Andrew Telegdi

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be quick. Cheap politics and slander will get the member nowhere.

In terms of being elected by my constituents, I have been elected five times with bigger numbers each time.

The member talks about Gomery. Let me talk about the eight cabinet ministers and MPs that in nine years were fined and convicted, some went to jail, under the Mulroney government.

He talks about Gomery. Let me talk about the book On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years. The former Prime Minister was talking about patronage appointments and he said he was going to clean it up. Then he went to the Conservative meetings and was going to appoint everybody a senator or a judge. He said that eventually he would appoint a Liberal, but it was only after he appointed every living, walking Conservative. That is found in the book--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will give me as much time to answer as the member got to ask questions. Let me say to the member--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member must imagining things if he thinks he heard me talking about an elected Senate. I have never talk about an elected Senate.

I am glad the member for Wild Rose cited some examples where Conservative prime ministers appointed Liberals to the Senate. I must say that our last Liberal prime minister appointed a senator, Mr. Hugh Segal, to the Senate.

The member talks about a number of things. He did not answer the question which I raised in my speech as to what happened to voting for one's constituents that the member and all the Reformers were so keen on. That has disappeared. We even had a situation where a minister of the Crown, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, because the Prime Minister announced a policy to recognize the Québécois as a nation, resigned his seat in this House because he was not allowed to come into this House and vote his conscience.

When I was in a similar situation and resigned as parliamentary secretary, there was never a question that I would come into this House and vote against the legislation.

The member mentions Gomery--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I look back with fondness to the days when the Reform members were actually civil in this House and not using a mob-like mentality.

I want to get back to the Senate. If we were to have elected senators with votes that mean a lot more in one province than say in Alberta, British Columbia or Ontario, that would undercut representation by population. However, beyond that, it would give the Senate the kind of power that it does not have now.

One can just imagine what would happen to this chamber of democratically elected members from roughly equal constituencies, and I say roughly because we have some changes to make, and all of a sudden we have these bogus re-elected senators, who would not truly be recognized in the Constitution, holding up a bill of the House of Commons and not backing off when the House of Commons sends the bill back for the second time. The institution of the House of Commons then must prevail.

I mentioned that because this bill does absolutely nothing to deal with that issue.

I want to talk about a possible elected Senate that is amended by the Constitution and what I could support. I could support an elected Senate that is dealt with by the Constitution but that the powers of the Senate and the House of Commons must be very well defined. The ultimate authority of the House of Commons must prevail.

We also need to find a way of reflecting minorities in our country who might not be represented in the House. We must ensure that the Senate has the kind of knowledge base that is not necessarily reflected in this House. We need people from the arts and people with great expertise from social services, social sciences and the hard sciences. We also need to ensure we have people like Senator Roméo Dallaire who has expertise in the military. Those types of people are very important.

However, when we put that package together we must do it within the confines of the Constitution. Otherwise, as the premier of the province of Ontario said, to do otherwise would have the province of Ontario calling for the abolition of the Senate which, in the end, would be a mistake.

I would challenge members opposite to go back to Alberta, to go back to their constituencies in Ontario or to go back to their constituencies in British Columbia and ask their constituents if they think it is fair that their province is under-represented. I do not think the members will be surprised by the reactions they get. I believe the people will say that they think it is unfair and that if we are to have elections, we need to have a Senate based on representation by population.

The Senate has worked well for the most part because it has tried to be non-partisan as much as possible given the fact that Brian Mulroney appointed 57 senators and given the fact that most senators are political appointments.

However, I can say that the decorum in the House of Commons could do well to look to the decorum in the Senate. The displays and discourtesies that we have in the House, such as those afforded by the member for Cambridge, do not represent the kind of behaviour they have in the Senate.

If we want a Senate that is partisan and a Senate that does not work as effectively and efficiently as it does now, then we would want to pass this bill. However, I think most Canadians, on a sober second thought, not a knee-jerk reaction to a particular poll that might be done in the same fraudulent way as the consultation on the Wheat Board was done, would want us to leave well enough alone.

I know former Premier Peterson of the province of Ontario quickly learned that Senate seats are not given away for the province of Ontario, particularly when it is under-represented.

We should not be having this debate because what we are debating is a way to go around the Constitution. The reason we have a Constitution is because we consulted widely with all the stakeholders. Constitutional change is not easy but if we are going to amend the Constitution of this country, we need due diligence and a comprehensive approach where the problems are thought out and term limits are actually looked at.

