Debates of Nov. 22nd, 2011

Senate Reform Act

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-7, An Act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits.

The NDP's position was clearly stated at the beginning of this debate. Since 1930, we have been in favour of abolishing the upper chamber for various reasons. This is a position that I believe is unanimous in New Democrat circles and that periodically comes up and is always reaffirmed at our conventions and meetings.

There are specific reasons for that, but first I would like to mention that we are not the only ones. The provinces are also in favour of flat out abolishing the Senate. Ontario, Nova Scotia and Manitoba have clearly spoken out in favour of doing so. With respect to Bill C-7 in particular, we know that Quebec has already looked into the possibility of contesting its constitutional validity in court.

What we have in front of us now could be considered a partial reform. It is not real reform of the Senate, but rather a modification of certain aspects. For example, the aspect that has to do with Senate terms. Right now, senators are appointed to the age of 75 or until the death of the senator, and that term would be reduced to nine years. Although the NDP is unanimously in favour of abolishing the Senate, there are some differences of opinion on the Conservative side, particularly among Conservative senators who have already shown some reservations about limits to their terms. Those senators were appointed recently. All members are aware that since the Conservatives took power in 2006 they have appointed 27 Conservative senators, which has given the Conservative Party a majority in the Senate.

We could talk about what the Liberals did before, and we may or may not agree with them. The fact remains that when there was a Liberal government, it was still possible that a non-Liberal senator would be appointed. That was the case in the past. The Liberals even appointed an NDP senator. Unfortunately, we asked her to give up her NDP designation because we do not support the Senate and are proposing that it be abolished. At least former Liberal governments provided some balance. But we are not seeing that same kind of balance with the Conservative government.

We talk a lot about the Senate being a chamber of sober second thought, a place where a different kind of reflection takes place, in comparison to the House of Commons. The members of the House of Commons know that all provincial senates have been abolished. No province has had a Senate since 1968. As far as I know, there have been no significant issues with passing laws at the provincial level since that time. Provinces do not have senates and, to be honest, they do not seem to be missing them. No provinces are requesting or calling for a provincial upper chamber. In looking at the provincial situation, I think that the NDP's position on the Senate is completely legitimate and is far from the Conservative position of wanting to keep the Senate. However, the Conservatives want to reform it. It is interesting to see how the Conservative opinion on the Senate has evolved.

There has been much talk—particularly during the era of the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance—of the need for a triple–E Senate. Such a Senate, by its very nature and essence, would bear a much closer resemblance to the U.S. Senate as we know it, and that creates a few problems. If the bill were adopted as it stands, similar problems would arise. I will come back to the U.S. model, but I would first like to discuss two specific problems with the bill and the manner in which it provides for the election of senators at the provincial level, who would then be appointed by the Prime Minister.

The first problem has to do with legitimacy. If the provinces have no consistent process for the election of senators—and since the term being used is plebiscite rather than election—it would create a situation whereby, in certain provinces, no senators would be elected or selected in this way. That raises a problem of legitimacy. Those senators elected under one process might believe—and this would undoubtedly be the case—that they have greater legitimacy than those who are simply appointed by the Prime Minister without being subject to the procedure established by the provinces.

That would be problematic since the members of the Senate would not share the same understanding of the institution.

The second problem—and this is where the U.S. example is relevant—is that the Senate currently wishes to be perceived, if it does serve a purpose, as a place for sober second thought in response to bills adopted by the House of Commons. This sober second thought theoretically serves as a counterbalance to an overly populist reaction in the House and is intended to please a certain segment of the electorate without necessarily improving in any way on what the bill proposes.

In its current form—and I think that this has been evident over the last five years during which 27 new Conservative senators were appointed—there is no longer any sober second thought. The Senate no longer plays this role. The Senate, just like the House, polarizes political debate. I believe that the debate and political discourse in the House since 2006 have been much more polarized than in any previous era or decade. That is how things look nowadays in the Senate.

The Senate was intended to be a forum in which senators could adequately reflect upon the impact that bills may have on various facets of Canadian and Quebec society. The Senate no longer plays this role. Two bills have demonstrated this, including one we thought was particularly important. I refer to Bill C-311 on climate change and the establishment of clear standards and targets in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The House of Commons and its committees held several debates. It was not the first time this bill had been introduced. The purpose of the bill was to ensure that Canada honoured its international commitments. After a number of attempts, the House of Commons finally adopted the bill. The unelected Senate, however, simply opposed the will of the House of Commons, in other words, the elected representatives of the Quebec and Canadian public. The objective was to polarize rather than to be effective. The Conservative government did not condemn this action as it should have, and undoubtedly would have, had a Liberal-dominated Senate stood in the way of one of its bills. When this occurred in the past, Conservative members led the charge in condemning the abuse of power of an unelected chamber pitting itself against the House of Commons.

