Wayne Easter

[Agriculture, May 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the minister wants to talk about fire, but he is burning actual currency that farmers could have had that they could have put in their pockets to give their families some income.

This outrageous decision by the minister robs low income farmers of the opportunity for some financial redress. They had planned on up to $18,000 per family.

Obviously, this is now a government that breaks its word. It is a government that talks accountability, but fails to live up to its commitments and it is a minister whose words of last year are now a broken trust.

Will the minister restore today the $246 million that he took away?

[Agriculture, May 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is becoming infamous for taking money away from farmers, but his retroactive changes to the family farm options program is contemptible.

Cancelling the program in midstream three months after farmers completed their financial plans is an absolute betrayal of farmers. Officials have now confirmed this will take close to $.25 billion out of low income farmers' pockets.

Why is the minister taking $.25 billion away from hard-pressed farmers and why does the Prime Minister allow this betrayal of farmers to--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question. I made remarks earlier that this is anything but democratic and anything but constitutional. The member for Fleetwood—Port Kells said that the government would be moving forward eventually with the effect of having an independent and democratically elected Senate.

Could the member tell us when her boss or when the Government of Canada is going to bring that total package forward? That is what we really need to see. We need to see a total package not a half-baked idea, and this legislation is clearly a half-baked idea that is not well thought out.

We have not debating the whole constitutionality around it. Could the member give us a timeframe of when the total package will be coming forward, or indeed is there one?

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, why does the government not propose that? If that is where it wants to go, then why does it not propose it?

We would like, instead of this piecemeal approach, for the government to propose a real, long term solution. It should not do it in a piecemeal fashion by getting around the Constitution.

I might say this. The member knows that I am one member who does not change his story every day. I do not. Many in that party do.

The member mentioned that it is extremely difficult to change the Constitution, and that is true. I know it is even more difficult for the governing Conservative Party because it has never really managed to make some of the really difficult decisions. It was Prime Minister Trudeau who brought the Constitution home. It was the Liberals who made the hard decisions in terms of balancing the books, so that we could turn the country over in good financial shape to these folks. The bottom line question again is: why does the government not abide by constitutionality, have the proper discussions, and do--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I know why the member opposite is yelling. It is because he has egg on his face. The fact of the matter is the bagman from Quebec was appointed to the Senate.

However, worse yet, it was something the Prime Minister said he would never do. He appointed, as Minister of Public Works, a non-elected member, who was bagman for the Conservative Party in Quebec, to the Senate in a place where we on this side cannot put tough questions to the Minister of Public Works.

The fact of the matter is it is again a case of the Prime Minister saying one thing and doing another, and that is what worries Liberals about this particular bill. It is not binding.

The key point is this. The Constitution was put in place for specific reasons, that is to protect the foundation of our democracy and the rights of the two chambers. What the Prime Minister is doing through this bill in a very sneaky fashion is trying to use the negativity toward the Senate to make his point.

That is why members on the government side never talk about what the bill would really do. They just talk about the rhetoric, the Senate. Really, when one is making constitutional change, it should be done properly and not through manipulation and piecemeal fashion as the Prime Minister is trying to do.

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, really, I should not have to answer this question. It is evidence from their tactics that instead of defending their bill and trying to point out the good points, I guess they cannot find any, the Conservatives go and attack things that happened over the years. I could get into each one of those points, but I do not intend to.

The fact of the matter is it was this party, it was the government of Jean Chrétien, that turned the finances of this country around. At the end of the day when government was turned over to that party, the Conservatives got the biggest surplus ever on a turnover of government and what did they do? What did the Minister of Finance do? He slashed social security programs for Canadians. Now they are back to regifting them a little, but they slashed. They are basically wasting that surplus, that good financial management, left to them by this side of the House.

Let us come back to the bill. The fact of the matter is that the House leader knows that these elections are non-binding on the Prime Minister and that he can still do as he pleases.

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

I wonder if the member checked with the Prime Minister to see if it was all right for him to say that because those are the democratic principles that the leader of the governing party should go with over there.

If members go back to my remarks, they will see that I did not say the Senate was just great. There are problems with the Senate. I said the Liberal Party believes in Senate reform. But we also believe, in this party, that if we are going to do constitutional reform, we do it properly, not piecemeal.

