Brian Murphy

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about the justice system.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I am familiar with a number of bills introduced by this government and I have noticed that it is resubmitting the same bills, given the Prime Minister's decision to prorogue the previous session of this Parliament. It occurred to me that we are examining many of the same bills a second time. There are also some new bills and we always have the same comments.

This government is introducing bills that are drawing a great deal of media attention. However, as these bills are examined in committee, in this House and, eventually, in the Senate, it becomes clear that little work has been put into them.

As the father of three young girls enrolled in a French immersion program in New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in the country, and as a resident of Moncton, the first officially bilingual city, I know how much homework my children do every evening. The fact remains, however, that these three beautiful little girls are children and I expect certain things from them.

We expect more in the way of homework from the government than from school girls in Moncton. Yet it appears that the government has done its homework much less diligently and with much less attention to detail than my three little girls do in Moncton.

All of the bills that we in the permanent justice committee have had occasion to look at seem to be lacking in homework and in scope.

When we talk about the criminal justice system, it is an organic system or an organic process. It is a sculpting of new facts and new facets of our evolving society to the Criminal Code and its ancillary acts, in this case, the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I want to start from the point that all of the acts are lacking in an overall or universal vision about criminal justice, from prevention to detention, so to speak, the whole scope, and this bill is no exception.

However, we must tell the Canadian public and members of the House that there is a Youth Criminal Justice Act. Before that there was the Young Offenders Act and prior to that the Juvenile Delinquents Act. For some time now, I believe 50 years, the Parliament of Canada and the courts interpreting Parliament's intention have recognized that there ought to be a different system for youth offenders.

It troubles me when I hear speaker after speaker, headline after headline, news release after news release and the two minute sound bites of Mike Duffy Live talk about youth criminal justice with the same language and in the same terms as adult justice.

That is not to suggest that we are sitting here as a party and as parliamentarians not concerned with public safety, not concerned with turning our youth into productive members of society. It is to say that as a statement of first principle, and I wish I had heard it from the Minister of Justice yesterday or any of the speakers who I listened to from the government side, I wish I had heard that there was a separate regime for the youth of this country for the different considerations because that is the fact.

I am concerned when I hear what members like the member for Kitchener—Conestoga said. I will get back to my student metaphor. I never taught anything but I have written a number of tests. One cannot simply write the first page of a test, the first paragraph or the first 10 questions and do well. One has to go to the finish line and get the B or B+ that all parliamentarians probably got in school or as good as one can get.

It seems, however, that the government and its members strive for the peaks of mediocrity and try to get a C or C-. However, they do start off good sometimes. The member for Kitchener—Conestoga started off talking about a head start program and prevention. If I had ever been a teacher, I would have thought that this was starting off well and that it would be a good result for that parliamentarian.

However, we then delved into crime, payback and teaching those punks something. As we know, there were two parts to the speech, the two did not go together and the member succeeded in getting a C-.

The bill does the same. Bill C-25 starts out very well. It starts out doing one thing that is very important. We give a lot of credence to the Nunn Commission report, which was commissioned as a result of a very tragic incident involving Theresa McEvoy, which happened not that far from where I live. It was not a Maritime thing. It was a national thing. The recommendations from the Nunn Commission and eminent jurist, Merlin Nunn, should be the starting point for our thoughts about what we are going to do with this separate regime for youth criminals in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

However, we need to start with the recognition, which should be the first principle, that there is a different regime and importing holus-bolus the whole adult regime to the youth regime means that we may as well get rid of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I will get to that when I talk about the second part of the bill.

I commend the Minister of Justice and the speakers who spoke in favour of the first part of Bill C-25, clauses 2 and 3 in particular. I will not belabour it, but perhaps we should have a happy moment and say that most parties are in agreement with this bill. We have a happy moment where one of the many recommendations of the Nunn report was followed by the government.

