Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to express the frustration of the people of Canada at an institution that has belligerently refused to reform itself over the years and is now at the heart of the worst spending scandal in Canadian history. Still, we see Liberal and Conservative senators, and the Liberal Party working with them, trying to deflect people from the fact that we have an unelected, unaccountable body with senators who feel that they are entitled to take money when they want it and how they want it. When they are under pressure, they say that maybe they will start providing a few receipts and ask if that would make it go away. That will not make it go away.
This is not an obscure constitutional debating point. We are talking about an institution in 2013 that is unelected and unaccountable to Canadians, that has the power to interfere with the work of the democratically elected House. The House of Commons passed a bill dealing with catastrophic climate change because that is what Canadians want action on. It went to the other chamber, the red chamber. It is not called the red chamber just because of the colour of the carpet. This is the institution of patronage and corruption that was created by the Liberal Party. When that bill went to that place, it was senators who undermined the democratically elected will of Parliament.
One of the key senators who undermined that bill that was passed by the House of Commons to deal with catastrophic climate change was Pamela Wallin. Pamela Wallin is one of the rogues' gallery chosen by the Prime Minister. Pamela Wallin also sits on the board of directors of a major oil sands development company. Is that not a conflict of interest? I ask the people of Canada that. When Pamela Wallin was asked why these unelected and unaccountable senators monkeywrenched legislation that had been passed by a democratically elected House, she said that bill was a nuisance.
I have talked to senators. Some of them are nice people, some of them are smart people, but they see us as a nuisance. They believe that their work in the Senate is somehow more important than our work. There is at least one NDP private member's bill somewhere that they are all hot and bothered about that they have to deal with. Meanwhile, when the Conservative government stripped the Navigable Waters Protection Act and stripped environmental protection for lakes and rivers across this country, we did not hear a peep from senators. They rolled over like a bunch of obedient puppies doing tricks for their political masters.
We are talking about a Senate where the Liberal Party members, though I see now the Conservatives are starting to get in on this, say that House of Commons MPs are just not bright enough and we do not understand that we cannot make changes. I hear that from senators all the time. They are not going to reform themselves because they do not think they can be forced to reform. They say it is a constitutional issue. We will hear that all day from the Liberals. They say it is constitutional and we cannot touch it. It is perfectly constitutional for the House of Commons to decide how much money to appropriate.
Given the abuse of the taxpayers, given what has happened in the other chamber, I say that it is time to turn off the taps. Is there a precedent for it? Certainly, there is. We come from the Westminster tradition. Did members know that members of the House of Lords do not get salaries? No, peers do not get salaries. What they get is a per diem if they show up. Imagine the situation where hacks and party pals get to sit in the Senate until they are 75 and cannot be fired. They cannot be fired.
Today someone from the media asked me if I was shocked that Mike Duffy missed half the committee meetings. I said heck no, I was shocked that he even showed up. There is no obligation for him to show up. Senators cannot be fired. Conservatives are looking at each other and sort of grinning about Patrick Brazeau, a man who has certainly disgraced a public office. He cannot be fired. He is in there until he is 75. He is a $7 million man. However, if we turn the taps off, we can tell Mr. Brazeau he can come back any time as a volunteer, just like in the patronage. I hear some squawking from the Liberals asking what the per diem is. Certainly members of the House of Lords get per diems, but if we turn off the taps, it would allow the House of Commons to finally start a discussion with these unelected and unaccountable cronies.
However, that is not what the other two parties want to do right now because they have used the Senate to place their party organizers. The people that the member for Papineau relies on for fundraising sit in the other chamber. They do the party work on the taxpayers' dime. This is the way it has always been and this is still going on. They get to do that regardless of whether Canadians want them to do it or not because they believe Canadians cannot touch them.
We are not talking about constitutional change. We are talking about cutting off the taps. Let us put that to the Canadian people.
The other thing that is really galling, from a democratic point of view, is the belief that in the 21st century Canadians have no ability to decide whether they want an unaccountable body.
Every now and then, we will see the poor young tour guides who go around the House of Commons. They give a spiel about how the senators are there to defend minorities. I was at lunch the other day and I heard a senator go on about how her job was to defend minorities.
When John A. Macdonald set up the Senate in 1867, he was very concerned about minorities, but he was not worried about women, francophones and gay people. What he was concerned about was the rich people. John A. Macdonald said that there would always be more poor people than rich people and that was why the Senate was needed to protect their interests. If the Senate has done one job well over the years, it has certainly looked after the interests of that class of people.
On the housing scandal, the Liberal and Conservative senators came out and asked how we defined a primary residence. What planet do these guys live on? I go home to Cobalt. I could ask people if they know where their primary residences are because there are senators who do not know where their residences are. It is really complicated for them.
This is part of the scam that went on in the Senate and why we have to demand some accountability from it. We were told that poor Mike Duffy just was not all that bright, that he could not fill out a form. That is why he was on the hook for $90,000.
Certainly, if an average Canadian cannot fill out a form and claims $90,000, they get charged with fraud. However, we were told, according to internal audit of the Senate by Senator Tkachuk, Senator Olsen and the Liberal senators who were there, that the only problem with Mike Duffy was that he could not figure out where he lived, so they had to cut him some slack.
On May 9, Marjory LeBreton, Conservative leader in the Senate, said that the case was closed, that it was over. It was as if there was nothing to see and they were going home. We did not hear a peep out of the Liberals about that, but they knew what was going on as well.
Then we find out, because of the potentially illegal cheque that was written out of the Prime Minister's Office by Nigel Wright to Mike Duffy, which forced the light back on, that it was not just the fact that he did not know where he lived, but he could not seem to fill out expense forms. He would turn in an expense form and it would be rejected. He would turn in another one and it would be rejected. How many times does someone send in improper forms that even the Senate rejects without someone saying that there is a of abuse of the public trust.
That was going on with Mike Duffy. I would be fascinated to hear what they say about Pamela Wallin, if we ever finally get that. Maybe the Liberal and Conservative senators will gang up and keep that hidden.
There are a number of senators in the penalty box right now and none of them have responded with honour. The fundamental thing is public honour. We are called here to represent something better than ourselves.
The Liberal leader, the member for Papineau, praised Mac Harb the other day. He said that Mac Harb did the right thing. What did Mac Harb do that was so good? The Liberals did not kick him out of the caucus. He quit the caucus so he could go after the Senate, go after his old comrades because he was not going to pay the money.
Patrick Brazeau says that he is not going to pay the money. Mike Duffy did not even have to worry about paying the money, because he just called up Nigel Wright and asked him to give me $90,000 or he would not pay, so Nigel Wright paid him the $90,000.
Do members think Pamela Wallin is going to easily fork out that money? That will be an interesting one.
In 2013, when we have a group people that are defiant, people who cannot be fired and who refuse to be accountable to Canadians on the most basic things, we do not have to get into a constitutional debate with them, we simply have to say that enough is enough and we are turning off the taps.
If they want to come back to us and discuss a role and what would be fair, I am sure we could talk about stuff. We could look at the situation in England where in the House of Lords, the members get a per diem. If they do not show up, they do not get paid. We could discuss that. Then it would restore it to the democratically elected House to decide what to do with that chamber, because it will not reform itself.
