Debates of June 5th, 2013

Concurrence in Vote 1—The Senate

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member may know that his reference to the word “lies” in particular, since it suggests intent, is not a word that is customarily used in the House, or the other place for that matter. It has always been considered in the category of unparliamentary language. Therefore, I would seek the hon. member's suggestion that he may wish to rephrase that particular segment of his remarks.

The hon. member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I should have referred to the other place as sometimes misleading and sometimes deviating from proper oversight.

Our party has always called for abolition of the Senate, even when we were the CCF and the ILA even before that. We have been calling for the abolition of this unelected and accountable body known as the Senate.

Just last week in my riding I was talking to a Ms. Martin, a single mother who lives in my riding who is working two jobs and still struggling to make ends meet. Her difficulties are hard but sadly not unique to Canadians. From coast to coast to coast, Canadians are struggling in this economic climate. What is the government doing to help Canadians? What is it doing to help lower unemployment rates? What is the government doing to help Ms. Martin spend less time worrying about how she will pay her bills and spend more time at home with her children?

Instead of fixing these problems, the Prime Minister and the Conservative government are writing a cheque for $58 million to the unelected, unaccountable senators who work just 71 days a year on average. It does not make sense. It is not giving enough for hard-working Canadians to collect EI when they need it. However, it does have enough to give to the Senate to give senators a nice salary and pension.

The Conservative government, like its Liberal predecessors, would rather protect its party bagmen, party hacks and failed candidates in the Senate than protect the thousands of Canadians who are struggling every day.

At its purest form, the Senate is a place for senators to come together and represent and fight for their constituents. As we can see, this noble cause is lost in the upper chamber. Could this be because they are not elected and held accountable by their constituents? Could this be because they are not appointed based on their community work, but rather because of their backroom partisan work?

Enough is enough. The Canadian people need to be the first priority of the government and it has to stop funnelling money to the unaccountable, unelected Senate.

In a recent Ipsos poll it was found that 43% of Canadians agreed with the NDP that the Senate should be abolished, 45% of Canadians believed that at the very least the Senate needed to be reformed and a small 13% of Canadians, including the Liberal leader, agreed with the Liberal leader's and Conservatives' record, that the status quo worked and nothing needed to be changed.

Nevertheless, it is not just Canadians and the NDP who want the Senate abolished. The premiers of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan all believe that the Senate is an archaic, wasteful, undemocratic institution that has no place in Canada's government. Every province in Canada has done away with their upper chamber and have all thrived after doing so.

Canadians want and deserve better from their government. It is time to end the gravy train, stop the funding and start using taxpayer dollars to make their lives better and more affordable.

It is not just Canadians who know that something is not right in the Senate. During the 2005 election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to reform the Senate so that it would be equal, elected and effective. If he had to do it all over, he would probably add “ethical” to his list. He forgot the fourth e.

During their seven years in power, the Conservatives have introduced various bills that have never amounted to anything or been high on the list of priorities. Even worse, although the Prime Minister himself had promised that he would not appoint senators, he has appointed 59 since coming to power. This is a new record in Canada's history.

Not only did they break their promise, but the Prime Minister and the Conservatives perpetuated the Liberal tradition of using the Senate to reward the party faithful.

There is the appointment of failed candidates such as Josée Verner and Larry Smith and the appointment of Conservative cronies such as Irving Gerstein, Judith Seidman, Donald Plett and David Braley. Before he was appointed to the Senate, David Braley donated a total of $86,000 to the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister.

The NDP has always spoken out about these practices. We were against this archaic, undemocratic institution at the time of the Liberals, who behaved the same way the Conservatives are behaving now.

It is not surprising that the leader of the Liberal Party is against abolishing the Senate. Just think of all the Liberal senators who are benefiting from this institution. They include David Smith, James Cowan, Fernand Robichaud and Grant Mitchell, who are all friends of the party. All of them have used Canadians' money, public funds, to quietly campaign, when they are supposed to be working to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent more wisely.