It is a complaint of prosecutors across this country. It is a complaint from parents. It is a complaint from victims. We stand on all fours in accepting that the revolving door that is in effect for young offenders who offend while on an order to return to the court for trial or sentencing is unacceptable. It is one of the major flaws in the Youth Criminal Justice Act as promulgated, and this is progress.

As we can see, there is in the act a presumption that detention is not necessary for a young offender accused of an offence and he shall remain free. Essentially, that was the presumption. Judges across this country applied that presumption, unless they could find other reasons, such as protection of the public, the overarching principle to keep the young offender as accused in detention. This bill recognizes that if a young person is charged with a violent offence that endangered the public by creating a substantial likelihood of a recurrence, that presumption is rebutted, yet the judge still takes into account the normal principles of detention pending trial.

The second principle, and this is really the most egregious part of the Youth Criminal Justice Act without the gap, is that while a young person who is out waiting to come back to court is found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences, or this is in fact after the imposition of a plea, that person should be considered as having given up that presumption against detention. It makes perfect sense.

The other provision in the bill is that if a young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and the young person has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt, then that person should lose that presumption.

That is a long way from going to adult principles for sentencing, which the second part of the act imports. The second part of the bill imports straight Criminal Code principles of sentencing with respect to denunciations and deterrence. The Minister of Justice and many speakers say that these needed to be imported because they are not there, but I beg to differ, if we look at the Youth Criminal Justice Act as it is.

Certainly in an effort to bind all parliamentarians together with a common view, there can be no one in this House who can seriously stand up and say that each parliamentarian is not in favour of more public safety, of having safe communities and of ridding our communities of crime. This has to be a common goal of every parliamentarian. What is happening is that we have a different point of view on how to get there.

All of us want the acts before Parliament, in this case the Criminal Code of Canada and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, to be effective. The question really is whether these amendments will be effective. I have already said that the first one will. It will keep the communities of Canada safer. I am going on to argue that the second part of this bill will not necessarily keep communities safer.

I will also elicit many of the other recommendations from the Nunn commission report which were not seized upon by the government when they were there for the taking. Somebody has already done the work. Somebody has already reacted to an outlandish shocking of the public example of how small changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act could be efficacious to make society safer. That was the Nunn commission. He made many recommendations, yet only one of those recommendations was seized upon by the government.

It is not that there was not enough ink and paper. This is a very short bill. It is designed, I submit, to have newscasts and media stories say that we are tough on crime and that we are importing concepts of unlawful conduct and deterrence and we will get tough.

Really, the first part of the bill will do so much more to make communities safer than the second part. There are so many other recommendations in the Nunn commission report that would have made our communities immediately safer and would not have had any opposition from this side, yet the government chose not to seize upon them.

It is remarkable. It is either a hurried attempt to get another headline, or it is a deliberate attempt to draw out in a piecemeal fashion the Conservatives' law and order agenda with multiple bills, each bill a new headline, each bill one little step forward in their view toward making our communities safer. I might suggest that is almost wilful conduct preventing the distribution of the tools that the justice enforcement people need, prosecutors in particular, or it might just be sheer negligence in not knowing what they were doing.

I have to comment on some of the remarks that were made by a person whom I consider to be a dean on the issue of public safety. I virtually never agree with this dean with respect to how to get there, but I have no doubt that this dean, the member for Wild Rose, wants to get there and has made a parliamentary career out of wanting to get there. He talks incessantly against lawyers. We all have thick skins and we can take that, as the small legal community in the House of Commons knows every day it is not popular to be a lawyer. But I want to tell everyone in this House it is not always popular to be a politician too, so there we go. Being both makes me sort of a victim in a way.

Seriously, the member for Wild Rose talks about lawyers, that they talk legalese. Unfortunately, we are making laws here. If we were making pizzas, I would talk about dough, but we are making laws, so I have to talk legalese. That is the way it goes with all due respect to the member for Wild Rose.

