David Christopherson

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for taking the time to listen to my remarks and include them in his responses. It is enjoyable debating with that parliamentarian at committee.

The member commented that the Prime Minister would consider that if it became a convention it would, therefore, have the effect of law. However, that takes time. My point is that the Prime Minister violated his own law in the same Parliament that he brought it into. Therefore, it is quite possible that we may never get enough time to have a convention.

He mentioned Sweden, which was an excellent answer. My response is that, again, it is a recognized model. It may be unique but it is a model. What we have in the Senate, by virtue of what is being proposed here, is not a model, it is a mishmash of things that were hangovers from before; new immediate short-term fixes. I mean, it is just a patchwork and that is why I used the Frankenstein example.

The member mentioned deliberately built multiple mandates. Again, when it is a deliberate mandate that is built-in, that is a lot different than saying that we need to leave this piece here because we have people appointed for that length of time and we need to put this piece in here to cover that. There is a huge difference.

I will come back to the point that was just made about the regions. The member said that we do not deal with regional fairness. That is quite true. The member prides himself in being intellectually honest and, for the most part,I believe he is, but could he please comment on, or however he wants to skate over this, how this bill would entrench the serious problems that are being referenced not only in Alberta and B.C. but also the eastern provinces and the northern part of our country?

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for an excellent speech and an excellent analysis. I particularly enjoyed the analysis because it comes from a respected academic perspective which is about the antithesis of everything that I bring to it with a grade nine education, but I do have an experiential viewpoint from 26 years of being elected at all three orders of government. That is why my question is about accountability.

From my limited academic point of view, it looks to me like there is no room for accountability. I asked the minister as my first question, where is the accountability given the importance of that in a democracy and the minister either could not, or would not articulate an answer.

I would ask my colleague, have I missed something? Is there an element of accountability that I am not seeing, or is it clearly missing from this reform bill?

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I suspect, based on the question he is asking, that the government thinks it is a fine idea because it controls the Senate right now. If it did not control the House under the current system, it would still control the Senate, so it probably does not give much of a darn.

It works for the Conservatives the way it is now. These plans will work for them. Everything works for them. The problem is that the bill does not work for Canadians.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I knew when the hon. member got up it would be a thoughtful, intelligent question and probably a little tough. It was all of those things.

I stand by what I said. I am disappointed that it was wine glasses I shattered; I would rather it would be busted beer bottles, but that is just because I am from Hamilton.

I understand the question. I would just say that the Frankenstein, to use that reference, was because of the cherry-picking, all these different ideas and different pieces that do not fit together.

The notion of proportional representation does contain the element that the member says, but let us understand that this is only one model of proportional representation. We have not said anything about a particular model being cast in stone; we just think we ought to start a dialogue with Canadians about what kind of proportional representation model we should adopt to bring into the House.

The second thing is that most of the models are well established. In reality, we are very far behind in terms of democracy. We think of ourselves as a mature modern democracy, and we are in so many ways, but with that Senate over there, we are not.

Proportional representation is about as mainstream as it can get in Europe and many other countries. The fundamental aspect that some people have a direct election and some are on a list is an issue, but it is a systemic issue that is built into a model that has been tested and used in many countries around the world, whereas this hybrid monster really is not anything.

We will have senators over there fighting among themselves over all kinds of issues. As I said, that is a gridlock in and of itself, and that is before we even get to the point of the gridlock that happens here.

My friend from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville raised this point, and I want to give him credit for it: if we do get into the gridlock that the Americans have, the Americans at least have a mechanism, the conference committee, to deal with it in some way. We do not have one. We have no ability to deal with the gridlock that exists between two elected houses.

Not only is this a bad idea, it is not even well thought out.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, it is amazing that in this day and age it is quite all right for that highly competent MP to represent her constituents here in the House of Commons but, by law, cannot go to that other place. This is one more example of how dumb the whole thing is.

If we were to bring in proportional representation, we would have the ability to ensure that more segments of our population are represented here. As much as each party tries, the House is still not representative of the Canadian people demographically. We have a lot of work to do in this House but the first step is getting rid of that House.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would need to look carefully, but I pretty much agree with everything the member had to say. Whether or not it ends up being unconstitutional, my colleague should make no mistake that Quebec will send this to the Supreme Court of Canada, as will some of the other provinces.

The government knows that this bill will never see the light of day in terms of being law. This is a big political charade meant to look like the government is doing something while knowing that nothing will happen. What really hurts is that if it ever actually did, it would hurt our Parliament and our ability to govern ourselves in the most democratic way.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the minister said that we support some changes. No, not really. We just want to get rid of the darn thing.

The minister also said that Canadians agree with his government and then went on to talk about the bill.

The minister also said that we were not proposing anything. We proposed two things. We did it in the last Parliament, we will do it in this Parliament and we will keep doing it until we are government and can make these changes. We proposed a referendum asking the Canadian people if they want a Senate, yes or no. We also proposed bringing proportional representation to that place and making it truly democratic.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, my friend, the foreign affairs minister woke up again and realizes we may be getting into some interesting areas.

