Pat Martin

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague for Durham is new here, but I challenge him to find what is unconstitutional about moving a motion to have vote 1 pulled from the main estimates to be debated and voted on separately. That is all my motion aspires to do. It is to have a separate vote on the money allocated for the Senate of Canada, the $58 million. I think he is the one who should maybe re-read what is constitutional and what is not.

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, again, we are getting some cheeky lip from behind me. You might want to call them to order at some point during my remarks. If you do not, I will.

I had an open mind when in 2006, the Prime Minister introduced their first Senate reform amendments. I actually attended the Senate with him. We were wearing the same tie that day, and I remember it quite well.

I was interested to see if Senate reform was possible. We had done our research. We knew that 28 times since 1972, significant attempts had been made to constitutionally amend the Senate, all of which failed.

For me, that same Prime Minister, who I actually had some confidence might take a shot at the Senate, let us down so profoundly that he was responsible for my joining the prevailing attitude of the party to which I belong.

The turning point for me was twofold.

First, the Prime Minister, in a petulant huff, decided that if he could not beat them, he would join them. As I said earlier, he became the most profligate serial offender in Canadian history in terms of stacking the Senate with his party hacks and flaks and bagmen and failed candidates. He appointed the president of the Conservative Party. He appointed the chief campaign manager of the Conservative Party. He appointed the communications director of the Conservative Party. He appointed the senior bagman of the Conservative Party. The whole Conservative war room was now fully staffed and funded by the Canadian taxpayer with not only their salary, but with their four employees and with their travel privileges, doing full-time partisan work out of the Senate.

That offended the sensibilities of anybody who considered themselves a democrat. It should rattle the very foundations of confidence in our democratic institutions. There has been no more profligate abuse of the Senate. The whole war room was now chocked full.

He was not finished there. The Prime Minister has appointed some 50 senators. He was thumbing his nose. We now have full-time party fundraisers criss-crossing the country on the taxpayers' dime, engaged in purely partisan political activity. If there was any justification for a Senate, that was forgotten long ago.

The Liberals are no better. Both the chair and the co-chair of their national campaign happen to be senators. I will not name them. The Conservative that ran the entire Manitoba provincial election was a sitting senator. His salary should go against the spending limits of those other members of Parliament running.

Let us face it, the Duffy affair was only the tip of the iceberg. That is what really drew the public's attention. That was the catalyst that helped us focus down on what was really wrong here. This $90,000 soft landing was not really about making him whole, because of the money he had to shell out. It was to keep his mouth shut for the extent of the political interference by senators in election campaigns, which was widespread throughout the country.

While I am on that point, if people here really believe that Nigel Wright dug into his own pocket and gave $90,000 of his after-tax earnings to Mike Duffy, they are nuttier than a porta-potty at a peanut farm. Anybody with any common sense would know that that money will come from the Conservative fund of which Nigel Wright was a director for seven years and Senator Irv Gerstein is the other director.

That was it for me. I was absolutely fed up with this notion. I believe it is fitting and appropriate and maybe even poetic justice that the Prime Minister's monumental hypocrisy associated with the Senate is the one thing that has finally come to bite him in the what rhymes with gas.

This is the first thing that turned me off the Senate forever.

The second thing, though, was the direct political interference by the unelected, undemocratic Senate with the work and activity of the elected chamber where we as an elected House of Commons and representative of people passed the only piece of climate change legislation in the 39th, 40th or the 41st Parliament.

It was two years of negotiating and pushing by the former leader of the NDP, Jack Layton, that finally got this bill through, that finally got the approval of all the parties in the House of Commons. It wound up in the Senate, and without a single hour of debate or a single witness heard at committee, senators vetoed it and killed that bill. Now Canada, to its great shame, has no national climate change policy whatsoever.