The second point that he brings up is that there is no mention of victims. I hear that a lot from the other side. We hear it at committee. Frankly, victims are what we as parliamentarians are all about. This year is the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We respect individual rights and liberties. We respect the legal rights against false detention and the right to have counsel and all those legal rights for people accused. Those are foundation elements, but people should realize that the overall arching concern of the Charter of Rights in section 1 is to protect the public.

The funny thing is, if we look at every act of Parliament, we find that the public safety aspect is primordial, and the Youth Criminal Justice Act is no exception. It says:

WHEREAS communities, families, parents and others concerned with the development of young persons should through multi-disciplinary approaches take reasonable steps to prevent youth crime by addressing underlying causes to respond to the needs of young persons and to provide guidance, this act should be enacted.

It also says:

AND WHEREAS Canadian society should have a youth criminal justice system that commands respect, takes into account the interests of victims, fosters responsibility and ensures accountability [in our youth]--

These sentiments are already in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Judges read this act and they take from the preamble and the declaration of principles in section 3 what the act means.

In fact, it states in section 3(c), “within the limits of fair and proportionate accountability, the measures taken”--that is, the sentences or the detention aspects or the immediate ultimate measures meted out by a court--“against young persons who commit offences should (i) reinforce respect for societal values, (ii) encourage the repair of harm done to victims and the community”.

Later on in section 3(d) it says, “victims should be treated with courtesy, compassion and respect for their dignity and privacy”, and “victims should be provided with information about the proceedings and given an opportunity to participate and be heard”.

It strikes me that without putting the exact words of denunciation and deterrence in this act, we have as guiding principles for justices the protection of the public and at least a code for victims' rights when it comes to aspects of youth criminal justice.

The Nunn commission report puts out a few very easy recommendations that the government could have adopted without opposition from this side. Principally it is very important because we hear about public safety and the protection of the public and consideration for victims.

Justice Nunn, in his considerations, felt it was a bit shortsighted for the act to talk about the long term protection of the public as set out in these principles in section 3. By inference a judge would say that that does not involve the short term protection of the public.

Some of these rebuttable presumptions on detention, which will be tempered by the first part of this act, speak to that. More specifically and to be clear, so that there is no misread between the principles in section 3 and the first part of the act as amended, we will be curious to see if it would be within the scope of the bill on amendment at committee to add a new phrase in section 3, the principles. It would add to section 3 a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act, which is from the Nunn report on the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

It certainly should just say protection of the public. Perhaps for greater certainty it should say long term and short term, but if we say protection of the public, I presume that means all the time. Protection of the public is one of the principles of the act.

I believe, as the member for Windsor—Tecumseh said yesterday, and he is a person who has been around these issues a lot longer than I have, the evidence he has gathered, which no doubt we will go through at committee, would lead to the conclusion that in fact the changes in the first part of Bill C-25 have in fact been put into place by judges across the country.

Therefore, all we are doing is putting into law what is actually happening in practice, or codifying the practice. That may be a good thing, but it does make me wonder whether the government read all of the Nunn commission report. Maybe in a cooperative effort when we take this matter to committee, if the scope of this bill is to make society safer, the government will be open to amendments, including that recommendation and many others from the Nunn commission to make this a better law.

I want to close by saying that although we agree with the first part of the bill, the second part of the bill might make it seem that we are importing holus-bolus the Criminal Code of Canada. If that is the case, the Minister of Justice should know that the Criminal Code already provides, in certain circumstances, for youths to be tried as adults.

If those provisions are known of, if that transition is known of, and they are importing holus-bolus these concepts, why have a Youth Criminal Justice Act at all? Let us all live under the Criminal Code. Is that where the government is going?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I sense that my colleague on the justice committee was about to go further into why denunciation and deterrence, actually the second part of this bill, are not efficacious. I would ask him briefly why he thinks the government cherry-picked one recommendation from the Nunn Commission report and ignored all the others.

