Deepak Obhrai

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as I have stated, both of those parties do not have a hope in hell of putting senators out there so they are looking to abolishing the Senate.

However, the Prime Minister said that all the senators he has appointed have signed that they will be there for eight years. It is a first step. That is the way it will go.

We need to have the Senate changed under these two bills, which would make it elected with a term limit so that Canadians can make a choice on who will be sitting in the Senate. Does the hon. member not think that is the right way to go, instead of doing something that is practically impossible and has no value? Each of those parties will never be part of it anyway.

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Those members can keep laughing. At least the NDP would have somebody credible in Alberta who could run and get into the Senate. That is the way to go. You can see the way to do it. You guys would at least get an NDP senator by choosing the Alberta way.

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I will set the record straight for my hon. friend. If he had looked at the Senate elections, he would know that there was not one candidate. There were four candidates running and two were chosen according to the Senatorial Selection Act. None of the candidates represented any party. Senators do not represent a party. They were representing--

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Yes, the member was elected but he is in favour of this motion. I do not understand why those members want to use a referendum when they have been elected to make a choice and provide their views.

I will tell the House why that party wants to abolish the Senate. It wants to abolish the Senate because tit is a fringe party. It never listens to Canadians. It will never form a government and, because of that, it will never have an opportunity to put anybody in the Senate. Henceforth, it comes up with this far-fetched idea to abolish the Senate. If those members would talk to their constituents they would tell them.

Our government recognized that there was a democratic deficit in this country so the minister introduced the democratic representative bill. The House of Commons bill is based on representation by the people. We find that certain provinces are under-represented in the House and that is not fair. As a result, the minister brought in a new bill to balance the number of representatives in the House of Commons who speak for the people of Canada based on population. That is the right thing to do.

This government introduced that bill. We did not hear anything from those members, nor did we hear anything from the Liberals. Both parties want this unbalanced representation to continue. The Bloc, which is just a fringe party from Quebec, has put forward an amendment indicating that it wants its 25%, or whatever percentage it has. It does not recognize the fact that this is representation based on population, not based on a quota like that party wants. It is natural for this House to reflect on all of Canada, not what the Bloc wants. The Bloc, unfortunately, is in the same position as the NDP. It will never form government and, therefore, will never put anybody in the Senate.

I want to be realistic about this. We have done two things that are critically important to reforming the Senate. We must go step by step to reform the Senate. We all know that opening up the Constitution will never work. A referendum to abolish the Senate will never work for the simple reason that it is a constitutional issue and the provinces will not agree.

The members seem to have forgotten one thing. A change in the Constitution requires the approval of the provinces. The members sitting there have no power over these things. The provinces will not agree to whatever they are talking about for abolishing the Senate. Therefore, what is the whole purpose of going through an exercise that we know will be a total failure? It will fail because the provinces will not agree to what has been discussed.

We all know what happens once we open the Constitution, so we first need to look for practical solutions. The first practical solution requires elections to be held in the provinces compelling the premiers to listen to the voices of their citizens on who should represent them in the Senate, not who is to be appointed by the Prime Minister. It was our Prime Minister who came up with the idea of an election.

I will give an example. I was in Alberta when the first senators who were elected were from Alberta. I was part and parcel of the election campaign that took place. Senator Waters was the first one elected. The Conservative prime minister at the time, Brian Mulroney, accepted the will of the people of Alberta and put him into the Senate. The triple-E Senate was promoted by Senator Brown.

When Premier Ralph Klein held the Senate elections, there were three or four candidates for two seats. It was one of the best campaigns we have seen with people right across the province giving their views on what the Senate should be. The people of Alberta made a choice as to who would represent them in the Senate and they gave two names. Who was the prime minister at the time? It was Prime Minister Chrétien, who, of course, totally ignored the wishes of the people. This is why this bill is very important so that we have elections for senators that are based in the provinces, not according to the Constitution.

We can ask any Albertan who went through that Senate election and we will hear how exciting it was for them to have people who want to be senators actually stand and tell them what they will do. We are very proud that Senator Brown was chosen by the people of Alberta. When our Prime Minister became the Prime Minister he listened to Albertans and put Senator Bert Brown into the Senate. We are very proud to have his contribution in the Senate.

I want to talk about a term limit of eight years. We have all heard stories of people who are not elected and, if they are not elected it is quite natural that they have a term limit.

