.

Louis St. Laurent in his nine years in office appointed fifty-five senators and all but three were Liberals.

John Diefenbaker in his six years in office appointed thirty-seven senators and all but one were Conservative.

Lester Pearson in his five years in office appointed thirty-nine senators and all but one were Liberal.

Pierre Trudeau in his 15 years of office appointed 81 senators and all but 11 were Liberals.

Joe Clark in his nine months in office appointed eleven senators, all of them Conservative.

Brian Mulroney in his nine years of office appointed fifty-one senators, some of whom are still sitting in the Senate today, and all but two of them were Conservatives. One of the two was Stan Waters, appointed as a Reform senator by Mr. Mulroney due to his election by the voters of Alberta in the spirit of Meech Lake, which we all know failed in the end.

Jean Chrétien in his 10 years in office appointed 75 senators and all but 3 were Liberals.

Paul Martin in his 23 months in office appointed 17 senators, only 5 of whom were not Liberal.

Neither Kim Campbell nor John Turner appointed any senators, although Turner did Trudeau's bidding in that regard, as we know. It was something that was very prominent in the election of 1984.

I have had an equal opportunity to be a critic of both major parties that have held office. However, when it comes to the current Prime Minister, we finally have a breaking of this historical pattern.

Since taking office only 21 months ago, the Prime Minister has only made 2 appointments to the Senate, and there are currently 13 vacancies. One of those appointments, Senator Fortier, was to ensure that the island of Montreal was represented in the cabinet, with the commitment from that appointee that he would resign his seat in the Senate as soon as the general election was called, and seek election to the House.

The other was the recent appointment of Senator Bert Brown on the basis that he, on two separate occasions, was democratically chosen by the people of Alberta as their preference to be selected to serve in the Senate.

Therefore, the government has done as much as it can to break this pattern of no action on Senate reform. It is now up to the opposition parties in the House and the Liberal majority in the Senate to wake up and smell the political coffee. There will either be reform or Canadians might well choose abolition.

I have laid out quite clearly the history of what has happened in terms of efforts to reform the Senate, but the bill goes a long way toward moving the ball forward, which Canadians support. I I urge the other parties to support the bill.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was doing quite well for a while, as he went through the history, showing the overwhelming preponderance of promoting partisan interests above the interests of the country. Whether the prime minister had been Conservative or Liberal or some variation in between, they seemed to consistently have a high percentage of appointing their friends and buddies to the Senate.

The problem the NDP has with the bill and its many pages, and there are many, is this. We have a body that has very few ethical guidelines, which the bill does not seek to correct in terms of senators being able to sit both in conflict of interest for business negotiations while also sitting in the Senate. It also has increased its own pay packet by 70% since 1993, and the cost of expenses go up double what that is because of inflation. The fundamentals of this are wrong.

The hon. member did okay until he got to the point where the appointment of Senator Michael Fortier came in, and there was some attempt to justify why this abhorrence of democracy and justice was okay. This has been the history of that place. This has been the history of failed attempts at reform.

For a government to roll out a bill, prior to a series of more confidence motions and delays in real action, shows a certain ineffectiveness and insincerity to get the job done.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the case of Senator Fortier, he has agreed that as soon as a general election is called, he will immediately resign his seat in the Senate and seek a seat in this House.

However, Canadians are looking for Senate reform. They have been asking for this for a long time. We have seen a history, which I outlined, of attempts to change the upper chamber. This bill is an attempt to do that, and it is something we can do.

It is easy to stand in the House and talk about theoretical ideas and attempts to change things that are impossible to change without real constitutional change. This can be done. This Parliament can make a difference. I urge the hon. member to get behind the bill.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague and I really liked his comment about the appointments by both sides.

However, I have looked in vain to find what role there is for the Senate in 2008, 2009, or 2010. I am not talking about 1874. What use will it serve in the future with unelected members? What useful role does the Senate play that we should want to preserve it?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have become increasingly frustrated with what goes on in the Senate and their view that it should be an elected chamber.

The bill goes a long way toward satisfying something for which Canadians have asked. Once again, I urge the hon. member to get behind the bill.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, the theme of my colleague from Leeds--Grenville's speech could have been that nothing happened.

One of the great things that disappointed me and, as a westerner, annoyed me to no end throughout my years here was the prime ministers of the previous Liberal administrations, first the majority governments of Jean Chrétien and then more recently the short minority government of member for LaSalle—Émard, kept saying that they would refuse to do any piecemeal Senate reform. That was the term they used, which was very annoying not only to myself but to many Canadians who I believe looked for some progress.

As my colleague has said, there have been repeated failed attempts ever since Confederation to bring about any change. Could he briefly address this business that piecemeal is perhaps the only way we will ever get any meaningful Senate reform, incrementally, taking it step by step, and that this is an important first step?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, those who do not want to make any change consistently hide behind the argument that they will not make any piecemeal changes because not all the changes needed will be made.

This is an attempt to do something to make it an elected Senate. The government has put this forward. I urge all members to get behind it. We can make a difference in the Parliament.