Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-7.
When we speak to a bill, we often have to look at where we are coming from to see where we want to go. To begin, I would like to look at where the government is coming from in introducing this bill. It seems to be gambling on the fact that it can change the way the lists are organized without touching the Constitution. There is nothing to say that things will work out that way or that the provinces will accept this. There could very well be a significant legal deficit from the get-go.
What is more, the government wants to perpetuate partisanship in the Senate. It is already not fulfilling its role, and now the government wants to make partisan electoral lists. I am not convinced that the Senate could provide a counterbalance to the House of Commons for the regions in that case.
It is important to underscore that this bill is very mechanical, in that the vast majority of the clauses tell the provinces how to hold an election to create a list of people who could potentially be appointed to the Senate. The government is shifting the rather high cost of all this to the provinces. What is more, the Prime Minister might suggest names to be included on the list.
In this regard, I would like to point out something that is unique to Quebec. There are electoral divisions for senators, of which there is no mention. In other words, in a province such as Quebec, there would have to be elections in 24 districts in order to comply with the current Constitution, whereas elsewhere elections would be held at the provincial level. This would be more expensive for Quebec and evidently no one is footing the bill. That is also an important point.
We should note that Senate elections could take place at the same time as municipal or provincial elections. I am not sure that this is necessarily a good thing. For example, in 2008, when I was campaigning federally, a provincial byelection was also being held in one part of my riding. Quite simply, in this part of the riding, people did not know if they were dealing with a candidate for a provincial or a federal election. I am not sure that democracy will be well served by adding a Senate election.
These are just some of my thoughts, but I would like to take a step back.
The history of the Senate is rather special. The Senate as we know it in Canada is a hybrid of the British House of Lords, with its unelected senators appointed by the Governor General upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister, and the U.S. Senate, with its equitable representation of all regions. This means that our Senate is unique and that there are not many like it.
The groundwork for the Senate as we know it was laid at the Charlottetown Conference and especially at the Quebec Conference held in October 1864. Six of the 14 days of the Quebec Conference were spent on the concept of the Senate. There were debates. Even back then there were discussions about an elected Senate versus an unelected Senate. There is nothing new today; we are rehashing past arguments. The Fathers of Confederation chose an unelected Senate. They had their reasons.
All that we can say about that is that our current Senate was not created with much enthusiasm. I would like to read a description of senators and the Senate.
Senators are appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. [Everyone knows that.] Senators represent regions and provinces in order to balance the representation in the House of Commons. Less populated regions have a stronger voice in the Senate so as to ensure representation for regional and minority interests.
That is the goal. But in reality, we have never seen that. What we have seen is partisan appointment after partisan appointment, to the point where we have never seen the Senate play the role it was meant to have, which is to defend the interests of the regions. Instead, it is a chamber that may or may not support a government, depending on what party holds the majority in the Senate. The upper chamber has become nothing but a partisan stronghold. The Conservatives did indirectly what they could not do directly when, in past parliaments, they defeated certain bills that were passed here but did not pass in the Senate for partisan reasons. The Senate should be thought of as the upper chamber, a chamber of sober second thought, but instead it is a purely partisan chamber. And so we are left to wonder what we are doing with an institution that does not fulfill its role and that, in fact, has rarely fulfilled it.
I would like to address an important point. Suppose this bill is passed. We would then have two chambers made up of elected members. Would we then have a competition? Since everyone would be legitimately elected, would there be competition between the two chambers, something like what we see in the United States where the system becomes paralyzed when the majorities are not the same in both chambers? Is that what we are heading for? Are we headed for an American-style Senate that could, in some cases, paralyze the work of the House of Commons and the running of the country as we see south of the border? This is a very important question to consider.
The other thing that concerns me about this issue is that the talk always focuses on the people who would be elected. There is never any mention of how many positions or who or when. Might this result in a power struggle between the government and various provinces? For example, suppose a given province decided to hold an election and presented fewer people than the number of positions to be filled or just enough people. What happens in that situation? There might then be a power struggle between the Prime Minister—or the Governor General, obviously—and the provinces. We would once again be back to a model that creates tension between the various levels of government. I do not think our objective here in this House is to create new kinds of tension between the various levels of government. I do not think we want to go in that direction.
I would like to discuss the historic position of the Government of Quebec in a bit more detail, and I would like to begin by quoting one of the Fathers of Confederation, George Brown. He said:
Our Lower Canadian friends [he is talking here about Quebec] have agreed to give us representation by population in the Lower House, on the express condition that they would have equality in the Upper House. On no other condition could we have advanced a step.
Even before 1867, there was tension between what was then Lower Canada and the other groups in the federation. Quebec insists on the assurance that any changes are constitutional and not partisan.
I would like to continue, but I see that my time is up.