Mr. Speaker, seeing as you have taken occupancy of the chair, I must say that on the last occasion when you were in the chair and I rose you gave an extremely informed lecture on the history of the predecessor ridings to the one I now represent talking about the old riding of Lanark--Renfrew. It was an example of knowledge which I do not think you share with many people. That is a very specialized form of knowledge.
I want to talk a bit today about the Senate consultations bill that is before the House and, in particular, about the line of argument that has been presented, vis-à-vis the bill, that is not a very intellectually founded argument nor a practical one.
It is the Liberal line that no piecemeal reform can take place in the Senate. I use the word piecemeal advisedly because the right hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, when he was prime minister, would use the word piecemeal as his way of indicating that it was unsatisfactory. He wanted to have, so he said, the entire Senate change as a package and all problems dealt with at the same time. That was his mantra. It was his way of ensuring that in practice the Senate remained an appointed body because he understood, and I think the Liberals understand, that in practice, if we were to amend all the different aspects of the Senate that could be improved, we would find ourselves at an impasse.
We need to remember the different aspects of the Senate that have come up for discussion over the past couple of decades. We have the powers of the Senate. Should the Senate be a co-equal body to the lower House as it is now but not a confidence chamber or should it have its powers rejigged in some way? Members may recall, for example, that the Charlottetown accord led to changes to the powers of the Senate. In fact, to some degree, I think there was an increase in its powers.
We also have had discussions on whether there should be elections for senators or the kinds of advisory consultations that the government is proposing in the legislation currently under contemplation.
We have heard the idea of term limits for senators. The government, of course, has proposed eight year term limits for senators as opposed to the effectively limitless terms that start when one is appointed and continues on until the age of 75, allowing, at least in theory, members to be appointed to 45-year terms if they are appointed early enough in their lives.
Then there is the question of how the Senate is apportioned among the various provinces. Is it weighted correctly? Should there be some adjustment to the way the Senate is weighted? I come from a background in the Reform Party. I remember the party of which I was formerly a member, the old Reform Party, was in favour of a triple E Senate and one of those E's was for equal. The Reform Party believed that the Senate should be weighted equally by provinces. Other suggestions to change the weighting of the Senate have also come up.
If we do everything all at once, which, essentially, is what the Liberals argue we should be doing, then we would be confronted with the situation in which we would need to make these changes under various different sections of the Canadian amending formula, the amending formula that we use for amending our Constitution. To make this point, I would draw attention to the fact that changes to the terms of senators is currently being contemplated under the authority of section 44 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Section 44, which is part of our amending formula, states:
Subject to sections 41 and 42, Parliament may exclusively make laws amending the Constitution of Canada in relation to the executive government of Canada or the Senate and House of Commons.
We have had some of Canada's most prominent constitutional experts, including Patrick Monaghan and Peter Hogg, indicate that they regard the proposal to amend the terms of senators under this formula to be constitutionally permissible.
If one wants to make other changes, however, one has to use a different section of the Constitution. It would be section 38, the 7/50 formula, where we must have seven provinces with 50% of the population of Canada if we want to change the powers of the Senate and the method of electing senators. I am referring to section 42 of the Constitution Act that specifies that the 7/50 formula must be used or if we want to change:
the number of members by which a province is entitled to be represented in the Senate and the residence qualifications of Senators;
That is a direct quote from the Constitution Act. Therefore, we see different sections of the Constitution being required.
If we try to do everything in a single package, by necessity we must introduce legislation, or a constitutional amendment, under the most restrictive of the available constitutional methods. In other words, under the 7/50 formula, what in effect we would be doing is taking all of the different aspects of the Constitution and making them subject to the approval of one of those giant, everything-included packages that tend to come out of meetings of the premiers. I think we have seen that this is not always a recipe for success.
Let me make this point by citing some examples from the past. In reverse chronological order, we have the Charlottetown accord, which attempted to make a variety of changes to the Constitution of Canada under one package. That, of course, failed.
Then we have the Meech Lake accord, going back to 1990. That, also, was not a great success.
Prior to that, we have the 1982 package of constitutional amendments. It got through the House and through most legislatures. We know it was not approved by the legislature of Quebec. I think a good case could be made that there was the near breakup of the country following the crisis over the failure of the Meech Lake accord. It goes back to a crisis started by the attempt to pass a giant package through on which a national consensus was not possible; not necessarily a good model.
Finally, going back to the early 1970s, we have the Victoria charter, which attempted to do the same thing, and which failed.
That is the history. This would appear to be a very bad way of doing things.
By contrast, I think considerable maturity is shown by the government's approach of dividing the Constitution package into sections and dealing with them one by one.
Dealing with the issue of taking the indefinite terms of senators and turning them into defined eight-year terms, the government has used the approach of saying that this is constitutionally a fairly easy thing to do. Although it is a constitutional matter, it is dealt with by resolution. It, nevertheless, is treated like an ordinary piece of legislation and, therefore, it can be introduced as an ordinary piece of legislation. And of course the government has done that.
Separate from that is the matter before the House right now: the Senate consultation legislation.
What we have done here is to recognize that we cannot actually create Senate elections without seeking the support of seven provinces with 50% of the population. So, as an alternative, without violating the various prerogatives involved and the constitutional requirements involved in our Senate, which require that our Senate be appointed, we seek advisory consultations.
One can say those are de facto elections, but nevertheless the constitutional obligation is met and it can be dealt with as ordinary legislation. The other questions can be set aside and considered separately. The fact is that we have a workable method, something that actually can take place. It seems to me this is best way of proceeding.
I want to point out, in the minute that remains to me, one other consideration.
The Liberals make a great deal of the need for this holus-bolus, one-size-fits-all, single package of Senate reform when it suits them. However, their history shows that they were in fact perfectly willing to consider doing it one piece at a time.
I referred earlier to the Charlottetown accord and the Meech Lake accord. Both of those accords contemplated changes to one part of the Senate without dealing with all of the Senate.
Let me make this point by actually quoting from the proposed constitutional amendment from 21 years ago that dealt with changes under the Meech Lake accord to the Senate. It stated:
1. The Constitution Act, 1867 is amended by adding thereto, immediately after section 1 thereof, the following section:
25.(1) Where a vacancy occurs in the Senate, the government of the province to which the vacancy relates may, in relation to that vacancy, submit to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada the names of persons who may be summoned to the senate.
Subsection (2), and this is the important part:
Until an amendment to the Constitution of Canada is made in relation to the Senate pursuant to section 41 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the person summoned to fill a vacancy in the Senate shall be chosen from among persons whose names have been submitted under subsection (1)--
The point is that we are specifically saying that seeing as we cannot get unanimity on the broader question, we will settle for a partial reform. The partial reform approach makes sense. When it does not suit the partisan interests of the Liberals, they pretend it does not. Even Liberals agree with that.
