Bob Rae

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

Perhaps I am only speaking for the purposes of my own riding, Mr. Speaker.

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

I assume, Mr. Speaker, that means we can use nicknames.

I appreciate the question from my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. One of my favourite films, in addition to the tapes that I am sure the government is watching, is Wag the Dog. It is a great movie. Members should see it. I have seen the President of the Treasury Board. I know he does not have much to do because the money is not going out the door at all. He has put a cork in the government and stopped it.

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, there are some things which one can set one's clock by.

Certainly, the predictability of the response from my friends in the New Democratic Party with respect to the subject of the Senate is well known. I can only tell the hon. member that I would have thought that having served in a provincial institution, as I have, that he knows very well the provincial situation in every province.

We are a federal country. Every federal country in the world has a second chamber. Some of them are elected. Some of them are appointed. Some of them are half-appointed and half-elected. Some of them are elected on a proportional basis. Some of them are elected by the provincial chambers. There is a whole variety of techniques by which second chambers are chosen.

I have made it clear that I am not defending the status quo. I am simply looking at what I know is the government's agenda, which I am surprised the member would support. I would suspect that the Premier of Newfoundland would be very troubled by a unilateral change in the Constitution of Canada, and an attempt to do that by the reformists on the other side of the chamber. I would be very surprised if that were something that he thought was a great idea. I would be stunned if Premier Charest was in favour of it, or indeed if any provincial premier thought this was a wonderful idea.

We are discussing a very modest proposal on the face of it, which is to deal with the question of ethics, but it is not just a question of ethics. It is the question of the extent to which we respect the independence of the other chamber.

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I take no offence at the minister's comments about the colour of my hair and the fact that I was here when he was born. I appreciate that and I take it in the spirit of the good humour in which it was offered. Since I have just come back from my nap, I am feeling very invigorated this afternoon and I am quite happy to take on the comments.

The minister himself said that this is alongside other pieces of legislation. That is why we have to consider them all as a package. We all have to understand that this is part of a common approach which the government has taken, and I sincerely disagree with the minister.

In the sense of whether they are constitutional or not, I would just say that if the minister has confidence that they are constitutional, he should simply refer them to the Supreme Court of Canada and let the Supreme Court of Canada say yea or nay. That is what Mark MacGuigan had to do when he was a member of the government of Mr. Trudeau in 1977 or 1978. He had to refer the legislation and deal with it in that context.

We have been through this movie before. I know the Prime Minister has been watching a lot of tapes and movies, but a number of us are aware of what goes on in tapes and movies and we have been through this movie before.

I am certainly not recommending that we go back to the constitutional swamp. That is not what I am recommending. The government would launch us into a very expensive set of litigation with the provinces. I can assure the minister that if he follows this legislation through with the other pieces of legislation, he will be sued by many provinces. They will sue the federal government. They will say that this is ultra vires the powers of the federal government. They will go to the Courts of Appeal in the different provinces. It may be Newfoundland. It may be Manitoba. It may be Ontario. It may be Quebec. It may be New Brunswick. Then it will get appealed from there by whomever loses. It will get appealed up to the Supreme Court, and my profession, of which I am very proud member, will do very well out of this. He is setting up a legal nest that will go forward and it is not a good idea.

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I admit I was in full flight. I will try to come down to a lower decibel level. I know the member opposite is well known for never losing his temper or having arguments in his office, so I will not be making any further comment.

Let me just say that even with this modest bill, the minister might say, “Look, all we are simply trying to do is create one regime for the regulation of ethics in the House and the Senate. They should be the same. It's no big deal. Nothing much to be affected by it. Nothing much to worry about”.

All I can say to the minister is, if it is not broken, we do not have to fix it. There is nothing broken about ethics in the Senate. There is no crisis of ethics in the Senate. We have an independent ethics officer in the Senate. We have an independent structure in the Senate. Senators are able to do their business. They do what they do.

Some of the things the Senate does, in my opinion, are very good. There are some outstanding senators who are in the upper house, and some of them are members of the Conservative Party, and some I count among my dearest friends. They do studies, work and travel widely. They issue reports on public policy, which have had a major impact on the public policy of the country going back decades.