I know there is debate on having term limits of 8 years, 12 years or 15 years. If, at the end of the day, our aim is to make the Senate as non-partisan as possible, a Senate that manages from time to time to do great work, then we would not want a senator having to run in an election every eight years. We might want the appointment to be for a longer term of maybe 12 to 15 years. If we were to do that, then we would ensure that the people have the background, the expertise and the experience in the Senate to make it happen.

It should come as no surprise to the government that Bill C-43 will be defeated because it does not have the support of the House. I will be looking forward to voting against the bill when the time comes.

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, can you call for order?

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to engage in this debate.

Members of the opposition have referred to former Prime Minister Diefenbaker. I cannot help but shake my head and think of former Prime Minister Diefenbaker, who believed in things like the Bill of Rights. He was a Progressive Conservative. To quote Danny Williams, he was not a “regressive Conservative” like the Reform-Alliance Conservatives are. I think that is important to point out to the House. I dare say that they should not be invoking the name of John Diefenbaker, who had an appreciation for rights.

A debate about the Senate was greatly advanced and put forward by the Reform Party. I remember how Preston Manning and the Reform Party were advocating for it, but the reality is that when they were talking about Senate elections, they talked about the three Es: elected, effective and equal.

But before I even get there, let me say that if we want to change the Constitution of Canada, this bill is trying to do it through the back door. The Senate is part of our Constitution. It is the chamber of sober second thought.

I must say that I have had occasion to plead my case with the Senate to defeat a government bill. I was a member of the government in the House of Commons and I went there with a colleague of mine from the Liberal Party as well as a colleague of mine from the Reform Party. Even though there was a majority of Liberal senators, they saw the wisdom of our appeal and held up a bad piece of legislation. I will be forever thankful for that. It certainly brought home to me the importance of having a Senate that is depoliticized as much as possible and indeed the importance of having a chamber of sober second thought.

We talk about going through the back door or doing it properly according to the Constitution. To amend the Constitution, which the bill essentially would require if it were to be meaningful, we need to have, according to section 38 of the Constitution, a resolution of the Senate and of the House of Commons and two-thirds of the provinces, seven having at least 50% of the population.

We know that Quebec and Ontario are opposed. Combined, they make up much more than 50% of the population. Further, I point out on the question of being equal that Alberta has 10.3% of the population of Canada, yet only 5.7% of the seats. British Columbia has 13.2% of the population of Canada but only 5.7% of the seats. In the case of the province of Ontario, it has 22.9% of the senators and over one-third of the population. How does it make sense to do an unconstitutional runaround on electing senators when a vote in British Columbia or Ontario or Alberta would be a very small fraction of the vote in other provinces?

I thought we generally agreed that there is agreement to having representation by population. This certainly does not address that. It is done very much in a piecemeal fashion.

I listened to the debate. I noted that the member for Cambridge said this was a great plan. Back during the time of the Meech Lake accord, the then premier of Ontario, Liberal David Peterson, made some comments about giving up some Senate seats from the province of Ontario. That suggestion did not go over well during the election campaign that followed shortly. The reason was that the people in Ontario did not want to see under-representation in the Senate made worse. The people of Ontario believe, as I dare say the people of Cambridge do, in representation by population.

This does not address that issue. As I said, it is piecemeal and it is through the back door. The fact of the matter is that because we cannot make these elections binding we depend on the Prime Minister to keep his word. I am sure all members of the House would agree, and all people involved in income trusts would agree, that this Prime Minister does not necessarily keep his word. He might keep it some of the time, but he surely does not keep it all of the time.

I think this whole issue of Senate reform, the issue that is masqueraded as Senate reform, is really dishonest, because it does not address the question as it goes to the very foundation of this country and our institutions. There is a way of properly doing constitutional reform. That is why we repatriated our Constitution. It was so we could do that here and not have to go to Westminster cap in hand. That was done on April 17, 1982.

That constitutional reform was done under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Let me say that there was a great deal of consultation around the country. It was comprehensive. It got tested by the courts. It had the provinces onside. This bill does none of that.