One of those other recommendations from the Nunn Commission was to put in the declaration of principles, section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, a clause indicating that the protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act, which would give government members the teeth that it requires through its consultations with the public, but would also protect, I believe, the principle for rehabilitation and integration, which are paramount for our youth, and would protect that more than simply deterrence and denunciation, which appear in the Criminal Code.

In other words, why do we have a Youth Criminal Justice Act if we are just going to import the exact same concepts as are in the Criminal Code?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the Bloc Québécois member's opinions and his experience in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and in this House. As I understand it, he and the Bloc are completely opposed to clause 2 of the bill, which would add deterrence and denunciation to the principles to be considered in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I understand his position on the issue.

I want to ask a more specific question. As we all know, the principles of deterrence and denunciation are in the Criminal Code. Section 718 of the Criminal Code includes a number of other principles. Section 718.1 sets out the crucial principle of sentencing proportionality.

I asked the minister if this bill included a principle of proportionality. He said that it did. Does the Bloc Québécois member think that the bill before us includes a principle of sentencing proportionality?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the minister does not have clients within the Conservative Party. It might lead to more questions about what need they would have for the legal advice from one of Her Majesty's Queen's Counsel and the Attorney General of Canada.

Regarding the concept of sentencing in general, I want to hone in on the prospect in this bill of adding deterrence and denunciation to a youth justice bill. I want to ask him in general if he agrees with the proposition that in the Criminal Code of Canada when it comes to sentencing, all of the factors are tempered by section 718.1, which says that proportionality is the overriding principle of sentencing.

I say that because Supreme Court Justice Morris Fish recently opined from the bench, in a very interesting decision I was watching involving mandatory minimums, that section 718.1 oversees all of the other sentencing principles.

Does the minister agree with that with respect to the Criminal Code? More important, does he see that the concept of proportionality is actually in the Youth Criminal Justice Act itself?

[Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure), November 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer the question yes or no. Again, if the member is going to be ill, I think there are provisions in the lobby to take care of him.

The point is that the Senate itself proposed 15 years when this bill went through the Senate as Bill S-4. Then it was killed by the government when it pulled the plug on Parliament. If we are to go through all this again, there will be recommendations with respect to the number of years.

Obviously, it is a matter of debate as to whether we go to eight, twelve, fifteen, or whether we can go to anything without a constitutional amendment process. That is really the issue.

We should hear from the provinces, see what they want and talk intelligently about debate. However, if there is a gun to our heads, then all of this is for naught. It will never take effect because a constitutional amendment formula has to kick in.

Second, the government's math is always a little crazy. It says that a committee sat for 199 days and avoided a bill, or something. If the 199th day comes up and the committee sides with Conservative Senator Segal and abolishes the Senate, why does the government not just skip to that stage now, because that is what it really wants?

I suggest the Conservatives should be direct with the Canadian people and say that they do not like the Senate because it is Liberal dominated. They would plug the Senate full of Conservative senators if they wanted to pass the ever popular HST of the day, but otherwise, they have no use for it. That is my answer.

[Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure), November 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct. It happened in 1965, when the Pearson government introduced an amendment to section 29 of the Constitution Act to create mandatory retirement age at 75 years. It was done, and the language is quite clear, unilaterally, without objection. It does not, as I said, make it constitutional because there was no challenge. It exists, and it was not challenged. That book of history was closed as of the date when we had a constitutional amendment formula passed in our country in 1982.

We are in a different playing field. If the Minister for Democratic Reform is suggesting, and the hon. member is correct, that the basis upon which the legality rests is that it was done before an amendment formula was in place, that is a bit shallow, specious and not thorough.

That is the way all legislation comes from the government. It is knee-jerk, it is without consultation and it is to get the biggest and best headline that it can get to garner its 32%. Again, 32% or 33% is what the Conservatives think all of Canada is. That is good enough for them and their math.

[Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure), November 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the hon. member on the comment about ad nauseam. I will try to get right to the point and make it very clear for him.