My colleague from Winnipeg North raised the question: do Canadians and Quebeckers still want a Senate? It is an interesting and very relevant question, in my opinion. I propose therefore, as have a number of my colleagues, to ask Canadians and Quebeckers if they still want a Senate, and whether they believe the upper house still fulfils its role. Quite recently, in July, a poll was taken across Canada to determine whether Canadians wanted to vote on the existence of the Senate. Seventy-one per cent of Canadians, including Quebeckers, want a referendum in which they can vote on the issue. It is high time that we had this debate. In the same poll, 36 % of Canadians were in favour of abolishing the Senate. This is a significant increase compared to the previous year. It reflects public discontent with the role the Senate has played in recent years and the partisan appointments made by the Prime Minister.

Experience has clearly shown us that abolishing the provincial senates did not drastically affect how the provinces operate. In fact, a number of experts and constitutional jurists would say without a doubt that this perhaps even made it easier for the provinces, because there was no longer an unelected chamber able to interfere and undermine the will of publicly elected representatives. There is not a single province that would revisit the past and choose to bring back an unelected chamber.

We must be very careful about the Senate's mandate and about the direction we are currently taking to avoid having what we see in the United States. The suggestion was made by our colleague from the third party, and had already been made by the NDP. Let us have a real debate, let us include the Canadian public and let us have a referendum on this subject. Our position is clear: we are and will always be in favour of abolishing the Senate.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference in his comments to the fact that there was a fairly extensive poll or survey carried out in which 36% of the respondents felt that it was necessary to abolish the Senate. Ultimately, that would imply that there was a majority that did see some value to retaining the Senate.

If the member were to canvass his own constituents and they were of the opinion that indeed there was value in the Senate, would the member then take the position of supporting retaining the Senate, maybe advocating for change but at the very least supporting a Senate?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

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

This question applies more to the politics of the entire country than to individual ridings. I could go and see the 85,000 people I represent in the riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques and ask them the question. However, without a real debate, the kind of broad debate we can have during an election, for example, it is really hard to know exactly what the people think.

This issue regarding the Senate is not at the forefront of the minds of my constituents right now. They have more important economic and social concerns. So if we were to ask them about the Senate, this issue would not be at the top of their list. In fact, many do not even know the role of the Senate. They do not necessarily follow the debates that take place there. If we want real public consultation, it should not necessarily be done riding by riding, but rather by referendum. Thus, the issue could dominate the mass media and we would then be able to see various viewpoints from a broader perspective than we otherwise could through individual conversations.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques for his very interesting speech. I have a question about the reality of this bill.

I find it fascinating that the federal government is in no way bound by this, which of course it cannot be because of exemptions in the Constitution Act that restrict the federal government's ability to insist on the election of senators without consulting the provinces. However, in schedule 1 of this legislation, we have bound the provinces to hold elections and to create a list which may or may not be used. I would appreciate the member's further thoughts.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her question.

The big problem is that we would have a Senate whose members would be elected or appointed according to different rules. In some cases, there would be more legitimacy and the senators themselves would have a greater sense of legitimacy in certain situations. In that sense, this will create a dysfunctional Senate.

Indeed, my colleague is right when she says that the Prime Minister would still have the latitude not to follow the recommendations that come out of the plebiscites. That is a big problem. This bill creates a type of hybrid, a type of monster, and we will not necessarily know the extent of it until it happens. We are not interested in testing out that experiment. We would like to see how Canadians feel about this issue and have a party that advocates the abolition of the Senate, which is what the NDP promises to do.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his well-informed comments on this bill. This is the third time that this bill has been introduced, so clearly the Conservatives have not seen it as a priority. However, as it relates to basic democratic reform, I want to ask the member, would he agree that a more pressing issue is to move ahead with proportional representation for the House of Commons itself, and would that be a better measure for us to move forward on?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes, absolutely. I think that if the question is clear, then so is the answer. That is what is missing right now.

Our current system dates back to 1867, and even further than that since we adopted the British system. That system no longer suits today's realities. It is a flaw of the House of the Commons that a party can form a majority government with less than 40% of the votes.

In that sense, proportional representation would be much more modern. There are a number of types of proportional representation. We can sit down and discuss the merits of each. Nonetheless, I think that proportional representation is an inevitable solution for the House. We should get on with it.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate and give the Bloc Québécois’s opinion on Bill C-7, the Senate Reform Act.

No one in the House will be surprised to hear that the Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that we can do without the Senate and that we should just abolish it.

The Senate is an archaic institution. I heard members of other parties describe it as such earlier. I know that, in the House, we cannot denigrate the other chamber. However, I do not think that it is a form of denigration to say that, today, in a democracy, it is completely useless to spend so much money and have 105 senators who simply redo the work that was already done by legitimately elected people. That is the big difference. In fact, the House of Commons, with its 308 members, makes decisions and passes all sorts of legislation while following the procedure that should normally be followed here, which involves first, second and third readings. That being said, with the current Conservative government, this procedure is not being followed at all because the Conservatives are imposing time allocations for almost every bill.

