Mr. Speaker, why should the Senate be televised?
The regions of Canada need to be more involved in decision making and policy making at the national level. To meet the hopes and dreams of those who live in the west and the Atlantic, a reformed Senate is essential. It must be a Senate that is elected, effective and equitable.
Those were the words of the Prime Minister as recorded in Hansard on September 24, 1991.
I on the other hand support Senate reform. If it is done properly, a restructured and revitalized upper chamber can give Albertans a voice in the governance of Canada. If elected Liberal leader I pledge to work for a Senate that is elected, that has legislative powers of its own and contains strong representation from all regions of Canada.
That was said by the present Prime Minister on June 23, 1990. “You want the triple E Senate and I want one too”. That was the Prime Minister again in the Toronto Star on February 2, 1990. “The Liberal government in two years will make it elected. As Prime Minister I can take steps to make it happen”. Once again that was the present Prime Minister speaking to 400 delegates at the annual general meeting of the Alberta branch of the federal Liberal Party.
Liberal prime ministers agree that the Senate needs to be reformed. One of the steps to make that happen, one of those true reforms, is what the member for Sarnia—Lambton has put forward today in the House of Commons, which is the idea of making the Senate televised.
Even in the grandmother of all parliaments, in Westminster, in 1985 the House of Lords televised its proceedings. Indeed the House of Commons in the grandmother of all parliaments followed four years later and televised its meetings in 1989.
Our Senate is a place that is undemocratic in that it is appointed. Our Senate is a place that is not accessible. Instead of providing information via the electronic method where most people get their understanding of the news today, our Senate instead is a place that is out of control. It allows people like Andy Thompson to spend but one day in the spring sitting and one day in the fall sitting and collect a full salary. Only because of public pressure, because of media pressure, because of light shed on the institution and scrutiny brought to bear did those things change.
The Senate should be a place that has nothing to hide, that stands behind no shroud. As a result TV cameras should be in the Senate.
I am going to talk about the public support for Senate reform, in particular an elected Senate, because it hinges on this very debate.
In British Columbia 84% of people are in favour of an elected and reformed Senate. In Manitoba 86% are in favour of such reforms. In my home province of Alberta 91% of people are in favour of reform of the Senate, of modernizing this institution. Television would modernize the institution.
We have had a recent development. One of the senators, the last Progressive Conservative or Tory senator in the province of Alberta, has expressed the intention to resign his seat as of March 31.
Last year Albertans elected Bert Brown, a man who has been campaigning for an elected, equal and effective Senate for over 10 years. He received more votes than any other federal politician in Canadian history. Even if we went back prior to 1867, nobody could compare to Bert Brown in the amount of votes he garnered. During the Senate election, in the midst of that process, the Prime Minister had the audacity and disrespect for the people of Alberta to appoint someone to sit in that chamber in Bert Brown's place. Shame on the Prime Minister.
Thankfully there is an opportunity to have that made right; that wrong can be made right. When that seat becomes vacant on March 31, I implore on behalf of the people of Alberta, on behalf of the premier and the letters he has written to the Prime Minister, and on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people who cast their ballots, that the Prime Minister do the right thing. I ask that he stand by the convictions he ran for as Liberal leader in 1990 in Calgary, Alberta when he won his election, and by his predecessor Pierre Elliott Trudeau whom he served in cabinet, and uphold that idea of an elected Senate and appoint Bert Brown to that place.
My colleague from Sarnia—Lambton is talking about changing the rules of the Senate, section 130(1), which only allows for audio broadcasts in the Senate. My hon. colleague would like to expand it beyond audio broadcasts to broadcast the proceedings on television, to carry the business in the Senate as people see me tonight here in the House of Commons.
Canadians wherever they live should be able to see their government at work. They have seen their government at work in the House of Commons since 1977. The debate for that began in 1973. They now see their provincial legislatures at work from coast to coast to coast. They see their municipalities at work. Municipalities across the land have taken it upon themselves to televise their proceedings.
More than that, even school boards in this country have gone so far as to televise their meetings so that the public knows what they do in their interests and that the business be known to all.
Canadians deserve to know what they are getting for the $50 million plus a year they spend on the Senate. Last year the House of Commons attempted to draw before it those members of the Senate who did not want to explain their budget appropriations, their 16% increase in their budget. The people of this country deserve to know and to see with their own eyes what goes on in that place.
As it stands, people have to go into that chamber. Only from that vantage point, those few precious seats in that red chamber, are they allowed to see what goes on. As a matter of fact last year the Senate took steps to restrict access to the printed records of who takes their seat in the Senate and does their public business as they are paid to do. It is a crying shame that people are not even allowed to see those minutes, to have them published and available on the Internet as is other business of this Commons and of this parliament.
Michael O'Connor, a fellow who lives in Ottawa, was so upset over that very predicament that he took time away from his part time job to sit in one of the rooms in the Senate. He transcribed all of those sittings of the Senate to know who was or was not there and who was collecting his taxpayer dollars to sit or not sit in that place on his behalf. That type of thing is egregious and should not be going on.
When we consider that 80 countries in the world permit the broadcasting of all proceedings in their chambers and now over 100 countries permit some form of broadcast, the idea that our Senate allows none of its main chamber is a disgrace. The Senate must be reformed and televising it is but one of the mechanisms.