When it comes to using taxpayers' money more wisely, 23 mayors in my riding are paid very little for all the hard work they do. I am talking about Géraldine Quesnel, Marc Roy, Marie-Claude Nichols, Guy Pilon, Robert Grimaudo, Yvan Cardinal, Michael Elliott, Manon Trudel, Robert Sauvé, Maryse Sauvé, Marc-André Léger, Réal Boisvert, Jean-Pierre Daoust, Réal Brazeau, Patrick Bousez, Nicole Loiselle, Jean-Yves Poirier, Yvon Bériault, Gaëtane Legault, Patricia Domingos, Aline Guillotte, Jean Lalonde and Claude Pilon.

Personally, I would rather see these millions of dollars given to elected officials who do their job properly and work tirelessly to represent my region than to senators who do nothing.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a number of times during the debate about the vote 1 for Senate funding, the issue of Bill C-290 has been raised. I want to put on the record that the Senate should review this bill, and in my view should defeat this bill.

That bill, when it was in front of this House of Commons, did not receive a standing vote at second reading. In fact, what transpired on Friday, March 2, 2012, was that the House leaders worked together to force debate to collapse before the full two hours of third reading had transpired, preventing members like me from “standing five” to request a full standing division on that piece of legislation.

That bill did not receive sufficient scrutiny in this House of Commons. It went through one hour of hearing at committee with the Canadian gaming commission. That is the reason for which we have a Senate. It is the chamber of sober second thought that ensures the decisions made by this House are double-checked by the upper chamber.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I respect this member very much, but if he wants to talk about not having the opportunity to stand up in this House and do his part, he should talk to his House leader for invoking closure in debate 40 times in this House. It is a total affront to our democracy.

If the hon. member wants to talk about not being able to stand in his place and represent his constituents, I would tell him to talk to his House leader so that this place can function properly.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member. He mentioned 1984 and what happened to the Progressive Conservatives. I am wondering if he has any comments about what happened between 1984 and 1988-89. When the prime minister needed to push more senators, he automatically brought in a whole slew of them and they were placed in the House.

If the roles were reversed and they had to pass legislation, would it not have been the same?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the problem, and we have seen this since the beginning of Confederation. The party in power uses the Senate to stack people with patronage appointments in that place.

It does not actually function as a chamber of sober second thought. It functions as a parking place for party bagmen, partisan campaigners and the like. We saw that after the 1984 election when Brian Mulroney took power. He used the Senate in exactly the way for which he has denounced the previous Trudeau administration. We see that with the current Prime Minister using it in the same way that the Chrétien administration used it.

This has to come to an end. We have to get rid of the other place. This is a good first step, talking and having a debate about whether we should be giving these millions of dollars to it.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, who decided not to speak on Bill C-290 and did not want to vote on it. The bill was actually passed on a voice vote in the House of Commons because there were not five Conservatives who wanted to stand in this place to force a vote. The vote never took place because five Conservatives did not want to be here. I would like to ask my hon. colleague about that.

The bill was unanimously sent from the House to the Senate, and now it languishes there. The bill would fight against organized crime and offshore betting establishments, and would provide a revenue stream and jobs for provinces. It would help places like Windsor, Fort Erie, Niagara Falls and Nova Scotia.

Why should he support the Senate when a bill from the democratically elected people, who actually chose this bill—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the money being spent there is not working. It could be put to better use.

As I have already said, there are 21 municipalities represented by democratically elected men and women in my riding. Those people work hard in the interests of their constituents. They live in their city, not elsewhere, and they work for a laughable salary. Many of them have to get a second job to make ends meet.

When it comes to funding the Senate, I think that we could be paying far less than what we are now, for the same work.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this debate tonight is not about a few bad apples in a barrel; it is about the fact that the entire barrel is a pork barrel. The entire barrel is rotten, and it needs to be fixed.

The people of Canada have lost confidence in the Senate, which is neither democratic nor accountable. The people of Canada are looking to this House to show leadership.

This motion seeks to force reform and to get the barrel fixed, which is much more important than just going after a few bad apples. Of course, they are not all bad apples. There is no question that there are some senators who are outstanding citizens and who have contributed a great deal to our country in their careers. There is also no question that there are many individual senators who work hard in the red chamber and who seek to serve the country well. They have done nothing wrong.