Even worse, just to add insult to injury, and what compounds the offence, in my view, is that the other bill the senators unilaterally and arbitrarily vetoed was the HIV-AIDS drugs for Africa bill. That was a real classy choice. They had no right to unilaterally and arbitrarily block and interfere with the will of the democratically elected members of the House of Commons. No one elected them to make legislation. No one gave them a mandate or the legitimacy to undermine democracy and act as stooges for the PMO. The Senate is not a chamber of any kind of thought, never mind sober thought.

In the same vein, more and more pieces of legislation are originating in the Senate. As I say, I this is my sixth term. I have seen a lot of legislation come and go. It used to be a very rare thing when a bill would come to the House of Commons labelled S-10, S-11, S-12, S-13. Now the Senate is cranking them out like there is no tomorrow. Half the legislation we deal with originates in the other chamber. The stuff we get to deal with is lumped together in an omnibus bill, 60 or 70 pieces of legislation all packed into one, on which we get a few hours of debate and a few witnesses at committee. The substantive material is all being generated in the Senate. Again, no one elected senators to make legislation. No one gave them the authority or mandate to make legislation. It offends the sensibilities of any person who considers him or herself a democrat.

When senators are not cranking out bills, they are gadding about the world like a bunch of globe-trotting quasi-diplomats. They have never seen a junket they did not like. They are always chock full of senators. We cannot afford that. We are broke. In case people forget, this is $58 million we have to borrow to shovel over there another wheelbarrow full of money. The Black Rod is going to knock on the door and ask for his dough pretty soon, and these guys will dutifully trudge down there and deliver to keep their political machine bankrolled and funded, like an unfair competitive advantage, by the Canadian taxpayer. Can people not see what is wrong with that? It is enough to drive a person crazy.

One thing that really bugs me about the senators is that they are allowed to sit on boards of directors. The Senate of Canada is one big institutionalized conflict of interest. Let us look at one example. Senator Trevor Eyton, a Conservative senator, is CEO and president of one of the largest corporations in Canada, Brascan, which has been renamed Brookfield Asset Management. It happens to own Royal LePage. By some happy coincidence, it keeps winning the relocation contract for the military and the RCMP. It is a multi-billion dollar contract.

The Auditor General looked at it and said that the bid had been rigged to give the contract to Royal LePage. It was offensive to everyone's sensibilities. Then the court looked at and said that the bid had been rigged and awarded $40 million in damages to the low bidder that should have won it, Envoy. Then, by some happy coincidence again, for a third time, in 2009, the cabinet got directly involved and made sure that Royal LePage, the very company this guy was CEO of and for which he continued to be the chairman of the board of directors into his Senate tenure, made sure that his company—let us face it; he has stock options in that company—got the same contract again. That should offend one's sensibilities.

If there were no other reason to deny it any money, it is that inherent conflict of interest that comes from what I call an institutionalized conflict that is the Senate of Canada.

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it was the Progressive Conservative Party that was defeated, from 202 seats down to 2. It was the worst defeat in Canadian history.

However, their caucus remained at roughly 50 people, because they had all these senators. I said to myself, “Self, it would not have hurt if we had a dozen or so senators in the other chamber to help us live through those dark years when we were reduced to nine seats”.

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know who is bad-mouthing me over there, but whomever it is has a lot of lip and a lot of nerve too. The member might get a fat lip by the time it is finished. No, I would not say that.

The Conservative Party of Canada was reduced to two seats, but its caucus was 50 people because it had 48 senators and all their staff, resources and travel abilities. That is like 100 people fully salaried and fully staffed able to rebuild—

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for that consideration. I would just remind my colleague of the doctrine of estoppel, but he can look that up later.

The monkey business around misbehaviour by senators is the least of the problems with the Senate. There is nothing new about senators misbehaving.

I remember a time when the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance guys brought a Mexican mariachi band and a bunch of straw hats in front of the Senate and were doing a Mexican hat dance to protest the behaviour of one senator who had established himself on a beach in Mexico and was pulling down a Senate salary. That was Randy White, Monte Solberg, the current Minister of Immigration, Rahim Jaffer. Those guys were a lot of fun, and they were right at that time.