In the beginning, the Senate, whether it was at the federal or provincial level, was put in place to protect certain territories. However, over time, the Senate became a place where the Prime Minister appointed friends to ensure a majority. That is what the current Prime Minister promised not to do but, when he had a minority government, he saw that he could change things by appointing Conservatives to the Senate to have a majority there. He broke his promises. He made a series of very quick appointments so that the Senate would have a Conservative majority. The Senate has thus become a very partisan place. I do not say this to insult the senators. Some are doing the best they can and are doing their work honestly.

I think that almost everyone, at least in Quebec, agrees that we could easily do without the Senate since the House of Commons operates in a completely democratic way with 308 people who, for the most part, campaigned and were elected democratically by the public, which is not the case for senators.

Of course, Bill C-7 seeks to ensure that senators are elected. However, in my opinion, the Conservative government is trying to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. It wanted an elected Senate and it made this an election promise. In fact, this goes back to long before the current Conservatives. At the time of the Reform Party, they also wanted an elected Senate. However, they realized that constitutional changes and consultations with the provinces would be necessary to achieve that goal. So they decided to resort to this process and basically tell the provinces they could hold elections and the federal government would then decide whether or not to accept the results of those elections. This is completely ridiculous.

I believe the government introduced Bill C-7 thinking it could avoid consulting with the provinces. Personally, I think that is the major problem with this bill.

So we are witnessing a Senate reform and also a House of Commons reform, since there is also Bill C-20 dealing with representation in the House of Commons. These two bills will weaken Quebec's position within federal political institutions. We know that, with Bill C-20, the government wants to diminish the political weight of Quebec in the House. As for the Senate, we know that Quebec does not agree with the government's way of doing things, but the government wants to have its way nevertheless.

The Bloc Québécois feels that the job of senator is increasingly becoming a reward given by the Prime Minister to political friends. The Senate as an institution is less and less useful to democracy. We are saying that the Senate should be abolished. As members will see later on in my speech, I have a survey which shows that Quebeckers fully support abolishing the Senate.

I remind the House that Quebec's long-standing position is that any change to the Senate must be made with the agreement of Quebec and the provinces. Quebec is not the only one to hold this view since the government began trying to introduce a bill to reform the Senate.

We can go all the way back to the late 1970s. The Supreme Court of Canada looked at the power of Parliament to unilaterally change the constitutional provisions dealing with the Senate. In its decision, the court ruled that decisions regarding major changes affecting the fundamental nature of the Senate cannot be taken unilaterally.

That could not be more clear. The House does not always agree with the decisions of the Supreme Court, but we must abide by them. With this ruling, the Supreme Court spoke loud and clear:

Changes to the powers of the Senate, the method of selecting senators, the number of senators to which a province is entitled, or the residency requirement of senators can be made only [in consultation with Quebec and the provinces].

That could not be more clear. In 2007, Benoît Pelletier, a former Quebec minister of intergovernmental affairs, a renowned teacher and constitutional expert respected by all Quebeckers, both federalists and sovereignists, reiterated Quebec's traditional position by stating that the Government of Quebec believes that this institution does not fall exclusively under federal jurisdiction. In a press release dated November 7, 2007, which I will table in a moment, this former minister said:

Given that the Senate is a crucial part of the Canadian federal compromise, it is clear to us that under the Constitution Act, 1982, and the regional veto act, the Senate can be neither reformed nor abolished without Quebec's consent.

He said it a number of times, on television and elsewhere. Benoît Pelletier has credibility in this matter. The same day he made that statement, Quebec's National Assembly unanimously passed 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.

Much earlier, the same position was taken by Robert Bourassa as well as Gil Rémillard, a constitutional expert who was a minister and my professor, although that is nothing to brag about. In any case, he certainly had a great deal of credibility.

In 1989, Robert Bourassa said that he did not want to discuss Senate reform before the Meech Lake accord was ratified. In 1982, Gil Rémillard said that the signing by Quebec of an agreement involving Senate reform would depend on the results of negotiations on the concept of a distinct society, the division of powers and the federal spending power.

Regardless of their party, all elected representatives in Quebec agree that the federal government should not make any changes without the permission of the provinces, and of Quebec in particular, in the examples I just gave.

In 2007, Quebec's Liberal government took part in the Special Committee on Senate Reform. In its brief it stated:

The Government of Quebec is not opposed to modernizing the Senate. But if the aim is to alter the essential features of that institution, the only avenue is the initiation of a coordinated federal-provincial constitutional process that fully associates the constitutional players, one of them being Quebec, in the exercise of constituent authority.