However, even if all the senators were in that league and none of their colleagues were a Conservative or a Liberal crony, helping themselves to public funds while doing the bidding of their patrons is unacceptable. Even if they are all working hard, we should still fight to stop funding the Senate and force reform.

This motion is not about those cronies who are abusing their appointed positions. It is about the institution that has become degraded and corrupted by its political masters. The prime ministers, whether they were Liberal or Conservative, have loaded it up with cronies for their own ends. Through patronage appointments and supporting the Senate, they have undermined democracy. The only way we can stop this degradation and abuse of public funds and trust is to cut off the funds.

As hon. members on the Conservative benches and the Liberal benches have pointed out, abolishing the Senate will require constitutional change. However, cleaning up the act in the meantime can be done. That is what this motion is about.

Cutting the funding is something we can do in this House to stop the abuse and force reform. We, the democratically elected members of this House, have an opportunity to force the issue by stopping funding. We have an opportunity to force the issue so that this House can debate, and the country can contemplate, democratic institutions.

We have an opportunity. More than that, all those here who believe in democracy have a responsibility to uphold democratic principles and principles of good governance. This is about democracy. This is about transparency. This is about accountability. This is about good governance.

All members of this House must agree that the Senate is not democratic. It has not been transparent. It is clearly not accountable. That is not the fault of individual senators. The problem is the institution itself, which has become nothing but a creature of the government in power.

The current Prime Minister spent his earlier career in politics railing against this institution of patronage. He spent his career crying out for reform and for a triple E Senate: equal, effective, elected. Remember that, Mr. Speaker? He campaigned on that when leading the Reform Party.

Now is the chance. Where is the Prime Minister on this? The current Prime Minister cried out when former prime ministers Mulroney and Chrétien and Martin loaded the Senate with patronage appointments. He cried out for reform. He cried out and campaigned for reform for years, until he finally got in the position to do something about it. What did he do? He started larding the pork barrel with patronage appointments, blatantly and cynically, so that he could overwhelm the Liberal majority in the Senate.

As a result, excellent legislation for sending affordable drugs to African kids was killed. A bill dealing with climate change was waived out of hand.

While he was larding it up, he claimed, in the most cynical way, that he was making appointments to facilitate Senate reform; this while he was bloating the institution with more senators than ever, all getting public funds, which was a clear abuse of public funds.

Rather than reforming the senate, he has undermined democracy. He did not appoint just cronies and media personalities and celebrities. He appointed failed Conservative candidates, failed candidates for this House. He appointed candidates for Parliament who had been defeated in their own ridings. They had been rejected by voters. They could not get elected. The current Prime Minister, the long-time spokesperson for democratic reform, whose former party was called Reform, made these cynical and undemocratic patronage appointments.

In one of those cynical, undemocratic—in fact, anti-democratic—appointments, he appointed a defeated candidate to cabinet. It was someone who had been rejected by the electorate, someone who could not get elected. That undemocratically appointed senator became a cabinet minister. That was not democratic. That was a slap in the face of democracy. In fact, it was a slap in the face of this House.

With that appointment, the Prime Minister was not just further degrading the Senate; he was further degrading this House of Commons and he was further degrading democracy.

Who has been served by these patronage appointments? It is clearly not the people of Canada, who have no say in the matter. The Conservative Party has been served and the Prime Minister has been served.

The two senators now under scrutiny for abuse of public funds and public trust worked very hard to get their appointments, not for the people of Canada but for the Conservative Party.

What we have here is an institution that is an extension of the Conservative and Liberal parties' election machines. That cannot be fair. That cannot be just.

Why was the $92 million spent on the Senate not shown in the election spending reports? We know for sure that they were fundraising. They were campaigning.

I have no doubt that if the Prime Minister were still in opposition and the bad apples of the day were all Liberals, he would be crying out for reform. He would have been leading the charge with this motion. He would have been looking to stop this waste.

Instead, the Prime Minister has been making the pork barrel even worse. He has even put more pork into the barrel. He has not been accountable. He abandoned his principled pursuit of a Triple-E Senate as soon as he had the chance to mould that Senate to his own ends.