I remember when Deborah Grey bought 50 plastic pigs and placed them on the lawn in front of the Senate. The imagery I think she was trying to invoke, and correct me if I am wrong, was probably pigs at the trough. It is an unkind comparison perhaps, but it was her way of graphically illustrating what the Canadian public was feeling. That goes back 15 years. There is nothing new about that kind of misbehaviour.

However, the expense scandals pale in comparison to what is really wrong with the Senate and that is why the NDP, the CCF before it and the Independent Labour Party before that when J.S. Woodsworth was elected in 1921, were consistent in that they wanted the Senate abolished. It was a party of the people. It is natural that the party of the people would oppose the Senate.

As I said in earlier comments, one of the main reasons for establishing the Senate in 1867 was that the ruling class realized that they needed an equivalent of the House of Lords. We had no established aristocracy so one would have to be created to ensure that the great unwashed, that the working people of Canada, did not pass any legislation that might interfere with their ability to line their pockets with the resources of this great nation and they used their veto extensively.

In those early days, fully 10% of all legislation passed by the House of Commons was vetoed. Fully, 25% of it was amended significantly by the other chamber before it was allowed to succeed. It managed to gut and veto anything that might have been of benefit to the ordinary, freely-elected representatives of the people in the House of Commons. That was why it was created. It is no wonder we were opposed to it and objected to it. Believe me, that attitude and atmosphere continues to this day.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the few New Democrats who was in favour of Senate reform instead of Senate abolition as a young parliamentarian. I took part in something called the Charlottetown accord constituent assemblies in 1992. I answered a letter to The Globe and Mail as a working carpenter, as an ordinary Canadian, to see if I would be interested in this. There were 160 Canadians chosen from all walks of life. We visited six different cities over six months and studied the Constitution and the Senate in great deal with the leading constitutional experts of the day. For six months, we were fully immersed in all the complexities and nuances of intergovernmental affairs, the jurisdictional powers of the Senate and the House, the configuration of the Senate and whether the Senate should succeed.

At that time, I believed the Senate could be reformed and it had merit, not because of the merit or the virtues of it but for one simple reason, and that being that in 1993 my party lost official party status, the party to which that I actively belonged. We were reduced to nine seats.

The Conservative Party of Canada suffered its worst defeat in Canadian history. It was reduced to two seats. Its caucus—

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of clarity and just to keep people posted on what is really going on tonight, we had a debate earlier on an opposition day motion put forward by the NDP. What we are debating now, and we should not confuse the two, is that we were asked, in the course of approving the main estimates, the instrument of supply for the Government of Canada, to vote to approve $58,169,816 funding for the Senate.

I put forward a motion to pull that money out of the main estimates and consider it as a separate vote so we might consider, on behalf of the constituents that we represent, if this chamber really wanted tonight to vote for and approve another $58,169,816 for the Senate of Canada. I wish it was a larger figure. I wish we could vote tonight at 10 o'clock on the whole amount that this money pit sucks up every year, but $58 million, sadly, is the only amount that we deal with as a voted appropriation. The rest is statutory. That is what we are faced with tonight.

This is the debate we are having on behalf of our constituents. Do we, or do we not, want to keep shovelling wheelbarrows full of money down the hallway and dumping it into that black hole, that money pit of the Senate. That place is insatiable. It will gobble up every nickel we put there and there will be nothing to show for it except for a bunch of high flying, globe trotting, semi diplomat senators. The only thing they like doing more than fundraising for the parties they represent is flying around the world on the taxpayers' dollar as some kind of a quasi diplomat.

I will be the first to concede that it is difficult to abolish the Senate by constitutional amendment. That would take a referendum put to the people of Canada. Perhaps in the 2015 election it might be a good addition to ask the people of Canada what their wishes are at that point in time. However, one thing we can do tonight is cut off its blood supply. We can throttle it. We can shake it up. We can tell it in no uncertain terms that we are sick and tired of the shenanigans in the other place.