I mentioned that the Prime Minister does not always keep his word. We all remember the election. As soon as the election was held, his word was broken when he appointed to the Senate the Minister of Public Works, who was not a member of the House of Commons and who was not elected to anything. Here we have one of our most sensitive portfolios in the Senate, and we in the House of Commons cannot ask questions of that minister. This is so very much a typically Conservative smokescreen and piecemeal optics.

May I say that when the member for Calgary East talked about the Liberals appointing their buddies to the Senate, Brian Mulroney, in his nine short years, appointed 57 senators. I really hope that the member for Calgary East gets the message.

I think I am hitting a nerve on the other side. Notwithstanding that the Reformers came up here and said they were going to engage in civil debate, those folks over there have forgotten all that, just as they have forgotten coming to the Parliament of Canada to represent their constituents.

I remember a time when I looked across the aisle and listened to the Reform Party members and the leader did not even sit in the first row. He sat in the third row. Eventually he moved up to the first row. I remember how for every vote before this chamber the whip for the Reform Party said, “Reform Party members are going to be voting this way”, except those members who had been instructed by their constituents to do the other.

We have come 180 degrees to the party that is now on that side. I note the member for Wild Rose. He remembers those days as well. I appreciated those days because it helped bring some reform into this chamber. The only problem was that as soon as those members got into government the heavy hand of dictatorial power from the Prime Minister came down, the likes of which Parliament has not seen in 50 years. It is just unbelievable. We have situations--

[April 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, to be very clear, we are involved in an ideological debate.

The government does not believe that people who are fighting for their rights, those the government considers to be special interest groups, such as the poor, the disabled, women, people fighting for citizenship rights and the list goes on, should be listened to because the government is all-knowing and it can make the decision.

The fact is that if we are going to have justice in this country, we need the protection of the Constitution and of the charter. Again, one's right to--

[April 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the disabled it is important that we do not look upon them as a special interest group, which is what the government is doing by eliminating the court challenges program.

The rhetoric gets heated when the government attacks the fundamental premise of justice in this country by eliminating people's rights. It is the minority groups that need the programs because they tend to not have the money to undertake these challenges.

On the whole issue of disability, it is clear that we have a duty to accommodate people so they can be judged on their abilities not on their disabilities. To the extent that they can live as much of a normal life as possible, it is incredibly important that they have those rights.

Without the court challenges program, I think people rely on the human rights programs that might exist in the provinces but that does not substitute for something as important as the court challenges program which, ultimately, gets results before the Supreme Court.

I have a great deal of trouble with the government's position on this whole notion of interpreting rights and making those decisions because those things are covered in section 52 of the Constitution. As I listened to the Conservative members talk about Parliament and the government should decide on rights, that is totally wrong because governments make mistake. We have all sorts of examples in history where governments have made mistakes.

It is important to recognize that the interpretation of the Constitution, according to the Constitution, rests with the courts. For the average individual to access justice, it should depend on the merit of one's case and not on the size of one's pocketbook. People who are rich, like Conrad Black, can take care of themselves, but the people who are fighting for basic disability rights cannot care for themselves and that is why the court challenges program is so critical.

[April 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member is totally wrong. I can point to our multicultural minister, Jean Augustine. Jean Augustine is from Toronto. I could point to Mr. Ray Chan. I could point to Herb Dhaliwal. I could point to the member for Vancouver Centre. I could point to all sorts of members in the GTA who are members of visible minority groups.

However, what is clear is the member, in his desperation, is trying to defend getting rid of the court challenges program. In terms of the budget, it is like stealing from the Salvation Army box. That is what the Conservatives have done. They have taken away people's ability to fight for their rights. For that party to even pretend it is related to the Progressive—

[April 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to enter into this debate, but before I start, I think it is important that we put this into context. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills made some comments that I think deserve a response. He talked about the proud tradition of Conservative governments.

There has been a proud tradition of Progressive Conservative governments, governments that still exist on the provincial front, but not in the House of Commons. As Danny Williams, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, said, he sees himself as “a progressive Conservative” and the Prime Minister of this country as a “regressive Conservative”.

It is important to talk about that. The present government is not the party of the bill of rights of John Diefenbaker. The present government is a neo-conservative government, ideologically driven, based in the religious right, and it has done everything in its power to divide Canadians, to attack minorities, and to attack disadvantaged groups.