It is not clear that the bill is constitutional. Because the Minister for Democratic Reform says that this specific bill has been vetted by constitutional scholars, and he mentioned Dean Monahan and Peter Hogg, would suggest to me that the bill has already been put through a process through the Department of Justice, which certainly no parliamentarian here is aware of, if that is what my colleague said.

If I listened to him carefully and have it right, and subject to correction, he said that those scholars have given testimony before committee hearings on issues of Senate reform and have found this aspect constitutional. The proof is in the pudding. We will take this to committee and we will hear that evidence.

This bill has not been before committee, so those opinions will be forthcoming. We will decide whether a constitutional amendment is required. I am sorry to go on ad nauseam, but something is either constitutional or it is not.

The only way to find that out is to have nine justices of the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously say that this is constitutional, the Parliament of Canada is within its rights to ignore provincial concerns with respect to anything to do with the Senate. I would suggest that those justices, even if by obiter dictum, would suggest that a change to the Senate, which is provincial rights over a coordinated body, without any consultation from the stakeholders would not be appropriate. I am willing to bet my Confederation Debates book to the hon. member that would be the case.

[Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure), November 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House and outline some of the concerns that Canadians should have about the thin gruel of the agenda on democratic reform that is coming from the Conservative Party and, frankly, the attacking of parliamentary privilege, the disrespect and the shallow nature in which the minister responsible for democratic reform is attacking these issues.

Because I think we all need to be drawn together in a real debate about where we are going with respect to Liberal-led democratic reform, I would like to start with a quote from the Bible:

And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

That is the Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter 3, verse 25.

What we kind of forget is that there is a history and it is called the history of Canada. Canada was founded on bases that were different from our two feeding democratic countries by way of origin. We have certain influences from the United Kingdom, which we see when we look around this House, the other place, Parliament in general and the system of government, that reflects our British heritage and the influence of Great Britain on our founding.

What we cannot ignore as well is that there was an influence from the south, that there was a young republic that was going through the throes of a civil war, one of the most bloody wars in the history of humankind, and that country is the United States of America that was very prescient on the minds of the Fathers of Confederation at the time that debates took place regarding how we came to have this House, the other house and the system of responsible government.

We specifically did not copy the British model. It is not often that I would quote with favour a Conservative politician but I will do it this once because I think, with the distance of time and separation, that our first prime minister, John Alexander Macdonald, was right when he said:

An hereditary Upper House is impracticable in this young country.... An hereditary body is altogether unsuited to our state of our society, and would soon dwindle into nothing.

This was said in 1865 when the Confederation debates took place. There was a very early understanding that we were different than the United Kingdom.

Looking at events extraneous to Kingston and to Charlottetown where great debates took place at the time and the carnage that resulted from the American experiment, that Conservative prime minister, the first prime minister of Canada, also said that we needed to distinguish ourselves from the United States of America. He said:

...the defects which time and events have shown to exist in the American Constitution. They commenced, in fact, at the wrong end. They declared by their Constitution that each state was a sovereignty in itself, and that all the powers incident to a sovereignty belonged to each state, except those powers which, by the Constitution, were conferred upon the General Government and Congress. Here we have adopted a different system. We have strengthened the General Government. We have given the General Legislature all the great subjects of legislation. We have conferred on them, not only specifically and in detail, all the powers which are incident to sovereignty, but we have expressly declared that all subjects of general interest not distinctly and exclusively conferred upon the local governments and local legislatures, shall be conferred upon the General Government and Legislature. We have thus avoided that great source of weakness which has been the cause of the disruption of the United States. We have avoided all conflict of jurisdiction and authority, and if this Constitution is carried out, as it will be in full detail in the Imperial Act...we will have...all the advantages of a legislative union under one administration, with, at the same time, the guarantees for local institutions and for local laws, which are insisted upon by so many in the provinces now....