He has forgotten that we were elected to serve the public trust, not to abuse it. He has undermined democracy. It is the responsibility of every democratically elected member of Parliament to stop the abuse, force reform, fix the barrel and stop feeding pork into it. Empty it, get rid of the rot, and vote for this NDP motion to stop funding the Senate.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Trinity—Spadina talked a lot about democracy in her speech. Actually, a lot of it was just lip service to democracy, if one thinks about it. She is talking about basically abolishing the Senate through a backdoor mechanism, i.e., cutting off the funding, which is really not constitutional.

If she really had some respect for democracy and our Constitution, she would actually be more up front and support a true motion, yet the NDP has never put a motion forward. It has talked about it. It has never supported any form of democratic reform of the Senate.

She should admit, while she is at it, that it is only this Prime Minister who has ever nominated democratically elected senators. He is the only prime minister in Canadian history to do so.

I would like to hear her comments on why she thinks it is democratic and constitutional to cut off funding for an institution of Parliament that is established in the Constitution. Why does she think it is all right for her party to move that kind of motion forward.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps my friend was not here when the former leader of the New Democrats and I moved a motion to ban partisan fundraising by senators of all parties and to institute a cooling-off period for appointments of party insiders and failed candidates. In fact, I am reading from that motion, which the member did not realize had been debated in the House. We voted on it.

While New Democrats were making reasonable proposals, what did the Conservatives do? Conservatives only made Senate reform suggestions that would never pass. They have been spending time doing nothing all these years, because their goal, ultimately, is to play political games rather than bring greater accountability to the Senate. They claimed to want an elected Senate, then appointed senators in record numbers. They said they wanted to clean up the Senate, then refused to beef up the Senate ethics code. They said that taxpayers should not subsidize political parties, then had taxpayer-funded senators working on fundraising for the party.

I could go on, but we certainly have debated that motion, and we have had many proposals in the House in the past.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, not in the last election, but in the previous one, two members of Parliament were invited to be honoured at a Burmese temple. One of the members arrived in a limo. The limo number was livery number six. I even know the guy who drove the member there. The husband of the member said that his wife had to have RCMP support.

Would the member now like to come clean and talk about pork-barrelling in all the other parties and admit that she was using a livery that day when she went to be awarded in a Burmese temple? Come clean now.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I am not sure that question is relevant to the question before the House.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Windsor West.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question with regard to Bill C-290, the single sports betting bill, which was passed in the House of Commons, without objection and without speeches against it, to the Senate. It has been languishing there for a year.

In Toronto, during this past Super Bowl, there was a bust of illegal game betting of $2 million. What does the hon. member think about this bill, because it works against organized crime and it works against some of the offshore betting that is taking place? It makes sure that those funds go back to the public institutions we support.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Again, I appreciate the hon. member's attempts to try to connect that issue to the question before the House. It is a bill that is before the other place. I see that the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina was on her feet. If she wishes to answer it, we will let that go.

The hon. member for Trinity—Spadina.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Very briefly, Mr. Speaker, I can think of lots of things to do with $92 million. I can imagine how many buses that would purchase. I can imagine how many child care spaces we could create each year. I can imagine how many hours of home care support and how many seniors could be served with $92 million. As to the bill that is stuck, I do not understand why we need a Senate. The best way to deal with it, of course, is to stop funding it.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on vote 1 before us, which concerns the funding for Senate operations. We should take a look at how much it actually costs to run the Senate. It costs about $90 million a year to run the Senate of Canada, but let us take a step back and actually put that into perspective. Let us see how much it costs to run the House of Commons in a year. The House of Commons costs more than three times that amount. In fact, it costs almost four times that amount to run the House each and every year. It costs some $350 million a year. Using the logic that many have used in the House during this debate that it costs too much money to run the Senate of Canada, perhaps we should abolish the House of Commons.

Clearly, that is a trite argument that is nonsensical and something that most Canadians would see as absurd.

There has been a lot of controversy and debate about the Senate. That is why we are talking about vote 1 and why we previously had a debate on the motion to abolish the Senate. There are certainly a number of parliamentarians who are under investigation right now. We should allow those processes to unfold. We, as all people in this country, should believe in due process and the rule of law.