I come from a time when we were not allowed to say the word Senate in the House of Commons. You, Mr. Speaker, would have called me out of order if I used the word Senate, never mind criticizing it. That place has fallen into such disrepute right across the country that even that rule is now out the window. The whole country is universally condemning and shouting it from the rooftops that they have had enough. They will not tolerate it anymore. They are sick of shovelling money into the Senate. It has gone from an impediment to democracy to an expensive nuisance to a national disgrace, and that is where we are right now.

Frankly, the monkey business around a few expense accounts is the least of the problem here, because there is absolutely nothing new about senators fudging expense accounts and wasting their dough.

[Main Estimates 2013-14, June 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary's comments would be marginally more plausible if it were not for the fact that he serves under the most profligate and prolific abuser of the powers of the Senate in Canadian history.

He should be willing to admit that he and his party are part of the problem, not part of the solution. It would be almost comical, if it were not so sad, to watch successive Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament stand up here and squirm, wriggle and tie themselves in knots trying to defend the indefensible, when it is as plain as the nose on one's face that the Senate of Canada is beyond redemption.

I have not been here that long, but I have been here for 16 years and I have been watching these attempts to reform the Senate. Since 1972, there have been 28 significant attempts to constitutionally reform the Senate, and 28 times they have failed.

The position of our party has been consistent since 1933. In fact, the second term in our founding constitution, the second item for both the CCF and the NDP, is to abolish the Senate. We have been consistent.

My colleague is correct that back in 1867, working people immediately objected to the creation of a House of Lords. The founding fathers believed Canada needed an aristocracy because we had none, so they created an imitation of the House of Lords to make sure that the great unwashed did not pass any bills that might inadvertently share the wealth of the nation. They needed to—

[Ethics, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, last night both Conservative and Liberal senators feigned shock and horror to learn that Mike Duffy had been engaged in partisan politics while milking the Senate, but the reality is it is a time-honoured tradition. Lots of senators are full-time political operatives for their parties, with their salaries, their staff and their travel fully paid by the taxpayer. This has been going on for decades, but not a single Conservative or Liberal blew the whistle on any of these senators. Why would they? Just like there is no fix for an egg-sucking dog, once the senators got a taste for that juicy subsidy, there is no way to ever make them stop.

No wonder the Prime Minister's Office orchestrated a cover-up. How many other senators were working the last federal election while collecting a senator's salary?

In a few moments, the Prime Minister will again face simple, straightforward questions from the Leader of the Opposition. I implore the Prime Minister, out of respect for Canadians, to leave his talking points alone and tell Canadians the real story behind the Mike Duffy cover-up.

[Canadian Museum of History Act, May 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I want to thank my colleague for pointing out that the first national museum ever built outside the national capital region is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in my riding . I also want to recognize and pay tribute to those who raised funds to bring that about. MPs would be interested to note that the Museum of Natural History and the people of Winnipeg have raised more money for that museum than all the other museums in Canadian history combined. Approximately $150 million of private money has gone into that museum.

When there was a 10% cost overrun, we were told to have a tag sale and raise some more money. When there was a 100% cost overrun at the Museum of Natural History in Ottawa, the federal government simply wrote a cheque totalling hundreds of millions of dollars.

My question is simple. Why is there a double standard for these museums outside of the national capital region? Second, how much money in total are they spending to renovate the Museum of Civilization? Why has the construction started before they even have the enabling legislation passed?

[Ethics, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a little rich to hear Marjory Lebreton, herself warming a seat in the Senate for over 20 years, to now declare that the ethical rules around the Senate are unacceptable. The solution she is proposing is tantamount to calling for a smoke detector to be put into the charred-out shell of a building that has already burnt down. It is far too little and far too late.

Why will the Conservatives not simply admit that the Senate is beyond redemption and begin the process to pull the plug on this--