The Government of Quebec, with the unanimous support of the National Assembly, therefore requested the withdrawal and/or suspension of various bills that were introduced by the Conservative government over the course of previous sessions, including Bill C-43, which had to do with elected senators. It also requested the suspension of proceedings on Bill S-4—which became Bill C-19, then Bill C-10—which had to do with term limits, so long as the federal government was planning to unilaterally transform the nature and role of the Senate.

Bill C-7 raises the same problem and it clearly shows that the government wants to act unilaterally.

I would like to quote a poll on the Senate conducted by Leger Marketing in 2010. It said, “The majority of Quebeckers think that the Senate has no worth in its current form and even more Quebeckers are in favour of abolishing the Senate.”

I encourage all members of the House to consider the opinion of the Government of Quebec, of the other provinces and of Quebeckers in this poll, to truly understand that the government cannot act unilaterally here.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments and speech made by my colleague. I would like to read a brief remark made by Senator Bert Brown:

In his comments he said:

Those of us who came to the Red Chamber were there to get a majority vote for reform.

Then he went on to say:

Every Senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be.

He sent this letter to several other senators.

I listened to the hon. member's speech and I think he is on the right track. Like us, he is in favour of abolishing the Senate. Can the hon. member tell us whether the Senate is truly impartial and a forum for sober second thought concerning the decisions made by the House? I would like the hon. member to respond to that. Is the Senate truly an impartial chamber?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her question. Without making a sweeping, general comment, I can give an example.

I recall that when Jacques Demers, the former head coach of the Canadiens, was appointed to the Senate, he was asked what interested him in the Senate and what bills and measures he intended to support. The first example that came to mind—and I understand this because we also agreed with that measure—was the bill introduced by Senator Jean Lapointe. Senator Lapointe was also well known in Québec, and obviously throughout the rest of Canada, as he was an actor and singer. In any event, he had introduced a very important bill concerning lotteries and gaming. He wanted stiffer rules regarding slot machines in bars. In the end, Senator Demers did not vote because the Conservative Party told him that there was a party line and that the Conservatives did not agree with the bill.

People come here, oftentimes in good faith, and end up realizing that there is a party line and that this line has to be toed in the House—and yet, these people are democratically and legitimately elected. In the Senate, they sometimes think that they have some leeway, but that is not the case.

In response to the member's question, the answer is no, certainly not. People are appointed for partisan reasons to do the work for the party that appointed them.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a comment for the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska concerning his preamble.

Earlier, he said that we could not denigrate the other chamber when in fact the government is constantly doing just that, so I do not think that we are prevented from making such remarks about the other chamber. We can say that the Senate has never done its job and is still not doing it.

Does my colleagues think that the Senate is going to be able to do its job in the future as a result of this new bill?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

Obviously, I was referring to a rule that we do not attack the other chamber here, but in fact, with thanks to you, Mr. Speaker, we are fortunately still able to criticize it. We are still living in a democracy and it is certainly not forbidden.

To answer my colleague’s question, he is entirely correct. In fact, his question was more of a comment. However, I think this Bill C-7 does not actually change anything in terms of the legitimacy of the Senate, particularly since we could find ourselves with a completely crazy creature, if I may put it that way. We might have senators appointed by the Prime Minister, as they are at present, for some provinces where they refused to hold elections, and in other provinces we would have elected senators because they held elections there. And worse still, even if the provinces decide to send a list, the Prime Minister is not obliged to accept those nominations.

Imagine the mess there might be with that kind of Senate. We would have some democratically elected people and others who were still appointed, with all the partisanship that implies. Since the Senate already serves no purpose, I do not think Bill C-7 would improve the situation.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak at second reading on Bill C-7, pertaining to the Senate. As many of my NDP colleagues have outlined today in the House, we have a lot of concerns about the bill.

The first thing I want to point out is that this is the third time the Conservative government has introduced this legislation. Despite repeated campaign promises of an elected Senate that go back even to the Reform days, the Conservatives have let it go so long that it makes one wonder whether it is indeed a priority for them.

On examining the bill, the NDP sees several major issues of concern that render the bill not supportable. I think the most basic premise of the bill is that it brings forward measures that are really half-measures, measures that are not going to fundamentally deal with what is a very undemocratic institution.

We know that the Senate has been around for a very long time. The NDP has been calling for the abolition of the Senate going back to the 1930s. When one looks at the bill, it is being put forward under the guise of democratic reform. It is being put forward under the guise of improving the Senate to make it more accountable.

Fundamentally, however, even though provinces may choose to have a process to elect senators, there is nothing in this bill that actually compels the Prime Minister to adopt those electorally based decisions that have taken place. The Prime Minister would still be free to appoint whomever she or he chooses.