If members of Parliament, whether here or in the other place, are found to have expensed items that are inappropriate, then those parliamentarians should be held to account and the expenses repaid. However, let us not take four ongoing investigations of four senators and paint the rest of the 101 senators with the same brush. That is unfair to the people involved. It is unfair, in particular, because they are not able to attend this place and speak in their own defence, so I am speaking today in defence of the work they do.

I want to highlight the four reasons I believe we should fund the Senate and why I believe the Senate should exist.

The Senate serves as a counterweight, a check and balance, to the majoritarianism of this place. This place is representative of the Canadian population. In fact, we are increasing the number of ridings in Canada, because Canada's population is growing. This place reflects majority rule, and that is why we have elections, where members of Parliament represent their constituents. This place has a tendency toward majoritarianism. That is why we need an upper chamber. The upper chamber serves as a counterweight and counterbalance to the majoritarianism of this place.

Let us take a look at whether the Senate is truly an archaic place that is not reflective of the Canadian population. In fact, if we look at the statistics, the Senate is more reflective of the new Canada than is the House of Commons. According to recent Statistics Canada census data, 20% of Canada's population is visible minority. Only half of that number is in the House of Commons. Less than 10% of the House of Commons is visible minority. There are a greater number of visible minorities in the Senate of Canada than there are in the House of Commons. The Senate better reflects the makeup of this country when it comes to visible minority representation.

Let us look at the number of women. Clearly, in Canada, 50% of the population is female, but in this place, only 25% of parliamentarians are female. In the Senate, 38% of senators are female. There, again, the Senate is more reflective of the makeup of this country.

The Senate and its makeup is not the archaic institution many members in this place would have people believe. It actually better reflects what this country is and what it is turning into in the coming decades as we become more diverse and more pluralistic. That is why the Senate serves a useful function. It serves to counterbalance the majoritarianism of this place, which under-represents minorities and ensures that the minority voices of women and visible minorities are heard in Parliament and here in Ottawa.

There is a second reason the Senate serves an important function. It serves as a chamber of sober second thought. It serves as a useful—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. Throughout the course of the debate, members have paid respect to those who have had the floor during the course of their remarks. I realize that from time to time, members will heckle, but members need to respect the fact that another one of their colleagues has the floor, and I would ask, if they have to make these kinds of outbursts, that perhaps they should take it outside and discuss it among their other colleagues.

The hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Senate serves as a chamber of sober second thought to review legislation. I just want to highlight three pieces of legislation that have gone through this House over the years that the Senate has defeated, amended or reviewed.

For example, setting aside one's views on the difficult issue of abortion, let us look at what happened to Bill C-43 during the time of Mr. Mulroney's government. It was defeated in the Senate. It was the bill that would have restricted abortion in this country. The Senate defeated Bill C-43. Otherwise, today in Canada we would have had restrictions on abortion. Therefore, I would ask members opposite who have strongly held convictions on this whether that was a role that they would have seen as useful as played by the Senate.

More recently, after the last election, the government introduced, as part of its electoral commitment, Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act. It sailed through this House of Commons, and it got to the Senate. Suddenly the members of government and the senators realized that there were problems with respect to national security in the bill. Therefore, the Senate introduced an amendment which then forced the bill back to this House. The amendment was adopted by this House, the legislation received royal assent. That gap, that shortfall in the bill, was addressed by the Senate of Canada.

More recently, as I mentioned before, Bill C-290, that did not receive a standing vote in this House of Commons and received only one witness at committee, the very proponent of the bill, did not receive sufficient scrutiny and oversight. The Senate is currently doing its work in that regard.

Those are just three examples of the important work that the Senate has done over the years in its role as a chamber of sober second thought to review legislation.

There is a another reason why the Senate serves a useful function. That is, its role as an investigative and research and deliberative body. In the history of the Senate back to the 1960s and 1970s, the investigative work of the Senate into social policy became integral to the development of Canada's modern social safety welfare net. The development of the Canada pension plan and the Canada Health Act and the development of policies involving social transfers to the provinces for health care, education, post-secondary research and development were all influenced by the work that the Senate did over the years. More recently, the work that the Senate did on mental health influenced government and House of Commons decisions on legislation, policy and funding for mental health concerns. The Senate does the same thing as royal commissions, public inquiries and external task forces, but it does so at a lesser cost than those royal commissions and in a much quicker and more timely manner.

