Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the truly wonderful member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl.
Today, we are debating a motion, and I will take the time to read it.
That, in the opinion of the House, the government of Canada, in consultation with the provinces and territories, should take immediate steps toward abolishing the unelected and unaccountable Senate of Canada.
I want to emphasize one very important element of this motion: “in consultation with the provinces and territories”. The NDP believes that it is essential to consult the provinces and the territories when making decisions that affect them.
We spend $90 million per year on a Senate made up of unelected, unaccountable senators. Since coming to power, the current Prime Minister has made 58 partisan Senate appointments even though he said that he would never appoint an unelected senator. He has appointed more senators than Mr. Mulroney, including several Conservative candidates who were defeated at the polls. Half of the 105 Senate seats are currently occupied by people appointed by this Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister's Conservative Senate has become even more corrupt than the Liberal Senate that he inherited when he came to power. Worse still, the Conservatives have just increased the Senate's budget, which is now $92.5 million.
I would also like to point out that the Senate is currently fraught with scandal. I will just mention a few. Senator Brazeau, a Conservative, was recently arrested for domestic violence; he is yet to appear in court. Even before he was appointed to the Senate, several complaints of sexual harassment were filed against him. He is also under investigation for stealing from the Senate and committing tax fraud. Should he remain a Senator until the end of his term, in 2049, taxpayers will have forked out $7 million, not to mention all the other benefits Senators receive, such as their residence and travel expenses—and that does not even take into account other possible acts of fraud. He has been suspended with salary. Taxpayers, therefore, continue to pay an annual salary of over $130,000 to a possible sex offender.
To top it all off, he holds the record among Senators of having been the most frequently absent during the parliamentary session, both in the Senate chamber itself and in the committees on which he sits, or rather, on which he is supposed to sit—I am not sure how I should put it. He has, in other words, missed 65% of the meetings of the aboriginal affairs committee.
Senator Mike Duffy, also a Conservative, claimed a generous housing allowance, alleging that his main residence was on Prince Edward Island despite having an Ontario health insurance card. This is completely unacceptable. In my opinion, if every member of the House were asked which health insurance card they have, I am certain that they would have the card for the province they represent. This, however, is not the case when it comes to Senators.
Over the last three years, Senator Duffy has cost Canadian taxpayers $1.2 million. He is never in the Senate chamber, but he readily participates in Conservative Party fundraising activities.
Senator Pamela Wallin, also a Conservative, is currently being investigated by the Senate, which suspects that she does not meet the residency requirements. She claimed over $300,000 in travel expenses over the past 3 years alone, in spite of the fact that only 10% of these expenses covered travel in Saskatchewan, the province she is supposed to represent. Moreover, just like Mr. Duffy, Ms. Wallin has an Ontario health insurance card, rather than one from Saskatchewan. This is unacceptable.
In 1999, Senator Eric Bernston, also a Conservative, was found guilty of having defrauded the Saskatchewan government. He nevertheless continued to sit in the Senate for two more years at the taxpayers' expense costing over $260,000.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives are not the only ones to have brought shame upon this country's democratic institutions.
Let us start with Senator Philippe Gigantès. This has to be my favourite example of lack of respect for democratic institutions. This failed Liberal candidate read one of his books in the Senate—from start to finish—in order to get a French translation. And then what did he do? He published that French version. Unbelievable. What a lack of respect for democratic institutions. You have to be pretty cheap to not want to pay for your own book to be translated into French. Come on.
Mac Harb, another Liberal senator, is also being audited for travel expense fraud. He claimed $30,000, even though he has several residences in Ottawa. Andrew Thompson, a Liberal, showed up for work only 12 times in seven years, and continued to be paid. That works out to an average of two days a year, for a salary of $132,300. I imagine that a lot of Canadians would like to get $132,300 for two days of work a year. The government is harassing the unemployed, and meanwhile, senators can work two days a year for $132,300. That is shameful.
This is what the Prime Minister has said about the Senate in recent years:
...the upper house remains a dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the prime minister...
These comments were posted on his website on January 15, 2004, during his party's leadership campaign. Here is another quote:
The truth is the Senate is a patronage position—virtually a lifetime patronage position—with little responsibility or accountability. And this is the fundamental problem...
That is an excerpt from an interview he gave on CTV on December 10, 1997.
Taxpayers are now on the hook for millions so that the Prime Minister's friends and generous Conservative Party supporters can sit pretty for the rest of their lives. In my opinion, there is no place in our democracy for a Senate made up of unelected members who have no accountability.
We could find much better ways to spend the $90 million a year needed to run this archaic institution. How many seniors could we lift out of poverty with $90 million? How many job opportunities could we help create for our young people? How much could we help young single mothers who are living in difficult situations? But no, we are paying senators so that some of them can work two days a year and earn $132,000. We can see where the priority is here.
Appointed senators, especially the ones who abuse their privileges, do not represent the interests or values of Canadians. Canadians, senators aside perhaps, are hard workers. This situation is completely unacceptable to them when they have to get up early every morning to work hard, despite sometimes difficult living conditions and economic situations that the Conservatives do not seem to be aware of. That is what normal Canadians do, while senators hardly do anything and are not accountable.
So we are calling on the Government of Canada to abolish once and for all the upper chamber of unelected, unaccountable officials. Why not simply abolish this archaic, undemocratic and outmoded institution? No province has had an upper chamber since 1968. No province has since said, “We made a mistake and will be reinstituting our upper chamber.”
The provinces, which have not had an upper chamber since 1968, have shown that they are able to operate democratically and that they have not been affected by this. The behaviour of some senators shows that it is high time to review the benefit of this democratic institution. Even if senators are elected for a nine-year term, they are still not accountable to anyone once they are elected, right up until they retire. So this does not solve the problem at all.