That is because the constitutional question; we understand that, but it goes to the very heart of this bill that it will possibly go through legal challenges and it actually does not, in any fundamental way, bring a greater measure of democracy to Parliament itself overall. That is something we are very concerned about.

We in the NDP have taken a different tack. First of all, through motions that we have presented and had debated in the House, we have called on the government to hold a referendum that would ask the Canadian people whether or not they support abolishing the Senate.

We think that is a fair thing to do. This debate over the Senate--whether it should be there or not, whether it should be elected, or what form it should take--has now gone on for decades. We believe it is a fair and proper question that should be put to Canadians as to what they see as the future of the Senate.

We know that recent polls show a growing appetite to deal with this question. For example, in July of this year 71% of Canadians were in favour of holding a referendum to decide the future of the Senate and 36% of Canadians supported the abolition of the Senate, up from about 25% a year previous.

We know people are concerned about this issue, but there is no question that the bill is absolutely the lowest denominator. It is a low bar, a very minimal attempt to deal with the fundamental question of democratic reform in our country.

On the bill itself, before I get to a broader question, I think there is concern over what will happen if this bill goes through, as it no doubt will with this majority government. Even though it has been before us three times now, if it does finally go through this time around and we have an elected Senate, if that is what it turns out to be, and local elections take place in provinces and those people are then appointed to the Senate, it will create a very odd entity down the hall in the red chamber. In effect, it will create a two-tier Senate in which it is very possible that those who have been elected will feel that they have more legitimacy, because there will be people who have not been elected and people who have been.

We could end up with a very strange combination. In terms of the operations of the Senate, it could produce significant problems. We could end up with the same kind of difficulty or gridlock that we have seen in the United States, which I think people abhor.

Some people say we have to have a Senate and we have to have an upper chamber, but I would remind all of us that in provincial legislatures, these senate provisions were abolished many years ago.

In fact, all provincial senates were abolished in 1968. Apparently, the provinces and their legislatures have been able to function in a proper manner since that abolition. Therefore, the argument that we must have this upper chamber is a bogus argument.

Obviously, there are people who support the Senate. However, this is the main argument I want to make. There is also a very strong case to be made that it would be better if we focused democratic reform on our system overall.

In the House of Commons we are elected in our 308 ridings and constituencies across the country, seats which may possibly increase soon, and yet there is a fundamental issue here about the process and the manner of that election.

The first past the post system we have is a system that actually does not reflect the way people are voting. The makeup of the number of seats in the House unfortunately does not reflect the way people are actually voting. The representation by party is not reflecting the actual vote. A system of proportional representation is a far superior and more accountable form of election for the House of Commons or any institution. It is something that we in the NDP have long advocated.

I will say that too has been a big issue across the country. We have seen several referendums provincially. We have had two in British Columbia, one in Ontario, and one I believe in New Brunswick, although I could be wrong on that, but certainly in the Maritimes, so there has been a very healthy debate among Canadians about the need to have democratic reform.

Yet here, at the federal level, there has been a deafening silence. Certainly, New Democrats have pursued this issue with vigour. We have worked with organizations such as Fair Vote Canada. We have been very involved in a healthy debate about democratic reform.

We believe that the real course of action that is needed here, the change that is required to help transform the political process and the way people feel about their involvement in the political process, is to bring forward initiatives around proportional representation. Of course, we should begin here in the House of Commons to have a process to do that.

We came close to that in I think 2002 or 2004 when the former member of Parliament, Ed Broadbent, who was the member for Ottawa Centre, was very active and worked very closely with the Liberal government of the day. We almost got to the point where we would have had a process to examine this question of democratic reform as it affects the House of Commons.

Unfortunately, nothing proceeded, as was often common with the government of that day. There were promises made that were not followed through. We did not make any progress on that issue.

Subsequent to that, we have had vigorous debate at provincial levels about democratic reform. In the provinces that I mentioned, that debate has specifically taken place sometimes over what is called STV, a single transferrable vote. There are again arguments on both sides of that. What was important was that there was an identification by voters that they wanted to engage in a debate and a conversation about changing the electoral system to make it fairer, more accountable and more democratic.

That is the disappointment of the debate we are having here today. We are failing to address the very pressing issue of democratic reform, where people are voting for their own member of Parliament. We could engage in a process whereby we could adopt a position that would ensure that we do have a much more open sense of democratic voting and accountability. There are many countries around the world, and most democracies, that have some form of proportional representation. We are now one of the very few countries that does not.

This is a missed opportunity. Here we are having this debate on the Senate that in and of itself will possibly produce a quagmire of legal questions. We are missing the boat on the fundamental question of democratic reform for the House of Commons.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Vancouver East, who happens to be the health critic for the NDP, a hypothetical question.