There is yet another reason why the Senate serves a useful function. It is the same reason why in over 50 states around the world there are bicameral legislatures: the Senate serves to provide a check and balance, not just on the majoritarianism of the lower chamber in this House of Commons, but also on the executive branch of government.

I would like to quote Sir Clifford Sifton. He was a Canadian minister at the turn of the 20th century who helped open up western Canada for the waves of immigration that settled the great Prairies and produced the powerhouse of energy and agriculture that we see today. Here is what Clifford Sifton said in the book The New Era in Canada in 1917:

No nation should be under unchecked, single-chamber government.... It must also be remembered that, under our system, the power of the Cabinet tends to grow at the expense of the House of Commons.... The Senate is not so much a check on the House of Commons as it is upon the Cabinet, and there can be no doubt that its influence in this respect is salutary.

The check that the upper chamber provides on the executive branch of government, something that many Canadians have been increasingly concerned about over the last 30 or 40 years, is a useful function. In fact, modern North American institutions are based on Montesquieu's doctrine of the division of powers as a way to best achieve outcomes in society, and the way to best achieve justness and fairness in society.

His division of powers principle is quite simple. We needed to move away from the error of the absolute rights of kings and dictators, where they held all the power, to a system of government where power was diffused. We needed a system where power was not concentrated in a single place, in the Prime Minister's Office, the cabinet or the executive branch of government, but diffused among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

The Senate, in a bicameral system of government, serves that end of the division of power. It serves that end of diffusion of power. It serves that end to provide a check and balance on the concentration of power in one place. That is why, as I said earlier, there are 50 countries around the world with bicameral legislatures.

In addition to these reasons why the Senate serves a useful function, let us talk about the practical, political realities of abolishing the Senate. The reality is that Canada exists today in part because of the Senate. It was the deal that brought the provinces and colonies before Confederation into the federation.

In fact, when we read the Debates on Confederation, it is clear that colonies like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec would never had joined this federation had it not been for the Senate. They made it clear they were worried about the rapidly growing populations in Canada West, now Ontario. They were worried about being subsumed by the majoritarianism of a rising Ontario. That is why they wanted the upper chamber to serve as a protector of their interests, whether they were regional in nature, reflecting smaller populations, or linguistic, reflecting the francophone realities in many parts of the country.

Many of those provinces, legislatures and national assemblies would not agree to the abolition of the Senate. They would see it as a diminution of their voice here in our nation's capital.

The political and practical reality is that abolition of the Senate is not something that is going to happen. It is not something that we could easily reopen without addressing the other demands that were made during the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, those divisive debates of the late 1980s and early 1990s. There are many more things on the table. If we went to a Dominion-provincial conference on first ministers to talk about the abolition of the Senate and whether or not we believe that would require the 7/50 amending formula or unanimity amongst Canada's 11 legislatures, the point is this: it would be opening a can of worms that no one in the House would want to open.

In particular, I ask members from Quebec on both sides of the House what they would expect the Province of Quebec to demand, with respect to the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society or the recognition of Quebec's nationhood. What would they expect in terms of the demand for a veto on the part of provinces for any future changes to the Constitution? What would they expect when terms of the original Meech Lake demand completely devolve immigration to the provinces and relinquish federal control about who comes into our country and who is accepted to be a citizen?

It would reopen the debate about who gets the power of appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada. There are all the sorts of issues that certainly would be reopened for those who advocate the abolition of the Senate. Therefore, for a practical reason, abolition is not really something that we can pursue, nor is it something that I support. It is also something that we cannot do through the back door.

The Constitution of this country, with its written and unwritten aspects as they have been interpreted by rulings of the Supreme Court, is the basic law of this country and we must respect that Constitution. We must respect the way it needs to be amended. We should wait until the Supreme Court renders its judgment in the reference case that the government has asked it to consider.

Mr. Speaker, while I believe in a bicameral Parliament, while I believe that we need a lower and upper chamber for the reasons I have just outlined, I also believe that the Senate needs to be reformed. We need to have term limits. My suggestion to my fellow parliamentarians is that we should have term limits based on the life of a Parliament. Therefore, instead of setting a fixed term limit of eight or nine years, we should base it on a Parliament. When a Parliament is dissolved for the purposes of a general election, that is when senators should seek re-election. We might want to go to a system where a senator serves for the life of two or three Parliaments before seeking re-election, but I strongly believe that we need to have a system where there a limit on the length of time a senator can serve. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will give us some guidance in that respect.