That is the structure that we have been given. It is not the perfect structure. Do I think it is a wonderful structure? No, I do not. I do not think it is a wonderful structure, but it is what we have.

The member from Calgary says, “Let's change it”. I say to the member from Calgary that we have a Constitution. We go back to square one. The Constitution does not give the House of Commons the power to unilaterally dictate the conduct of senators. It does not give us the power to unilaterally dictate how they will run their affairs. They have an ethics officer who deals with issues. We have laws that deal with these questions. We have laws which apply to members of the House of Commons and members of the Senate.

There is no need for us to do what is being proposed. It is absolutely unnecessary. It is a classic case of changing the dial and changing the subject, and trying to make something out of nothing.

It is part of a bigger strategy on the part of the government. It is part of a bigger approach. That has to do with all that the Conservatives are seeking to do with the Senate. All I can say to the hon. members is that they are wasting their time and they are wasting our time.

It simply is not possible for the Government of Canada, for public policy, to achieve unilaterally, by one House voting one way or another, what cannot be achieved by a broader consensus of the country with respect to changing the Senate. That is why the Liberal Party will be opposing this legislation.

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

The minister may say yes, and if that is the case, I say to the minister that Conservatives must respect the Canadian Constitution. If they really believe that they have the power to unilaterally change the status of the Senate and of the members of the Senate and the ethics requirements in the Senate, let them go to the Supreme Court of Canada to see what the House of Commons can really do to unilaterally change an institution that is enshrined in our Constitution.

I do not know what the judges will say. Neither the minister nor I are judges, even if we have ambitions and desires. We do not know, we are not there yet.

We must respect the fact that we have a Constitution. If we have a Constitution, we must respect it.

What I have a problem with is that I perceive the Reform ideology which is still alive and well within the government. The Reform ideology is determined to unilaterally attempt to change the Canadian Constitution as they see fit.

In their minds, that is what the reformists are going to do.

Even if I do not like some things in the Senate, I have to respect the Canadian Constitution, I must respect the independence of this House and I must respect the fact that this institution was created by the Canadian Constitution and that it is through the Canadian Constitution that we can change it.

If I am somewhat emotional on this topic, it is not because I want to become a senator. That is not it and it is not because I want to become a senator some day, but because I understand full well that we have to accept the Constitution in its entirety.

Moreover, we have to see that we cannot continue to do what the Conservatives insist on doing and want to continue doing: trying to change the nature of the Senate without having the necessary support of the provinces.

I say to the minister, with great respect, the Conservatives cannot change unilaterally the nature and structure of the Canadian Senate. They cannot change unilaterally how it is made up and who it is made up of. They have to respect the independence and integrity of that institution. If they want a change with respect to the conduct of the Senate, then start with the Senate, start with the Senators, start with their colleagues in the Senate, and then start with a process which respects the independence of that institution. We cannot do that unilaterally ourselves.

The Conservatives may get the majority that will give the ability to get this House into second reading. They may get it into third reading. They may be able to do it. I do not know where the votes will go. I know my colleagues in the New Democratic Party continue to take a puritanical position with respect to the Senate.

I will only say to my colleagues in the New Democratic Party to name a federation in the world that does not have a second chamber. They will not find it. There is no federation in the world that does not have a second chamber. As my colleague from Calgary says, they are elected.

Look, this is not about what I think nor what the member for Toronto Centre says. If I were writing a constitution in the sky, I do not know what it would look like, any more than the member from Calgary would. That is not the point.

We are not capable, we do not have the power in this House, to unilaterally change the nature of the Senate. That is something which this party opposite, the government opposite, simply does not understand. The Conservatives cannot do it. It cannot be done. They will continue trying to do it and they should not continue trying to do it. They should be told to just stop, stop trying to change the dial and change the subject, stop going back to their tired old ideologies.

If they want to sit down and change the Senate, set up a meeting with the provinces, sit down in negotiation, and go back to the process of constitutional reform. I wish them the best of success in doing so. If that is what they want to do, go ahead and do it.