A couple of weeks ago there was a motion in the House to ban asbestos and Conservative after Conservative stood and said that asbestos did not cause cancer. Even the good doctor from Simcoe—Grey voted against her former colleagues, the good doctors of this country and scientists. They voted against what Canadians really want and instead voted to help spread cancer in underdeveloped countries.

Hypothetically speaking, if the Conservatives had voted for this motion and it had gone to the Senate, what could have happened to it once it got there?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good hypothetical question. I love hypothetical questions.

One of the problems is that when measures pass in the House of Commons, they go to the Senate. As we saw with the climate change bill that was twice adopted by the House of Commons through a democratic majority vote, it was sent to the Senate and was completely buried under whatever business was taking place, which was thoroughly undemocratic.

On the very important issue of asbestos, every medical authority internationally and certainly in Canada has pointed out the dangers of this carcinogen to our health and population. On that very important issue, if we had managed to pass the motion and it had gone to the Senate, we have a Senate that is now chockablock full with the most appointed senators we have ever seen by one Prime Minister under the Conservative government. It speaks to the inability of the Senate to act in a proper manner and comes back to the question of the need for real democratic reform.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will agree with the member's party that the Senate needs to be reformed. There is an argument being made that I made once before but I think is wrong, and that is making a comparison to the provincial legislatures which do not have upper houses. The difference is that provinces are much more homogeneous than Canada as a whole.

The Senate was created partially because there are very different geographic regions of Canada with different histories and requirements that need to be balanced. There are parts of the country which just do not have as many people as other parts of it. In order not to disadvantage those regions, the Senate was created.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether there is a real qualitative difference between Canada as a whole and the diversity across the country as compared to, say, a provincial legislature.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very thoughtful comment. The differences we face federally are much greater than provincially, but they still exist provincially. If we take any province, whether it is Quebec or my own province of British Columbia, we will see a wide variety and diversity of regions, interests and people.

We live in a vast country. Our provinces are enormous territories. The fact is that our legislatures have been able to operate very effectively, which is not to say that New Democrats agree with everything they do as there is obviously very vigorous political debate that takes place. But they have been able not only to survive but function properly without the necessity of a senate. The same argument is true here.

I would much prefer that we focus on things like proportional representation for the House of Commons as a true, meaningful, genuine process of democratic reform than mucking around with the Senate and coming up with some kind of strange hybrid, when in actual fact we should be asking the people of Canada if we need the Senate, in any event, and should it be abolished.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the bill entitled “An act respecting the selection of senators and amending the Constitution Act, 1867 in respect of Senate term limits”.

Although the bill may appear to address one of Canada's most egregious democratic deficits, I am afraid that the approach being taken leaves much to be desired.

Essentially, Bill C-7 restricts all senators appointed to the Senate after October 14, 2008, to a single nine-year term. Provinces and territories would then be given the opportunity to hold elections at their own expense to determine which names would be submitted to the Prime Minister for consideration, and only consideration.

While on the surface this approach might appear to bring heightened accountability to an unelected institution of the Crown, restricting Senate term limits while holding non-binding Senate elections fails to consider the most logical option for improving Canadian democracy, namely the abolishment of Canada's Senate.

I recall one of my constituents, Craig, telling me that he did not support a triple-E Senate. He supported a single-E Senate, and that single E stands for empty.

Before I get into why New Democrats believe that the Senate has outlived its raison d'être, I would like to highlight some specific criticisms of the bill as it currently has been presented to Parliament.

First, it appears that, as it is currently written, Bill C-7 contains a glaring loophole which would completely undermine the spirit of what the government is proposing. This is because the government is clearly attempting to pass legislation which should require a constitutional amendment and making unclear how much force the bill would actually carry.

For instance, by taking an approach which fails to crystallize the changes in Canada's Constitution, the Prime Minister would not be constitutionally required to appoint anyone elected by the provinces. Therefore, the bill does not actually change the way senators are currently appointed as the Prime Minister would still be free to appoint whomever he or she chooses.

We have seen previous examples of the Prime Minister acting in contravention of existing democratic reform legislation which has passed through the House. Specifically, I can point to the fixed election date legislation. Why then should Canadians trust that the government would actually abide by the legislation that we have in front of us today? Call me a pessimist, but this is certainly one concern that I have with Bill C-7.

Let me make this clear. We know how the House of Commons works, but we have no idea what would happen with an elected Senate. That brings me to another major concern arising from Bill C-7, which is the inevitable gridlock which would arise from having two separately duly elected Houses of Parliament.

Since the Senate would have virtually the same powers as the House under Bill C-7, an elected Senate would have greater legitimacy to introduce legislation or oppose bills sent to it from the House of Commons. On the surface this seems like a good idea. However, when we dig deeper into those proposals, it would illicit the real fear that we could end up with the kind of gridlock we see in the U.S., something which no Canadian wants to see our Parliament descend into.