We must remember that the provinces came together to form a union. We must remember that those provinces were the seed for the plant that is now Canada. We must remember that the provinces insisted on specific legislative powers but they also insisted on protection for their interests. Thus, the legislative council, now known as the Senate, arrived.

This must be the starting point for all discussion about the Senate: the provinces. As John A. Macdonald said, “The central government was well-defined, the federal powers were entrenched and this House, the House of Commons, having almost all of the powers of the new federal government, was well-ensconced”.

What of the Senate? The legislative council was there to protect provincial rights. I submit that since 1867 there has only been one change in the Senate makeup that has had any effect on those powers as deemed important by the provinces since 1867, and that was the one change with respect to the length of time that senators may serve.

I am shocked that the Minister for Democratic Reform, a person who has had at least some legal training, suggests that the change made in 1965 was constitutional. It was done and it was passed unilaterally. Any constitutional scholar who we have taken the advantage of listening to will say that unilateral change to the Constitution may or may not be constitutional. If it is done and not challenged, then it lies there in possum waiting for someone to challenge it perhaps.

However, the change was not that objectional to all parties concerned. It limited the life appointment of senators to the age of 75. I do not hear anybody objecting to that from the Senate or from any other quarter in this country. It was done unilaterally in 1965 before there was an amendment formula for the Constitution Act of Canada. Therefore, to say that it was done constitutionally is misleading.

Legally speaking, it was done unilaterally before there was a constitutional amendment formula. We live in an era where there is a formula now and we have to fast forward discussions to today's reality, today's legal environment, and understand that the constitutional amendment package that is part of the laws of this country is in play.

It shocks me. If we were here as a result of extensive federal-provincial consultations, negotiations, conferences or even a video conference that the minister might have had with his provincial counterparts, I might be a little less shocked about how the government can bring these bills forward and say that every Canadian wants them. I know they are government-driven by opinion polls and that for the government it is 37% of Canada. In reality, however, we are talking about provincial rights and interests and anything that touches upon Senate reform touches upon provincial rights.

We have a Senate. Right now, there are vacancies in the province of British Columbia, two vacancies in Ontario, two in Quebec and five in Atlantic Canada. There are disproportionate vacancies in Atlantic Canada. Would the premiers of those provinces feel that perhaps the government does not feel that those regions, which are completely under-represented in the Senate from its structure, might want to have a say in its redevelopment?

I look at the number of seats for western Canada. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba each have six seats. We all know, by the layout of the Senate as envisioned when Canada was a much smaller place, that it gives more seats to eastern Canada and yet those seats have not been filled by the government and remain vacant.

There is a disequilibrium with respect to the number of seats. This is not me just saying that. There are very weighty tones on the issues of what affects our country. Most of the scholars suggest that we will have two major problems for the next 100 years in the existence of this Confederation. One of the major problems, which I do not need to go into too deeply, is the unacceptability to Quebec of the Constitution as revised without its agreement in 1982. That has been floating out there for a long time.

One would think that the Minister for Democratic Reform and the Prime Minister might have a concern about that and might want to occasionally talk to premiers about this issue.

I will quote from the book entitled, A House Divided by Gordon Robertson. It states:

The other major problem that had to be remedied was the imbalance in political power and influence that led Western Canada to feel that its interests were normally subordinated to those of the populous centre of Canada—Ontario and Quebec. Here the only thing that seemed likely to help was Senate reform.

Western Canada has, for some time, through its scholars, through its elected leaders and through some of its elected politicians, been active and perhaps more active than any part of the country with respect to Senate reform.

Let me start the debate as well by saying that I thought we were here discussing Senate reform. The Prime Minister, in his speech before a Senate committee in September of last year, made it very clear that he was there to talk about reform. We had no indication from the Prime Minister or the Minister for Democratic Reform or spokespeople for the Conservative government that a referendum or otherwise on abolition was the ultimate end game of these bills. No discussions have actually taken place yet with the provinces.

