Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Nova Scotia is a tough act to follow. That was one of the best speeches I have heard in the House. He was flying.
I am pleased to speak to Bill C-7.
If I understand correctly, what is being proposed seems to me to be an improvement on what we have now. For example, they are proposing that the law limit the terms of all senators summoned to the Senate after October 14, 2008, to a maximum of nine years. In my opinion, that limit is not a bad thing. As well, the provinces and territories would have the option of choosing to hold elections at their own expense to determine what names would be submitted to the Prime Minister for consideration. We are not living in a perfect world.
In a perfect world we would have the following. What the government has proposed is not a perfect world. In a perfect world we would have senators appointed for a limited period of time. They would be non-partisan and they would not represent specific political parties or be appointed as a reward for their services to a party. They would be distinguished people from most segments of society, such as first nations, business, labour leaders, the social sector, students.
In a perfect world a group of non-partisan people, an impartial board, would select individuals. If we were to do this, then in this perfect world we could have a chamber of sober thought consisting of respected people who would look at the work we do here and certainly not meet with the caucus of the governing party of the day, but, as the previous member said, be truly non-partial.
When we on this side speak out against what goes on in the Senate or what is proposed, we are not criticizing many of the honourable senators in the Senate. For example, I am pleased to see my former boss and friend from Yukon, Danny Lang, there and he is working hard. There are other folks like Hugh Segal, who has been championing poverty issues and rural poverty for many years. I certainly respect the work he and many of his colleagues do.
Unfortunately this is not a perfect world and it is an illusion or dream to think that we somehow could have in our democratic country a group of people, wise elders of our society, who would sit down and reflect upon what needs to happen and give its impartial advice. However, as my colleague from London—Fanshawe earlier said, it is not a reality and there is a contrast between what happens in the Senate, with its expenses, and all the effort that goes into maintaining that antiquated body.
If the Senate did not exist, we could inject more funding toward assisting people who are unemployed, the percentage of workers who do not have access to employment insurance. Many of us met with students in the last couple of weeks and know that, for example, the average student debt in British Columbia upon completion of university is $27,000 and tuition fees are rising. Yet other countries have made it a priority to have free tuition and health care and have strong economic engines, countries like Sweden.
In previous Parliaments I have been in since I was elected in 2006, there was actually a fair amount of debate on various bills and a fair number of witnesses would be brought to committees. There was much scrutiny, unlike now, when there is limited debate and closure on a number of important bills. Even after that time, when these bills would go to the Senate, under the direction of the current Prime Minister and his ideologically-driven government, they would be killed and often senators were told there would be no further debate whatsoever.
There was the climate change accountability act in the previous Parliament, Bill C-311, and the bill on generic drugs. For all the people watching this debate, a bill to help people suffering from AIDS so we could finally eradicate this devastating disease and take up the work done by Stephen Lewis and his foundation was before Parliament. Groups like the Grandmothers for Grandmothers, which I met with in Nelson a couple of weeks ago, is raising money to assist grandmothers in Africa who are raising children. There are millions of orphans due to this devastating disease. Parliament had a chance to pass that bill and, in fact, did so.
What happened? The Senate limited debate and stopped it. As a result, we do not yet have a policy to assist those suffering with AIDS by having cheap generic drugs available. This is truly a shame.
Then we had the act to kill the Wheat Board rammed through Parliament by the Conservatives without any democratic vote by farmers, the people who are part of the Wheat Board. There was limited debate in Parliament with no economic analysis, no in-depth study and a limited number of witnesses. Now this bill will go the Senate. If there were an impartial Senate, if the Senate, in an ideal world, were made up of wise people from different segments of society, they would look at the bill, bring in witnesses and say that maybe Parliament has not done what it should have been doing. They would then send it back to us and tell us to get back to work and fix this or abolish it, because that is not the will of the people that the House of Commons has reflected.
Then there is the crime omnibus bill that we are all faced with now that has also been rammed down our throats. At a time when crime rates are going down, we will be putting more people in prison and, not only that, the provinces will be bearing the costs of the bill. Even American conservatives are turning away from putting people into prisons. They are saying that it is not cost-effective and that maybe they should be doing more prevention and more rehabilitation. At the same time, we are going against all of the evidence and the Conservatives are not even listening to their conservative friends in the United States or the Canadian Bar Association and judges.
Even though most of Canadian society and the provinces have asked us what we are doing, the bill has been rammed through by the government. Once again, if we were to have a Senate that truly represented Canadian society in an impartial way, it would tell the Prime Minister to take his time here, that this does not need to be rushed through.
We need to hear more witnesses and actually listen to what the Canadian Bar Association is saying. We need to listen to our provincial colleagues who say that the cost is a bit too much and that they cannot really afford it. We need to listen to the Canadian public and then, in an ideal world, the bill would be brought back here and we would be told to do something about it that truly reflects the values of Canadian society and not the ideology that the government is presenting to us in this Parliament.