I am going to give the House an example so that we can understand that the court challenges program was much more than some debate that does not have an impact on ordinary Canadians. As the House knows, right now we are involved in a debate in the citizenship and immigration committee, and we have been for quite a number of years, and that debate deals with the whole issue of citizenship rights.

Very recently it became public that upward of 400,000 Canadians who thought they were Canadians are losing their citizenship rights and their citizenship for various reasons. I am going to focus my comments on one particular group, that of war brides and their offspring, because there are tens of thousands of people who fall into this category.

I am going to cite the case of Mr. Joseph Taylor because this particular case is very relevant to the discussion that we are having here today. It shows the very human nature of what we are talking about when we are talking about the fight for rights.

As we all know, we have had a lot of debates in this House on how we honour our veterans, the men and women who served to keep this country safe in the past and who did a great service for us in the world wars and other conflicts abroad. I am going to take the case of Mr. Joseph Taylor because he happens to be the son of a Canadian veteran. His father, Joe Taylor Sr., fought for this country during the second world war.

Joe Taylor Sr. went to England, where he was stationed, and, like thousands of Canadians who were in similar situations, many of them single, became involved with a woman from Britain. He met his English Rose and they fell in love. They found out that she was pregnant. Mr. Taylor told his commanding officer that he wanted to get married so the child would be considered legitimate versus being born out of wedlock. The commanding officer informed Mr. Taylor Sr. that Canada was not in the business of producing widows and orphans and essentially said they could not get married.

Mr. Joe Taylor Sr. went off to France to fight. Fortunately for his wife and child he survived the war in France. He went back to England, at which point he married his wife. He was very happy to be reunited with his new wife and son.

Canada had a program related to war brides and their children. The program was that those war brides and their children were allowed to come to Canada and as soon as they landed in Canada they all would become Canadian citizens.

Mr. Joe Taylor Sr. and his family set up house in British Columbia. Unfortunately, the marriage did not work out, so subsequently his wife and son went back to England. Mr. Joe Taylor, upon turning 18 years of age, decided that he would try to find his father, a veteran of the second world war. Mr. Taylor Jr. was told back then that he was no longer a citizen and would not get Canadian assistance in finding his father.

Back in the 1990s, Mr. Taylor once again decided he would come to Canada to try to find his father. Unfortunately for Mr. Joe Taylor Jr., he found out that his father had died. He is buried in a cemetery in Port Alberni.

Mr. Joe Taylor Jr. also found out that he had seven half-siblings living in British Columbia, with whom he reunited. He decided that he would retire in Canada, seeing that he has more family in Canada than he has in England. He bought himself a condominium in Victoria and comes back on vacations. He now is semi-retired in Britain and comes to Canada for his vacations. He spends time in Victoria.

Mr. Joe Taylor once again tried to get his Canadian citizenship. Once again the Department of Citizenship and Immigration refused him his citizenship. Mr. Taylor went to Federal Court over that decision.

The government, in denying Mr. Joe Taylor his citizenship, his rightful inheritance from his father, who fought for this country in the second world war, opposed his citizenship on two grounds. One was because Mr. Joseph Taylor was born out of wedlock. Second, the government opposed his citizenship on the grounds that in the 1947 act there is an obscure piece in the legislation which states that if people leave the country for any prolonged period of time they have to apply to keep their citizenship. Mr. Joe Taylor was not aware of that so he could not do so.

He took his case to the Federal Court. The Federal Court justice, Judge Luc Martineau, released his decision on September 1, 2006. In his decision, Mr. Justice Luc Martineau found that to discriminate against a person because he or she was born in or out of wedlock violated the equality section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says that we cannot discriminate against people because they are born in or out of wedlock.

On the question of not reapplying to keep that citizenship, Justice Luc Martineau ruled that this infringed section 7 of the charter, which talks about basic legal rights. Two sections are very important for this discussion. Section 7 of the charter states:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Section 15 of the charter deals with the equality section and states:

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disabilities.

It is very clear that nobody, no government would want to have legislation that violated that section of the charter, but what do we have? This decision came down September 1. I asked the then minister of citizenship and immigration a question as to why the government would want to appeal that decision.

The government opposite appealed the decision after it got rid of the court challenges program. It is incomprehensible to me that anybody, that any party and certainly the Government of Canada, would so dishonour the sacrifices made by our veterans as to fight against the rightful citizenship of their offspring.