I suppose, if that is the case and the Conservative government is actually putting time limits on debates with respect to all of these bills, then maybe the government should be honest and say that it will just skip steps one and two and go to step three and put the abolition element to a constitutional amendment process, which is clearly required. I think we had that admission from the minister today that, in his view, anything more than tinkering with tenure and selection or nomination processes, anything beyond that as he said, composition of the Senate or abolition would require the constitutional amendment formula to take place.

Perhaps the government should be honest with Canadians and say that it favours the abolition of the Senate, it supports Progressive Conservative Senator Hugh Segal's amendment and go straight to that point. Otherwise, I believe that it is pulling a fast one on the people of Canada by suggesting that these bills, other than getting the headlines that the Conservatives so crave, will actually affect Senate change. I do not think that is the case. It is pretty clear that there is a constitutional issue here and the amendment formula will come into play.

As I started to say, we should be talking about western Canada. We talk about western alienation. It seems perhaps funny for a member of Parliament from the shores of the Bay of Fundy to talk about western alienation, but I suppose, if we look at half the population of northern Alberta, it is probably from the Atlantic provinces, so I feel some kinship to the concerns and respect very much the concerns of successive western premiers who have not had a chance to have constitutional conferences or meetings with the Prime Minister. He has not had a first ministers meeting since he was elected. His first meeting is coming up and he will be talking about the economy, which, obviously, is an important subject.

However, if the reform of Canada's Senate continues to be important and, as the scholars said, to bring in the west, to effect a change to their under-representation, then we should know that the west of Canada has spoken before. The Canada West findings in 1981 suggested, for instance in terms of distribution, equality for all provinces, six to ten senators each, territories one or two each. This would be a cutting back of the number of seats, which is 24 each in Quebec and Ontario. I am not sure that would fly with the respective premiers of Quebec and Ontario.

The joint committee hearings, which took place in 1982 through 1984, recommended a distribution of seats which would be in the formula of 2, 6, 12 and 24. What that means is that the territories would each get 2 senators, P.E.I., because of its historical incident, would get 6. Almost all the other provinces would get 12 except for Ontario and Quebec. It is a formula that was discussed. The Alberta committee in 1985 essentially came to a similar conclusion that there should be equality for provinces at 6 each.

We must remember that although we differ from the United States in terms of having provincial rights protected in a federal institution as opposed to ceding rights directly to states, it is the upper house in the United States that gives credence to small populations having equality with large populations. I do not think the people of California and New York are so much more magnanimous than the big provinces in Canada that they had not thought that Rhode Island and Maine having two senators along with their two senators in New York and California would not be a bit of a problem.

However, in over 200 years it has not been problem. There have not been calls for more senators for the larger states and the U.S. senate, when it is dominated by the right party, I suppose one could argue, works fairly well with respect to administering the Government of the United States. It is a check and a balance on the House of Representatives and on the government in question, and that may be the bigger issue.

I think the kernel of the real motive would be in the speech of the Minister for Democratic Reform when he said, repeatedly, the Liberal-dominated Senate. He is taking a snapshot in time. I wonder, and maybe the Canadian public wonders, if this were a Conservative-dominated Senate of the day and it voted with the government all the time, because of the nature of collegiality and the conformity to one's party, whether we would be here.

This is shortsighted for two reasons. Governments need checks and balances. It is why, Mr. Speaker, you have to sit through the gruelling, incisive and informative question period every day. Question period is an opportunity for opposition members to keep the government on its toes.

If not, what are we left with? We might be left with the press, members of the fifth estate, to be the official opposition. I lived as a citizen through something like that. Of course members will think I am talking about some despotic state in an undeveloped part of the world. I am talking about New Brunswick after former Premier McKenna wiped out the opposition parties with a 58 to zero majority.

As a former premier, he has spoken of this. He says that it was the worst nightmare for a premier. It was not that he had 58 colleagues. He may have said that privately and I do not want to quote him. The point was there was no institutional opposition to his government. It is a dangerous thing. He very much took steps to make opposition party leaders, although not having seats, comfortable in the democratic questioning process. He elevated the press to a higher position of knowledge and accountability than it likely was prepared for.