Our bill on term limits would give the people of Canada a chance after eight years to choose who will represent them in the Senate. Do the members not think that is the right approach and the right way to do it?

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to a subject that has consumed political debate in this country for a long time.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I have had the opportunity to travel around the world. In 1999, I went on a state visit with former Governor General Roméo LeBlanc to a few African countries, including the country in which I was born, Tanzania. I asked the governor general what the purpose of the trip was and what the purpose was of taking members of Parliament, including senators with us. He told me that we were going there to promote democracy, one of the cornerstone policies of our foreign affairs. I then asked him if I had his permission to tell all the other parliaments that we had senators sitting next to us who were not elected but appointed. He was at first reluctant to give me his permission so I told him that there would be no point in me going, and he finally agreed.

The people in the other place are excellent individuals who are doing a good job but the fact still remains that they are not elected and they do not represent the people of Canada. This was quite shocking to people because they all thought that our Senate was like the senate in the U.S.

There is a flaw in our Canadian democracy. The Minister of State for Democratic Reform has said that we have a great democracy in the House of Commons. All of us are very privileged to represent our people. We are also the voice of the people of Canada. They elect us to speak on their behalf. They do not want us to run the country based on referendums. We are also the people--

[Iran, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, our government is deeply concerned at reports about the detention of two Iranian opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The two leaders have been under house arrest since February 14, 2011, when they called for a peaceful protest in support of the events in Egypt. Now we hear that these two leaders have been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities.

It is the height of hypocrisy for the Iranian regime to express its support for protests in Egypt and Libya but then violently suppress and ruthlessly intimidate similar protesters in its own country.

We, along with the rest of the international community, are closely monitoring events in Tehran as opposition leaders call for peaceful protests every Tuesday of this month. Our government calls upon the Iranian government to immediately respect the rights of its citizens and allow for these peaceful protests to take place.

[Foreign Affairs, February 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as we have stated on many occasions, there is a process in which one can delist oneself from the no-fly list. We have encouraged the lawyers of Mr. Abdelrazik to go through that process.

There is a process and people should follow that process.

[Canada-U.S. Relations, February 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, while our economic recovery is still fragile, increasing the flow of goods and people with our largest trading partner will lead to stronger economic growth and more jobs.

Keeping our common borders open to commerce and closed to criminal activity and terrorist threats is the key to strengthening our sovereignty and solidifying our relationship with our southern neighbours.

The Canadian and American economies are intimately linked, with some 1.6 billion dollars' worth of goods crossing between our borders every day. Not only are we talking of goods, but people to people movement is also essential to foster this strong relationship.

Our co-operation is very unique in the world. The opposition needs to wake up to this reality.

On this issue, the opposition is acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand oblivious to what is happening around it.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for highlighting the persecution the Baha'is face in Iran.

As far as we are concerned, the Baha'i in Iran are Iranian citizens. Like any other Iranian citizens, it is deplorable that their human rights have been taken away by the regime.

The cornerstone of our government's policy is upholding human rights. In that respect, we have worked, as the hon. member has suggested, at the United Nations every year to sponsor and pass a resolution in the General Assembly condemning Iran for its human rights record. To get that resolution passed, we make tremendous diplomatic efforts to get the world on our side, as the member has rightly pointed out. That resolution has actually passed in the General Assembly and has angered the Government of Iran, which has mounted a diplomatic offensive against us as a result. That is fine; we do not mind that.

We work very hard with the international community exactly as the member has recommended. We have been doing that for many years at the UN General Assembly in putting Iran's human rights abuses on record, and these have been condemned.

I would say it is one of our most successful diplomatic initiatives that we have had in condemning the human rights situation in Iran, including the discrimination against the Baha'i, which is one area of discrimination in Iran.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, the hon. member is the chair of the committee that did the human rights study on Iran. The recommendations that have come from his committee to my committee of foreign affairs are highly appreciated and respected.

The hon. member is absolutely right when he says that the whole world knows about this. One of the biggest tragedies is when a government in power tries to stay in power by oppressing its own people. We can look at what happened in Egypt where all those years of that oppression is gone.

It is important to recognize that we cannot suppress the legitimate rights of the people. In Iran, people will die for their rights and they will die for the rights of their children to speak and have freedom.

We must recognize and salute these martyrs on the streets of Tehran today who are fighting this oppressive regime. We should stand up for those protesters who are seeking nothing but the basic freedom all Canadians enjoy. That is all they want and they deserve our support.