Let me remind members again that I used the example of the Canadian Wheat Board, so that all Canadians could see how undemocratic were the actions of the Prime Minister.. There was no voters list. Can members imagine that? There were no real scrutineers. That is the way the government operates and that is the best example to show how absolutely undemocratic it is because it just believes in one thing, and that is, the Prime Minister's ideology. He really does not care what Canadians think.

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in fact I will. I am talking about process and about the undemocratic actions of the Prime Minister.

He then set up a task force implementing marketing choice for wheat and barley dominated by well known anti-Wheat Board individuals. He ordered the Canadian Wheat Board to remove from its website its technical response to the task force report. He and his parliamentary secretary travelled the country bad mouthing the Canadian Wheat Board's marketing performance. By order in council he placed a gag order on the Canadian Wheat Board.

In the middle of farmer elections he took 16,000 members off the list. He removed or fired appointed Canadian Wheat Board directors including the CEO who had supported single desk selling. In conducting his barley marketing plebiscite, he refused to use the questions developed by the general farm community and conducted one without a public voter's list, a secret ballot, a clear statement of winning conditions or as--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

As my colleague said, this is strictly a one-man show.

This bill is designed to manoeuvre, manipulate and move toward constitutional change without doing it properly under the Constitution that was passed several decades ago.

We all know the Prime Minister likes to operate, as I said earlier, in a presidential style. We know he likes the system south of the border much better than this system. However, the system south of the border, in terms of its congress and senate, has checks and balances that our chambers do not have. If we are going to make those kind of changes and go in that direction, then we should do it all inclusively.

If the Prime Minister wants to go down that road and make the kind of changes that we know he is thinking about, then he should have the courage to put forward an all encompassing package that proposes the changes and sets in place the processes necessary to do it in a well-debated and well-balanced way.

I am very concerned about the process that the Prime Minister follows on a number of fronts but I will get to those a bit later.

I must point out that instead of saying what this bill would or would not do for democracy and in getting a more effective Senate, government members just attack the integrity of the Senate and follow the negative perceptions that are out there. I believe they do so in order to build and expand on those negative perceptions.

In a former life I was a farm leader and I had the opportunity to make quite a number of presentations before both the Senate and the House of Commons. From my perspective, the Senate usually did a more thorough job because partisanship was not at play. No political games were being played. The Senate does in fact do good work.

The parliamentary secretary who just spoke mentioned a Senate study that he is currently reading. I have a number of studies here that the Senate has done but one that is well worth reading, entitled, “Understanding Freefall: The Challenge of the Rural Poor”, was done by the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.

We all know the work the defence committee has done in terms of security at our borders. It is unlikely that same kind of report would have been done in the Commons because the Prime Minister would not allow his members to speak negatively about some of the things that could be happening at the border. However, the Senate is not afraid of doing that and it takes those kinds of positions.

In his remarks on April 20th, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform said:

This bill follows through on the promise made to the people of Canada in the Speech from the Throne to “explore means to ensure that the Senate better reflects both the democratic values of Canadians and the needs of Canada's regions”. More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy.

The House leader never went on to prove his point. He never elaborated in terms of how this would strengthen democratic values and meet the needs of the regions. In fact, it does nothing of the sort.

He went on at great lengths to talk about the importance of the vote, and I agree with him, but a vote must also mean something. However, in the way that Bill C-43 is written, a vote does not necessarily mean much at all. It is non-binding on the Prime Minister. It is piecemeal in terms of its approach. It does nothing to reflect democratic values or to enhance Canada's regions any more than is already the case with appointments.

I want to go back to the member's second point because I want to make a last line in the quote by the House leader. He said:

More importantly, this bill strengthens the pillars of our proud Canadian democracy.

Absolutely nothing is further from the truth. This bill does not strengthen the pillars of our democracy. In fact, it is a manipulation by the Prime Minister in trying to get around the Constitution. That is not strengthening our democracy. That is undermining our democratic values.

If anything, the Prime Minister should absolutely follow the Constitution and do the process in the proper form and in the proper way. The Prime Minister is attempting to get around the Constitution without really going through that necessary process to make constitutional change. In other words, the very process that the Prime Minister has chosen is against the foundation of our democracy, our Constitution.

I want to quote what the Library of Parliament had to say on the proper process. It says:

In 1982, the Constitution of Canada was patriated. It is now expressly provided by section 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982 that an amendment to the method of selecting senators must be agreed on by the Senate, the House of Commons and at least two-thirds of the provinces that have at least 50% of the population of all provinces.

