Mr. Speaker, I wanted to comment on the fine speech from my colleague, the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. She is a member of this House, not yet old enough to serve in the Senate. I think that is evidence enough in support of this motion, a sufficiently compelling argument on which to actually rest my case.
However there is yet more evidence, so I will not rest it there. I am sure she and my colleague from Toronto—Danforth, whose motion this is, have greater expectations of me.
If I might, I will say what a pleasure it is to share the privilege of representing the citizens of the east end of Toronto with the member for Toronto—Danforth. We stand back to back in our common cause of serving the people of the east end of the city. I stand with him today in full support of this motion.
Today's motion is part of a larger progressive vision and plan that we in the NDP have for reforming the electoral and parliamentary systems of Canada.
This is about bringing a more fulsome democracy to Canada, about making representation more meaningful and real, about making sure we have a system whereby the citizens of this country can be sure that they are able to remove us from this place when those of us who occupy this place fail to do our job properly. It is this latter point that is relevant, I believe, to today's motion, to this part of our democracy project.
Let me say at the outset of this speech that it is my desire as an MP to always conduct myself in a dignified and civil manner as befitting this institution. Whatever one wants to say about the conduct and language that is appropriate to this place does not really matter because there are, in any case, some very clear, explicit expectations of my constituents for my conduct.
A speech about the Senate poses a huge challenge to that, because the subject matter is not in fact dignified and is not civil. The institution has become ugly, crude and sordid, and an argument for its abolition cannot avoid but shine a light on that and speak in plain terms about that.
As a new MP, I am not so used to and familiar with this place yet that the Senate and the senator seem normal to me. There is something quite unusual about this collection of people who have made this place home till kingdom come or they are 75 years old. This ought to be a place where we are able to be, only by the will and grace of those who sent us here. We ought to feel lucky about that. We ought to never take for granted the privilege we have to be in this House to represent the views of our constituents on the important issues of the day.
We ought to be well aware, every day, that the privilege is in our constituents' hands to withdraw or withhold should we slip and fail in our duty, or should they change their minds, or should time and events simply overtake us and our usefulness to them.
It was a very strange experience early on in my tenure here—and strange perhaps that I remember it really well—the day I sat down on a joint House of Commons-Senate committee, substituting for one my colleagues, next to a senator. Here was this man, sitting on this committee nominally for the same purpose as the rest of us sitting around the table, reviewing and scrutinizing legislation, studying the issues of the day, with no one to go back to, no one to account to, no constituency, no events that weekend to get back to the riding for, just collecting a salary until the inevitable. He was entirely unaccountable.
This is to argue that the institution is fundamentally undemocratic and that it represents a deep distrust of democracy. It is and it does. It is a comforting backstop for those who are concerned about the wisdom of the elected, and by extension the wisdom of the electors. There are facts aplenty served up over the course of time to undermine the justifications of that institution.
To focus on the issue of accountability seems a bit naive. There is an unassailable truth to those arguments, but there is a bigger truth that seems to make those finer, higher arguments somewhat moot.
The Prime Minister once described the Senate as a relic of the 19th century. Were it only that, then there may be something pointedly historical about it and some historical justification for keeping it alive, for reforming it, for modernizing it perhaps. This argument might take the shape of tradition versus more modern democratic notions about institutions.
However, it is actually substantially worse and considerably sadder than simply that. The institution, even for what it was, has degenerated and become corrupted beyond rehabilitation. It is not even about what the senators are doing here, or what terms and conditions they operate under, but what they have done to get here.
The Senate is the pension. The work has already been done, their masters have been served and this is the deferred compensation for that work.
I am not a historian, and maybe the institution knew better times. Maybe someone took seriously—and apparently the Liberals still do—the notion of second sober thought. On the other hand, some people say that it has always been thus, and I enjoyed the quote from my colleague by Sir John A. Macdonald about this being the chamber of the propertied. I only know what the Senate has been throughout my adult life: a crass, crude and corrupted institution.
Look what we have there.
We have Senator Doug Finley who is the former national campaign director and director of political operations for the Conservative Party in 2006 and 2008. He was charged for overspending the Canada Elections Act spending limit and falsifying tax claims in the 2006 election. Over the last three years, he has cost the taxpayer just shy of $730,000.
We have Senator Irving Gerstein, chief fundraiser and chair of the Conservative Fund Canada. He is the largest fundraiser for the Conservative Party and was charged in 2011 with violating the Canada Elections Act. He was involved in filing false tax claims and exceeding federal spending limits on campaign advertisements. Senator Gerstein has cost the taxpayer just shy of $1 million over the last three years.
The list goes on, of course, with bagmen, backroom boys and failed candidates in the Senate.
Not to be outdone, the Liberals have enshrined their own set of past political operatives in the Senate. For example, Senator David Smith is a former national Liberal campaign co-chair. He cost the taxpayers $935,000 over the last three years. Senators Cowan, Robichaud, Mitchell, Campbell, all former Liberal Party operatives, each cost the taxpayers either side of a million bucks over the last years, and the list goes on.
The Senate was never justified on any grounds, but at least the red chamber had the facade and aura of dignity. However, that is no more. That has fallen away and with it has gone the possibility of recovery. A seat in the red chamber is the crude patronage of a twisted cynical political game that has been played out between those two parties since Confederation. It is the pork of political bagmen and operatives of Liberals and Conservatives. The party that wins the election gets to bring its insiders to feed at the trough of the Canadian Senate; wealthy enough men and women gorging themselves at the expense of the taxpayer for doing the dirty work of their party.
Senate reform has been the mantra of this Prime Minister, but there has been no rush, we note. He has had seven years to deliver on that promise, but what he has delivered instead was 58 of his own to feed at the Senate trough; taking a seat as the head of all of but six other prime ministers in the pantheon of patronage.
With Patrick Brazeau, Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Mac Harb, it has come down to audits and investigations over housing allowances and travel expenses. Do senators live where they say they live?
It makes one wish we could go back to debating the principles and the value of the relic. Perhaps it is a debate without a different conclusion, but at least a debate of a higher order. However, the plumbing is backed up on this relic. There is no reviving it or getting rid of the stench. This unconstitutional, undemocratic relic deserves better than the crass feeding trough it has become.