The change that was brought in Ontario was a nightmare for our education system. We are still trying to get out of the mess that the change brought us. This reform is the same thing. Yes, it is reform, but it is not good reform; in fact it is very bad reform. One of the reasons it is bad is that it is so undemocratic.

I asked the minister what I thought was a reasonable question about accountability, one of the major tenets of democracy. I said that, when we run for office, we all make promises. At the end of our term, we go back to our constituents and we ask them how we did. We ask if they were satisfied with the representation we gave them or if they want to fire us and hire someone else. We put ourselves out there publicly and the people pass their judgment. That is accountability. Just the fact that someone is elected does not make it a democratic process unless they are held accountable.

The senators will run on promises, get elected, serve nine years and then leave. There is no accountability. By law, they cannot run again, so how can they be held accountable. They will be elected on promises and the other half of a promise in a democracy is to be held to account for it. I am held to account for every word I speak, every vote I cast and every action I take. I am held accountable. I have a constituency office where people can reach me.

Elected senators will not be accountable. They cannot be by law. It is crazy to call this democratic when they will not be held to account because the law prevents it. That is what we are heading into.

It is also undemocratic because of what the Prime Minister said. It is a cute little technique. I am not a lawyer so I do not know if it will pass constitutional muster. However, what he is doing is maintaining the Constitution that says that the Prime Minister appoints senators. He is leaving that in place and all this sort of rests below it. It is the process that leads to a list of names that are put in front of the Prime Minister.

I think there is at least a constitutional argument that they are okay but it does not deal with the democratic deficit that is in this bill. The Prime Minister does not need to appoint those people.

Some would ask how a prime minister of the day could ever say no to an elected Senator from any province. That is a good question, a fair question. Might I also pose: Who would ever think that a prime minister in the same Parliament that he passed a fixed election date law would violate his own law in the same Parliament?

It is quite possible that we could see a political situation where a party that is in government in a province is a real thorn in the side of the government of the day. I will use the present government as an example. It elects some people and one person it elects is somebody who is very loud, very opinionated and who will not shut up when people want him to. The prime minister looks at that and asks himself or herself if he or she really wants to bring this problem into his or her back yard.

There is no guarantee that the democratic choice of the people will be honoured. Therefore, how can one call it democratic?

I would also mention that, under what is being proposed, all the costs get pushed to the provinces. In some situations it might get pushed to the municipalities, believe it or not. In these economic times, does anyone really think the provinces look at the federal government with any kind of affection when it is handing them more things to pay for that the provinces already cannot afford?

The federal government should at least have the decency to pay for its own bill. These people will be federal parliamentarians, so why are they not paid at the federal level? It is misleading. Everything about the Senate is misleading.

One of the things the minister talked about, and I am not quoting so I stand to be corrected, was the important regional representation and interest that the Senate does and can provide. I do not think I am too far off there.

We need to remember that the cover story when the Senate was created was not to keep an eye on the unwashed masses who were suddenly being thrown into the House of Commons. No. The cover story was that these would be regional representatives. They would represent the regions and the provinces of this vast country. We are the second biggest land mass country in the world with a relatively small population.

The cover story for the Senate was that we needed them there, that we would deal with the riding issues and local issues and the Senate would deal with the regional issues and protect the provinces' interests.

It did not turn out that way, not for one second. First, any thought of sober second thought is a joke. The Senate has House leaders and whips, and opposition leaders and whips. Why does it need whips if it has independence? Many senators attend caucus meetings. The whip of the official opposition is a very good fellow but that does not change my argument one bit. That good fellow should get elected and come here, not stay over there. That is a good idea.

The premiers have some strong opinions about these things. It is interesting to note that Premier Wall from Saskatchewan fears that he knows the answer. Earlier this year. when he was asked about the elected Senate, he said:

I think we could get a little bit more enthused even about the whole thing if it became clear that this was not about just an expanded parliamentary caucus for existing parties.

Is that not an interesting quote?

I have a letter from a certain elected senator, whose name I shall not mention, dated June 15 of this year, addressed to members of the CPC Senate caucus. Where do the sober second thought caucus people meet? He said:

Dear Senators,

Yesterday, in Senate caucus Minister...[for Democratic Reform] was showered with complaints about Senate elections and a nine year term.

The last paragraph is the key, and this is the issue about whether the Senate represents the regions or whether it represents caucus interests. It reads:

Every senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is with the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper.

That senator's priority was to be loyal to the Prime Minister, not his region and not his province. Abolish the Senate. This is a bad idea.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am so glad the Minister of Foreign Affairs has joined us. It means we are going to have a very entertaining afternoon. It reminds me of the good old days back in the Ontario legislature. I am glad the minister is here and I am looking forward to the next half hour or so.