That is the proper process.

The Library of Parliament goes on to say:

At present, members of the Senate are appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

It then talks about the premise of Bill C-43 and states:

The premise of Bill C-43 is that it does not, as such, amend the method of selecting senators and therefore does not require a constitutional amendment.

I will admit that is what the Library said. The Library goes on to say:

Instead, it establishes a list of selected nominees that reflects electors’ preferences.

What that really means is that the Prime Minister is making the change in a kind of a sneaky way. He is manipulating people, which is what he typically does. I will get to a better example later.

I want to mention one other thing because quite a number of people talked about the day of the vote, polling day. Many have said that it will not cost more because it will be done the same day as a general election, federally or provincially.

Let us think about that for a minute and look back throughout history. When Mr. Mulroney was prime minister there were quite a number of Liberals in the Senate. It balanced the power of this place. When Prime Minister Chrétien was first elected there were more Conservatives in the Senate and it balanced the power of this place again.

However, if there is an election and there is a sweep politically then we do not have that safeguard in the Senate. We no longer have that sober second thought because everybody will be taken. We all know that sometimes happens in elections. We are politicians. We saw it in 1993. If that sweep would have happened in 1993 with a Senate election, we would not have a Senate to give that sober second thought that is direly needed when some legislation is passed in this place.

Let me sum up a few more points on the bill as they relate to what I would call our constitutional avoidance Prime Minister. We believe in the Liberal Party on this side of the House in democratic reform, but the bill is not democratic reform. It allows Senate nominees to be elected but does not make the elections binding. This could lead to potentially wasteful elections that the Prime Minister could ignore at will.

I see some members looking surprised that the Prime Minister might ignore it. I do not think there was a prime minister ever in Canadian history who has broken as many promises at this one did, everything in terms of no appointments to the Senate, a senator sitting over there in the Senate not able to answer questions, his position on income trusts, his promise on the Canadian Wheat Board but not really having the authority to make that promise but still manipulated it to get his way, and the list goes on too long for me to elaborate.

The bill also ignores provincial and regional equity, weakening the voices of the provinces such as British Columbia and Alberta that currently have fewer senators than their population warrants.

The initiative will increase partisanship in the Senate and aggravate the problem of potential deadlock between the two houses of Parliament. As so often the case with this government no meaningful consultations were held with the provinces or Canadians. In fact, Ontario and Quebec are among those who have already spoken out against the idea of piecemeal Senate reform.

Senate reform should not be piecemeal. It must considered as a package: the critical issues of selection, process and term, mandate and fair distribution. Simply put, the Senate election bill tries to skirt around the Constitution and haphazardly elect senators while still doing nothing to improve the representation of British Columbia and Alberta in Canada's Senate. It also fails to provide any kind of dispute mechanism should there be a deadlock between the House of Commons and the Senate.

I want to come back to process. At the end of the day, the tactic of the Prime Minister is a process that implies democracy but really is anything but. No better example is the undemocratic process that the Prime Minister managed to follow on the Canadian Wheat Board file.

Let me make a point in terms of what the Prime Minister considers democratic. He initiated his constitutional process by organizing a secret meeting in Saskatoon on July 25, 2006, to which only declared anti-Wheat Board individuals--

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

No, it does not. The member opposite says that it has a lot to do with it but it does not. The fact is that those 66 words are important in terms of what they may mean in the future. It is not the number of words that matter, it is what the words mean. It is the consequences of those words and those decisions that may be made in the future as a result of changing the constitutionality of this country in a certain way.

One of the reasons the Senate is in place is to give legislation sober second thought in a much less partisan way than is done in this chamber. The Senate's job is to protect against a government that abuses its power and tries to undercut the safeguards that are placed in the Constitution, which is exactly what the Senate is doing.

Yes, I know the country and the people in this House have a certain negative perception of the Senate but how many of those people who always talk negatively about the Senate have actually watched what it does? How many of them have read Senate reports? None or very few. I see one member and I know he is an avid reader who has no doubt read the reports.

However, it is very evident that protection is needed right now from the Prime Minister in terms of where the country may or may not go. When we have a Prime Minister who is operating more like a dictator than a prime minister and a representative of democracy, then we need that sober second thought.

What makes it more serious is that party talked about coming to this place and having free votes and it has not had one free vote. We do not hear government backbenchers speaking out and, in fact, we hardly even hear a cabinet minister speaking out.