Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-7.
It is important to state that this bill does not make senators accountable. Regardless of whether they are elected or not, they will not have to keep any of their election promises, knowing that their term is not renewable. That is one of the major problems with the Senate. Under the Constitution, the role of the Senate is to represent people, as we are doing today in the House of Commons. I am representing the people in my riding, La Pointe-de-l'Île. I must admit, I have never attended a debate or consideration of a bill in the Senate, but I am certain that no senator ever rises to go against the will of his or her political party and vote against something in order to defend the interests of the people in the Maritimes, for example, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North was saying. Senators have never represented the people they are meant to represent.
This bill does not resolve the biggest problem, which is that the Senate has become a political battleground to which the elected government appoints its cronies, its financial contributors or anyone else who has accomplished some obscure task. Senators will not be any more accountable.
What is more, the bill was supposed to correct those things that people and the Prime Minister himself have often complained about when it comes to the Senate, namely that senators should be elected. The Prime Minister has said himself that he would never again appoint an unelected senator. After the May 2, 2011, election he appointed three defeated Conservative candidates. I, personally, do not trust him. I do not think that Canadians are going to trust a Prime Minister who says one thing but does the complete opposite after the election because he won a majority in the House of Commons.
Then the bill gives the impression that senators will be elected. But as my colleague pointed out earlier, it may be that an individual will be elected, and that individual may also be appointed by the Prime Minister, but we cannot be certain. This means the provinces will spend money to hold elections and submit names to the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister will keep the arbitrary power of appointing his own personal choice. I think we all agree that the bill, which seeks to have senators elected, does not really achieve its objective. That power remains with the Prime Minister. It is still an arbitrary and undemocratic power. The Prime Minister is under no obligation to respect the will of Canadians. We are well aware that, for this government, respecting the will of Canadians remains a rather vague and fuzzy principle that has yet to be defined.
All this to say that, personally, I think the government has failed miserably with this bill. It gets a 0 out of 10. I realize the Conservatives must keep certain tools at their disposal, but my party is in favour of abolishing the Senate.
As for the Senate itself, its mandate under the Constitution, which is to generally represent the population of a region, has never been respected. Instead, it is a political battleground to which the government appoints its friends to reward them.
We are talking about Senate reform, but there is currently no system allowing the House of Commons and the Senate to work in harmony. For example, in the United States, the institutions that fill the role of the Senate and of the House of Commons work in harmony. There is a system which determines how these institutions work together. For example, if senators were elected, who would have more power? Would it be the House of Commons or the Senate? How are we going to determine the way bills will be passed, and who is going to review them? What about amendments? Things will be exactly like in the United States. Bills will be blocked and it is going to take months before they can be passed. Even if we were to reform the Senate, it would be impossible to have harmony—and a system that works—between the House of Commons and the Senate.
Even if we reform the Senate, the House of Commons and the Senate cannot work in harmony. We do not have a system. It is not in Canada's parliamentary tradition. Therefore, abolishing the Senate is the solution. It would be impossible, especially with this bill, to solve all the problems of the Senate. Even if the government came up with a new proposal for reforming the Senate, it would not work. It would completely skew Canada's democracy. People are elected to the House of Commons. We, here, represent the people.
Bill C-7 does not make the Senate democratic, not in the least. Senators would purportedly be elected by the provinces, which will spend money on these elections, and then the government would retain the arbitrary power to appoint whomever it wants. None the problems with the Senate the Prime Minister has identified will be solved by this bill. It is wrong to say that passing Bill C-7 will make the Senate democratic.
How would we decide which house has the most power to pass legislation? A bill passed by the majority, or even unanimously, in the House of Commons could be rejected by the Senate. Voters in my riding could ask me to vote for a bill, which would be passed by the House of Commons and then rejected by the Senate. It will not work. It is undemocratic. The solution is to abolish the Senate. That is how we can solve the problems.