I said that it is radical. To me, this is arguably the most important aspect of what we are debating. If we elect the Senate, we would radically change Parliament. I said that just now, but who else said that? The Supreme Court in 1980 said, “The substitution of a system of election for a system of appointment would involve a radical change in the nature of one of the component parts of Parliament”.

The Supreme Court said that this is radical. It is not usually known for knee-jerk reactions and going over the top. It is certainly not known as being hard right or hard left. It just looks at the facts. It sees that this is radical, and it is, because if we abolished the Senate and brought proportional representation to this House, we would be more than adequately equipped to govern the 35 million people in this country. The provinces proved this when they abolished their senates.

One of the reasons it is radical is that the Senate killed my colleague's Bill C-311, a bill which passed this House at least twice, and the Senate had no right. Every member of the House, right, wrong or indifferent, has a mandate to be here and to vote and pass judgment on laws. Senators do not. They do not have a moral, ethical mandate; a constitutional one, yes; a moral and ethical one, no. Is that democratic? Certainly not.

If we elected the Senate and Bill C-311 passed this House again, what would happen over there? The Senate would kill it again, only now the senators would be all puffed up and would say, “We have an electoral mandate to do this. Yes, the House of Commons passed it, and yes they are elected members, and they have the mandate and the trust of the people who elected them, but so do we. We are not with the party in the House; we are with a different party and therefore we will do things differently. One of the things we will do is stop any kind of progressive legislation that actually protects the environment in this country.”

If we want to see where we are heading in terms of a radical proposal that is also dangerous for us as Canadians, we only need look at what happened recently in the U.S. Congress. There was a piece of legislation on the debt limit that members had to pass in order to borrow money to keep the economy going. Normally it is a routine thing. It passed under President Reagan umpteen times, no big deal. Because of the partisan split where the House of Representatives is Republican controlled and the Senate is democratically controlled, all the interests of the American people seemed to be set aside as the two parties fought each other to the brink of a crisis. It put the world on alert for a financial crisis because the two houses have their own independent mandate.

Is that what we want? Do we really need to complicate the process of governing more? Do we need to spend more money? That place already costs almost $100 million a year. Think of what we could do with that $100 million promoting our own democracy.

The other reason it is dangerous is that the house that would be created would be like the house of Frankenstein, and no one should take that personally. There would be people who would serve until age 75. Under this legislation there would be some people who would serve for nine years and some people who promised to serve only eight years who would get a free bonus year. Then there would be some provinces that elect people and some that would not. There are some provinces that believe, like us in the official opposition, that we ought to abolish the Senate, so they would not elect anyone. We must think about it. It would be like the bar scene from Star Wars over there. Never mind the gridlock between us, they would be gridlocked over there. Trying to get anything out of that house would be a serious challenge.

The last reason it is dangerous is that it gives the impression we are making things better. I mentioned that the former premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, used the same technique as we are seeing here. The minister in one of his opening remarks said, “I'm bringing reform”. By virtue of that we are all supposed to say it is wonderful and thank him for the reform, but as we saw with Mike Harris, just because it is reform does not make it good reform.

[Senate Reform Act, September 30th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this bill. Let me say at the outset that my first reaction to the notion of electing a Senate was probably not unlike that of many Canadians. We have an unelected appointed Senate, we have abolition and then there is election. The Canadian character being what it is, of not wanting the status quo and looking at abolition as maybe too radical, the comfort zone is that election, the bowl of porridge in the middle, is the way to go.

The reality is that the most radical thing we could do in this country is elect the Senate, give it a mandate and create the kind of gridlock we see in the U.S. That is radical. Long before we go down that road, we should be asking Canadians whether they even want a Senate, yes or no. That will tell us what the mandate of the country is rather than just our deciding that we know best in terms of constructing our Parliament.

I also want to indicate that I have some criticisms of the Senate as an institution, but none of my remarks are meant to reflect on individual senators. In fact, I have the greatest regard and respect for most of the senators that I work with. An example of a great Canadian currently in the Senate is a woman from Saskatchewan. I have spoken about her before. She is a fantastic Canadian who does an excellent job. The only problem is there is no mandate or right in that place to pass judgment on laws. We should be using people like them for the betterment of Canada but we ought to be using them in way where we ask them to do specific work and not necessarily be a part of the law-making process. My comments are not about individual senators, and I say again that I have the greatest and utmost respect for most of them.

Let us recall the history of the Senate and how we got here. This originated back in the British Parliament. It was the House of Lords. The whole purpose was to control all the commoners who were starting to get some rights. As the Magna Carta started to take hold, ordinary commoners like us suddenly had a say in the governing of their country. Therefore, the House of Lords was created to make sure that the unwashed masses did not run amok and screw things up for people who were doing quite well in that country and got more than their share of the cream that the country produced. Even the current Prime Minister has said the Senate is a relic of the 19th century.

I will use my words to describe this bill and I am going to comment on each aspect as I go along. It is radical, dangerous, undemocratic, misleading, and not at all what Canadians need.