In the case of Mr. Joe Taylor, he is not a rich man. He has a comfortable life, but he is not rich. For him to take on the government and pursue his case before the court to fight for his rights, and rights that affect thousands of other offspring of veterans whose rightful citizenship is being denied, it costs money and in the case of having gone to Federal Court, that cost Mr. Joe Taylor $30,000 and even though the judge ordered costs against the government, Mr. Joe Taylor recovered only $10,000.

The government made the decision, after it got rid of the court challenges program, to appeal Mr. Taylor's victory in the Federal Court. When it applied to the Federal Court of Appeal, it also informed the Federal Court that if it lost in the Federal Court, it would take the case to the Supreme Court.

How meanspirited can the neocons get when the government says to Mr. Joe Taylor, and people like him, that if he wants to fight for his fundamental rights, which a justice of the Federal Court has ruled to be unconstitutional for infringing the legal section and the equality section of the Charter of Rights, an individual, the son of a Canadian veteran, and there are thousands like him, that he might be right, but if he wants to fight for his rights, he will need lots of money, while the government will use the taxpayer money to fight him to the end.

For Mr. Joe Taylor to get his hearing before the Supreme Court, if it goes there, it would cost upwards of a half million to a million dollars. What the government has done is so very shameful.

Let me read a letter that Mr. Joe Taylor received from the court challenges program on October 31, 2006. It deserves to go in the record.

Case Funding Application E-1885.

We are writing in response to your application received in our office on October 16, 2006, in which you applied for Case Funding from the Court Challenges Program with respect to opposing the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's appeal from the Order of Mr. Justice Martineau.

We regret to advise you that the Court Challenges Program of Canada is no longer in a position to consider your application for funding. The Federal Government of Canada announced on Monday, September 25, 2006 that it would cut funding available under the existing Court Challenges Program effective immediately. Consequently, there are no longer any funds available for new applications under this Program.

We understand and appreciate how this decision will negatively affect your ability to bring your equality rights case forward, and we wish you all the best in your efforts to advance your equality rights.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me...

It is signed by the legal policy analyst.

It is an incredible disgrace for members of the Conservative Party to stand and say they support their military, the men and women in uniform, and then treat their offspring as shabbily as they have by cutting the court challenges program, appealing the decision and saying that they will appeal it to the Supreme Court. It is a disgrace and something for which they should hide their heads in shame. As more Canadians learn about this, the more outraged they will become.

I mentioned earlier that hundreds of thousands of people fall into this category of citizenship rights. For the government to eliminate a $6 million line item in a $200 billion budget is a total disgrace. However, this regressive Conservative Party, as the Premier of Newfoundland called it, has a long history on this. Therefore, this is nothing new and we should not be surprised.

In 1995 we had the hate crime legislation and Reformers, the predecessors to the Conservatives, were totally in opposition to it. They did not believe that gays should be protected, along with other groups, against hate crimes. That party is the government now. Those members fought against anything to do with gay rights, just as they fought against same sex marriage, and used it shamelessly for perceived political advantage.

That party had a family issues critic say that he believed it was a mistake to have legalized it, referring to homosexuality. That party has consistently made harmful statements about minority groups.

When we talk about the ideological perspective of that party, as I mentioned earlier, it is tied into religious rights and it has shamelessly used religious rights. Nothing better reflects it than its support from the Real Women of Canada. That group hated the court challenges program. It does not believe in same sex marriage, rights for homosexuals or that anybody who has a right should be able to challenge government.

That party calls minority groups special interest groups, but it embraces the gun lobby, the worst special interest in the country. It embraces the oil barons. That party does not call them special interest groups.

You were in the chair, Mr. Speaker, and you have seen the evolution of the Reform ideology. The Conservatives have been hiding it, but every once in a while it comes to the fore. There is no better example than when we bring up the court challenges program.

The Liberal Party is the party of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, something the Conservatives hate. What are the Conservative roots that they refer to back in 1985 to 1993? What did we have? Eighteen members of Parliament and cabinet were charged and convicted of breach of trust. We saw none of that under the previous government.

I want to make it very clear, and everybody except the Conservatives in the House agrees, that they do not have a right to compare themselves to other Conservative parties in the country. As Premier Williams said, “I am a Progressive Conservative; they are regressive Conservatives”. And once again, by removing funding from the court challenges program, they have proven it.