I also believe that we need to have popular consultations or elections of senators. That is incredibly important. That way we can provide Canadian citizens the accountability they are seeking for the upper chamber.

We need to do this thoughtfully. We cannot do it willy-nilly. There are unintended consequences if we proceed too rapidly and too rashly. If we are to proceed with term limits and an election of senators based on the court's ruling, then we also need to strengthen this very House of Commons.

In Ontario, the province from which I come, we have 24 senators. In Ontario, unlike Quebec where senators serve at large, if 24 senators run in province-wide elections we could see up to six million or more voters voting for a senatorial candidate. In that situation it is not inconceivable that a single Senate candidate could win an election with four million, five million or more votes, dwarfing the number of voters and constituents that members of this chamber represent. Accordingly, when those senators who have the legitimacy of being elected with some three million to four million votes confront the House about what should be done with certain pieces of legislation, we need to think about strengthening this House of Commons to ensure that the increase in the power of the Senate, because of term limits and elections, is reflected also in an increase in power of this part of the legislature, the House of Commons. This would ensure that the people's place that is represented by 308 members here today has an effective and continued voice as the primary centre of power in our nation's capital.

For all those reasons I believe the Senate serves a useful role. I believe members should vote to ensure its continued operation. While the institution is not perfect, and while those who have made mistakes should be held to account, let us ensure that our institutions remain strong to respond to the future challenges that Canada faces.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member's speech. Some of the comments I made during his speech were in favour of some of what he was saying because I did detect a dedication to democratic principles in his speech, which I fundamentally share. I think that on both sides of the House we can recognize when a democrat stands up, but we may disagree.

Where I fundamentally disagree is that if we were to look at the Senate today, because of its partisan nature, it is not functioning as that second House necessary to ensure checks and balances. There is a contradiction between the way it has been created, in that it is unelected, and that it is partisan.

Therefore, how can the member, as the democrat that I know he is, stand up to defend that institution that really does not do its constitutional job?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that there are challenges in our Parliament. I acknowledge that there is a need to reform certain aspects of our institutions. We have challenges in this House as does the Senate. However, I do not think the solution is to either abolish the Senate or to seek to do through the back door what we are unable to accomplish through the front door, which is to starve the upper chamber of the funds it needs to operate.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat sad to see in the dying days of this session prior to summer break that we are spending the time talking about the Senate and Senate reform when there are so many real issues.

Here we are in debate on our main estimates. People are concerned about our middle class, the jobs, economy, taxes and health care. There is so much more that we could be talking about.

Instead, the NDP, not using very much wisdom, has decided to allocate today to be all about the Senate, knowing full well that no matter what we decide here today absolutely nothing is going to have an impact in terms of the future of the Senate because it requires constitutional changes.

Given that the NDP persists in the discussion of constitutional change, which is what it has chosen to talk about today, can the member indicate whether there has been any interest from any of the provinces in having a constitutional discussion about changes to the Senate.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is public record that there have been no first ministers conferences on constitutional change. I actually believe that is good thing.

We need to remain focused on what Canadians are telling us, which is that they are concerned about jobs and economic growth. We, as parliamentarians, need to be focused on those issues and not get sidetracked by debate about reopening the Constitution, which I think would be incredibly divisive and distracting.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly the hon. member is both someone who takes his role as a parliamentarian seriously and one who has truly elevated the debate here tonight by bringing in the historic tone.

That elevation has been important because we are all working late in the chamber. I was disappointed by the earlier remarks from my law school colleague, the member for Halifax, in trying to dance around some of the twin absurd motions we have before Parliament that are clearly unconstitutional and clearly ultra vires.

I would like to ask the member for Wellington—Halton Hills to talk about how both of the motions we have seen tonight, from the member for Pontiac and the member for Winnipeg Centre, are unconstitutional at their core and distract from the real debate of Senate reform that our government has been advancing.