This brings me to my final point that the best approach to take in order to reduce Canada's democratic deficit is the complete abolishment of the Senate. Personally, I am of the belief that when it comes to the Senate, Canadians do not need it. It is expensive. It has been packed with party insiders and we cannot trust what the leaders are going to do with the Senate.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly used the unaccountable and undemocratic Senate to kill legislation that had been passed in the House of Commons, twice killing Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act and, this spring, killing Bill C-393, a very important bill which would have facilitated the movement of generic antiviral drugs to Africa to help people living with HIV-AIDS.

These pieces of legislation, supported by wide swaths of the Canadian public, were killed by the Prime Minister's appointed senators in the Senate with no sober second thought. How can we have sober second thought when we have a bunch of Conservative Party organizers and fundraisers with obvious conflicts of interest? It makes a mockery of our democratic system.

As I noted earlier, even should the bill pass during the 41st Parliament, there is no guarantee that the government would actually abide by the rules it has put in place. Thus, we could end up with a patchwork Senate filled with a mix of elected and unelected senators.

I will put forward a hypothetical situation. What if the government refuses to appoint a senator who has been elected by residents of a province because it disagrees with the party banner under which that senator was elected? After all, the prime minister would not be constitutionally obliged to actually appoint them to the Senate. That is why I firmly believe the safest and most obviously beneficial approach to the Senate is to abolish it.

I will conclude my statement today by drawing attention to what the provinces, our partners in Confederation, have been saying about the Senate, both in terms of the status quo and the proposals in front of us. Both the Ontario premier, Dalton McGuinty, and the Nova Scotia premier, Darrel Dexter, have openly called for the abolition of the Senate. The B.C. premier, Christy Clark, has said that the Senate no longer plays a useful role in Confederation, while Manitoba maintains its position of eliminating the Senate. Even more worrisome is that Quebec has called this legislation unconstitutional and has said that it will launch a provincial court appeal if this bill proceeds without the consultation of the provinces.

Why, then, is the government moving ahead with a plan that is not supported by the federal government's partners in Confederation? It seems that without the full support of the provinces this proposal will merely be a paper tiger dressed up as a solution to bring Canada's democracy into the 21st century.

What happens if certain provinces refuse to participate in the system? Citizens of those provinces would certainly be shortchanged. Even more dire is the thought that this bill would lead to a constitutional crisis with multiple provinces taking action at the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of this legislation. Without proper provincial consultation, which I fear has not taken place, this is an inevitability and something that should be avoided at all costs.

Therefore, I ask that the government reconsider its position on the bill until such a time as the provinces are properly consulted and sign on to these proposals.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the presentation by the hon. member for Sudbury and I thought it was very thoughtful and insightful from his perspective. He talked about the potential for a constitutional amendment if there were to be changes to the Senate.

In the absence of the possibility of actually abolishing the Senate, would he not agree that having term limits for senators is something that Canadians would support?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will have much debate about that tomorrow night when we have a little hockey game with one another, all in good fun, of course.

The member raises a good point. Canadians do want to have a say on this. Canadians do want to express their opinions on what they feel about the Senate. I am encouraged to hear that because I would really like to see a referendum brought forward. We should put this to the Canadian people and let them have their say on what they would like to see their Senate represent.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the position of Manitoba. I am not too sure if any other province has done this, but Manitoba had an all party task force, with a majority of the members being New Democrats. I was actually a member of that task force. We canvassed the entire province of Manitoba, heard numerous presentations on the Senate and the overwhelming feeling was that there was value to having a Senate.

If we look at the public hearings that were conducted in Manitoba and, I suspect, if we were to canvas most Canadians and talk about having a valued Senate, we would find a majority of Canadians would support it because they see the potential value of it.

Having said that, if a majority of Canadians do support the Senate, would the member be prepared to come on side, recognize and support having a Senate in the future?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do think Manitoba did the right thing by consulting its constituents and having that conversation. It goes back to my last answer to my previous hon. colleague. If we can get this to the Canadian people and they dictate to us that they see the Senate as something valuable, whatever position that is, then, of course, we need to listen to what they are telling us.

However, until we have the opportunity to have a referendum, to hear what Canadians want, we are going on what we are seeing from the data that we are getting. More and more Canadians are saying that we should eliminate the Senate and go with what we have in the House of Commons.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Sudbury for his eloquent speech on the Senate. I really like his idea, or his constituent's idea, of a single E senate.

Aside from that, the Senate costs Canadians $90 million a year, each year.

The current Prime Minister and the previous Liberal prime minister appointed bagmen to collect money for their parties at taxpayers' cost. Taxpayers pay their salary, their expenses, their employees and their travel so they can go across the country from coast to coast to collect money for the Liberals and the Conservatives.