It is not a system that works very well, and these are unicameral situations in our provinces. They do not happen that often. There are usually oppositions in the democratically elected houses of our country. However, it would be a dangerous thing if the Senate were completely abolished. We are here to talk about making it more effective.

If the Senate were completely abolished and there was an overwhelming majority of any party, and we cannot see that in this minority Parliament because it is pretty well balanced, there would not be the institutional opposition or that chance for review and verification of legislation that exists now.

Is the Senate perfect? We can have that debate another day. Is the Senate open to change? Certainly. However, what are we discussing if, at the end of the day, a constitutional amendment is required? Why are we here at all if the government is too timid to meet its provincial homologues, both in terms of intergovernmental affairs and premiers?

Is the Prime Minister in fact afraid to meet other first ministers? Is there a problem that he cannot sit down with his confreres and discuss issues like this because he is afraid of the results?

We saw the Prime Minister attack the Premier of Ontario yesterday. I need to go very far east to say that he has not had collegial relationships with the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. On these issues reflecting Senate reform, at least four provinces have written us as to their opposition to Senate reform without consultation.

The two key issues here are that we need to have consultations with the provinces, in whatever form, to verify what their wants and desires are. This second House was founded for them, for the protection of their rights. We do not have any official word on what the provinces feel. We have letters written after spats that the Prime Minister created and we have the Minister of Democratic Reform going around and getting telephone opinions as to what people in certain provinces want, but it cannot be said that we have the stakeholders' interests in mind.

Finally, there is a huge question of constitutionality. If this matter proceeds to committee, which it likely will, it is very clear to me that we will have to hear from constitutional experts, who may well suggest that it may be necessary for this bill and other bills coming to be referred to a court of competent jurisdiction, whether that is a provincial Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada itself.

[Constitution Act, 2007 (Senate tenure), November 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister both for his comments and for showing us the road map of where the government is going regardless of what debate takes place here.

I know that the minister is learned in the law. I know that he has in the past lectured in the law, that he has been on the faculty of law schools on a quasi-basis and that he comes to this House with a breadth of experience in the law.

My question for the minister is about the law, specifically the law about constitutionality. Does he think the bills he is presenting before this House regarding Senate reform will require a constitutional amendment under the amendment formula as dictated by Canadian law? Is that his view? Will he tell the House?

Will he tell the people of Canada that this is mostly a charade, that these bills are a charade, that if they pass they will still require a constitutional amendment and thus a reopening of constitutional discussions? Will he tell the Canadian public the truth about the constitutional amendment requirement and the opening up of all of the complaints and wishes of Canadians when it comes to constitutional reform?

[Canada Elections Act, November 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great attention to the member's point of view. I realize that he is a veteran of the Bill C-31 committee and I respect that. I will take him at his word that his Cassandra-like calls of the problem that Bill C-18 is attempting to solve were in fact made and that they were not simply the remarks of Mr. Mayrand with respect to attestation for the people in the homeless shelters, student foyers and seniors homes. That is what I saw on the record so far as the Cassandra call. If my friend says that he brought up the exact problem that is being addressed in Bill C-18, I will take him at his word.

I do recognize that he, like I, probably has not been faced with a lot of problems in his riding regarding this very aspect. This is primarily a rural issue with respect to addresses not being civic addresses as mandated by the act.

I realize he has a philosophy and a point of view and I respect that, but I do not necessarily agree with it. I agree that Bill C-18 is a big government band-aid from a government that does not seem to care about the details that it should as a government.

Would the member agree with me, is this not a partial solution to a problem affecting one million rural voters in this country to whom we owe a duty before the next election to give them the right to vote? Is that not what we are trying to do by sending this bill to committee? We must show the government that it has a duty and a responsibility to be more responsible in the field of democratic reform.