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I have long taken an interest in constitutional issues, and I do not think we can consider this particular piece of legislation outside of a broader context. The fact is that we find ourselves, as a country, in an unusual position. We have a government in office that has decided to take a unilateral approach to the subject of Senate reform.

I will certainly be discussing the bill and the position of the Liberal Party with respect to the particular piece of legislation in front of it, but it is impossible for us to consider the bill without also recognizing that on this very same day the government has decided to announce several other measures with respect to the unilateral reform of the Senate.

This particular piece of legislation, which provides for the House of Commons, if you will, taking upon itself to transform the questions of conflict of interest and ethical behaviour of members of the other House is not the necessary or right approach to take in our view.

The Senate has an ethics regime. The Senate has an independent ethics officer. The Senate has a structure it has created, which reflects the views of senators according to legislation that has been passed and approved. If the government wanted to initiate a discussion with respect to particular issues about any ethical matter affecting a senator or the conduct of the members of the Senate, it knows perfectly well what it could do. It could start that conversation and discussion in the Senate, with the Senate, with senators making the decisions with respect to their conduct.

First, one cannot help but observe that two days after the Minister of Finance did not even announce, but let slip, the fact that the public accounts of the country are in a much greater shambles than he was prepared to admit even 37 days ago, the government has now decided as a matter of political strategy to change the channel and once again bring out the somewhat tired and hoary subject of Senate reform in one manner or another as one of its priorities.

Political science students have long been studying the Canadian Senate, along with the possibility of reforming it and changing its nature. The Senate was established by constitutional process prior to 1867. Members of the Senate are appointed by the government, not elected. They reflect the condition of the federation of a long ago era. Naturally, some still wonder whether this institution ought not to be reformed, and they continue to work toward that.

I remember very clearly back to the 1970s when I was an elected member of this House that there were some very clear proposals on this. The Supreme Court, however, said that if the House wanted to change the nature of the Senate, it could not do so unilaterally.

It needs to respect the Canadian Constitution, and it needs to respect the fact that this federal institution does not belong to the House of Commons, does not belong to the PMO, does not belong to the government in power. This institution is entrenched, rooted in the Constitution. Even if the government and the reformists who are in large part on the other side of this House may be somewhat impatient, it is quite simply not possible to do this.

Today the minister is presenting certain reforms to the Senate's code of ethics, but we know that it is already in place. It is not that there is no code of ethics in the Senate, there is, and it is well set up and well regulated. If a senator causes problems, all it takes is a call to the office of the Senate ethics officer, who will find a solution.

Here we have a government that always wants the Senate to reflect its point of view, the Prime Minister's point of view, or that of the PMO. The Conservatives insist that this is an institution that they will reform by themselves, as they see fit.

Two weeks ago, I made a speech on the right this House has to take up a position with regard to matrimonial matters on aboriginal reserves. I was speaking directly to my Bloc colleagues. I said that we had long ago accepted the need to respect the fact that we have a Constitution which guarantees important rights to aboriginal peoples. That said, the House of Commons cannot make unilateral decisions as though we were not a federation, as though we did not have a Senate and as though we did not know that it is not easy to amend the Constitution. I know something about it. Twice I sat down at a table to attempt to find solutions, and we were unable to do so. That is life in Canada, and that is how we must do things.

I know very well that when we hear from the provincial premiers, they will say straight out and clearly that it is essential to respect the Constitution so that the provinces may take positions, be consulted and see how we arrive at a solution that will reflect the true federal nature of our country.

Canada is a federation.

[The Economy, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, if the Conservative Party takes pride in receiving the Nobel Prize for deficits and debts, that is fine.

We know the Prime Minister spent the last 37 days holed up in his basement watching tapes. I want to ask the minister this. What has happened in the last 37 days to so drastically change the numbers with which he is coming to the House? That is a simple question.

[The Economy, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has become the expert. He going to win the Nobel Prize with respect to the financial situation. I simply want to ask the minister—

[The Economy, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am an amateur in this regard. The minister—