I would like to hear the thoughts of the member for Sudbury on that subject.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Where do I begin on that, Mr. Speaker? We have conversations in the House and we debate policy on many issues that affect all Canadians and costs that are associated with that. Some of the things we have been saying is that many of the decisions that are made in the House we need to flip on their heads.

If I could go to the one bill that was defeated in the Senate, which was Bill C-393, the cost associated with providing anti-viral drugs to children and adults in Africa suffering from HIV and AIDS would have been minimal and we could have eased the suffering of people. Instead, we are spending money on, as the hon. member said, travel and everything else.

The decisions that are being made in the Senate are affecting the decisions that we have made in this House. We make these decisions in the House based on what we think is in the best interests of Canadians.

We need to ensure those best interests continue to be brought forward and we need the Senate to actually support these bills until they are no longer around.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak for a few moments to the bill. I would like to be able to commend it as being an important piece of legislation that had been well thought out and something that was worthy of the attention of all members of the House but I am kind of flummoxed by the condition of this legislation. It does not make sense. It is ill-conceived. The ramifications of the bill, if it passes as presented, are quite extraordinary.

I know that the government is determined to get its way with most legislation that it brings before us in the chamber. It has invoked closure on eight bills, already seven in this session alone since the middle of September, which really boggles the mind of most democratic-minded Canadians.

This is legislation that proposes to make an extraordinary change to the parliamentary system that has been in place since the 1900s, that was originally based on the British parliamentary system, on the House of Lords, and yet it is striking in how badly written it is. I will talk for a few moments about some of my concerns.

I will deal with the role that the Senate plays in this Parliament. The current Prime Minister made reference in the past to how the Senate was a relic of the 19th century, that it was developed in another time under different circumstances. I do not disagree at all with that description. However, to then move in with a proposition to change it from the purpose and the terms on which it was established and suddenly say that we will make it elected is incredibly radical. I say radical from the comments that were made in the decision by the Supreme Court in 1980 where it said:

The substitution of a system of election for a system of appointment would involve a radical change in the nature of one of the component parts of Parliament.

We have heard members of the opposition say that our solution for dealing with the problems of the Senate is to abolish it. As the member who spoke previously said, one of his constituents recommended a single E Senate, that it be known as an empty Senate. Those sentiments are well-founded because we have seen a Senate, which was originally established to represent regional voices in our country in opposition to, or in juxtaposition to, or perhaps in concert with, the elected House of Commons. that has now become, frankly, a place where former partisans of either the Liberal or the Conservative Party are allowed to sit.

Some of them sit in an honourable fashion and they bring a lot of experience, knowledge and honour to what it is they do. They conduct themselves and their business in an honourable way that most Canadians would be proud of. Unfortunately, they have no basis on which they have reached that, other than the fact that they are partisans.

Now we see that some of those partisans travel this country from coast to coast to coast at the behest of the Prime Minister's Office, raising money, managing campaigns and knocking on doors for provincial parties that are affiliated with their party. Their time is basically spent on partisan purposes. Surely that is not serving anyone's interests other than the partisan interests of the Prime Minister or previous Liberal prime ministers.

I recognize that something needs to be done in order to deal with this situation, but the answer is not to come in with an ill-founded piece of legislation like that, which, as the Supreme Court said in 1980, would make for a radical change.

For the provinces, in order to effect the appropriate change in the balance between the two chambers, there would need to be a constitutional change. Constitutional changes need the input and consensus of a majority of the provinces. Here we have a piece of legislation that has not even been run by the provinces nor has it received any consensus whatsoever from the provinces. The bill proposes that the provinces would hold elections, but some of the provinces have said they would not participate. Some of them have said that if they participated, they would hold elections on this basis or that. The Province of Quebec has said that this is unconstitutional. The premier of my province of Nova Scotia, has said:

My position on the Senate in the past has been that I think the House of Commons is elected for the purpose of representing the people of the country. The upper house is not necessary.

The problem is that the government is trying to propose a change to the status of one of the houses of Parliament which would have quite an impact on the provinces and yet the provinces clearly are not on side. They have not been consulted. In one case there has been a clear commitment to take this matter before the Supreme Court.

Why are we dealing with this? If the government were serious about dealing with the role of the Senate, which I think is something that needs to be done, then I would suggest, as members on these benches have said, that we should take the matter to the people. Let us put a referendum together and ask the people of Canada what they want to do with the Senate. I have an inkling that they would say to get rid of it. I am not going to prejudge what the outcome of that would be, nor should the members opposite, but why do we not do that?

If the government is serious about this and if it has some respect for the chambers, instead of bringing in an ill-prepared, ill-conceived piece of legislation before this House, why does it not take the matter of a constitutional change to Parliament, of dealing with the Senate, to the people of this country in the form of a referendum?

It has been a pleasure to rise in this House, as it always is, although I wish it had been a better piece of legislation before us.