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Results: 1 - 15 of 228
View Nathan Cullen Profile
NDP (BC)
View Nathan Cullen Profile
2013-06-18 16:46 [p.18558]
Mr. Speaker, people say hitting 50 is not easy. It can be hard on a person, realizing that shutting down debate 50 times in the House of Commons is breaking all previous records by any government, and there have been some bad governments.
I am sure my Conservative colleagues would agree that there have been some awful Liberal and Conservative governments, but this one is beating them all. Even on bills that we in the official opposition agree on and even on bills that we should have some discussion about, the government feels inclined to abuse its power as a majority government, something the Conservatives said, when they were in opposition, was wrong and anti-democratic.
I remember the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the Prime Minister saying that for a majority government to abuse its power by shutting down debate like this was wrong. These guys took lessons from those bad governments and made it so much worse.
Shutting down debate 50 times is not something that the Conservatives should be celebrating. On something as important as justice issues, the government wants to shut down debate even before the discussion has begun. How can the minister possibly expect, after so many experiences with his government writing bad law that gets challenged at the Supreme Court, that he is justified here again today in shutting down debate in the House of Commons? I am not the one saying it is bad law; it is our Supreme Court justices who are striking down his laws, which is very costly to Canadians and bad for justice.
Let us just have the conversation. Let us get justice right. Let us make the system work for Canadians and not have some draconian ideology shutting down conversations and shutting down our democracy.
View Rob Nicholson Profile
CPC (ON)
View Rob Nicholson Profile
2013-06-18 16:49 [p.18558]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend the whole 30 minutes talking about great Canadians like Brian Mulroney and other great Canadians, but 30 minutes would not be nearly enough to talk about the accomplishments of Conservative prime ministers in this country. It would not even come close to what we would need.
That said, I am pleased that we are moving forward on this Bill C-54 that concerns not criminally responsible individuals. I think, and everybody should agree, that having five hours of debate can be very helpful. This bill has been in the works for quite some time. It has been before committee and it was here for second reading.
Again, I hope nobody over there is offended that protection of the public will be the paramount consideration. It seems to me that protection of the public should have the support of everyone. I look forward to this debate.
View Matthew Dubé Profile
NDP (QC)
View Matthew Dubé Profile
2013-06-18 16:53 [p.18559]
Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, if Canadians thought that the Mulroney government was so extraordinary, they would not have reduced it to a two-member caucus at the next election.
The fact remains that the minister is doing what his colleague, the Minister of Heritage, did with Bill C-49. He claims that he is mulling over the issue and that he has been working on the bill for some time. However, he should make the distinction between his work, the work he does behind the scenes, and the business of Parliament. I think that they are three separate things.
Members heard the same thing from the Minister of Canadian Heritage when he claimed that the matter has been a topic of discussion for the past eight months. Perhaps he has been discussing the issue for the past eight months, but members of the House, duly elected by Canadians, have not had the same opportunity. We support the bill being debated in the House. However, as members, we are nevertheless very pleased to be able to have an opportunity to speak.
I think that the minister should make the distinction. Moreover, he should stop saying that the simple act of debating the issue automatically means that victims’ rights are not being respected. In my opinion, that is a disrespectful case to be making, both to colleagues in the House and to me.
View Rob Nicholson Profile
CPC (ON)
View Rob Nicholson Profile
2013-06-18 16:54 [p.18559]
Mr. Speaker, I will not correct one of the mistakes the member made about what happened in Canadian history.
That being said, I am very pleased to discuss the substance of this bill. I appreciate that other members say that we should always talk about procedure, but, again, I respectfully disagree with that.
The member asked what we have done. Yes, I have discussed this with my federal-provincial counterparts, certainly in my last meeting with them at the end of last year. What is most important as well, and this has been a priority for this government throughout the last seven and a half years, is that we speak with victims' groups all the time.
Whenever I leave Ottawa and visit any community across this country, I always sit down and meet with victims. They were very clear on issues like the not criminally responsible provisions of the Criminal Code, other areas of the Criminal Code and indeed the procedures that are in our criminal courts and our judicial system. They have been very clear that they want their priorities to be heard, that they are important and that their issues should be addressed. I have been very pleased and very proud that this legislation does exactly that. This is why I think it is so well received among victims' groups.
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
View Dan Albas Profile
2013-06-18 16:57 [p.18560]
Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the Minister of Justice's explanations thus far. I would simply like to ask the minister this.
The NDP voted at committee for this legislation to proceed. The Liberals, obviously, are certainly happy with the status quo and do not believe that needs to be changed. The victims that were heard at committee clearly said that this bill would help people like them in very tragic circumstances have a sense of safety, security and that they are being heard. If we do what the NDP wants, which would be to stall this, what consequences would that have? It would certainly take us through the summer break.
I would like to hear if the Minister of Justice thinks it is appropriate to make victims suffer further under the status quo that the opposition seems to be fine with.
View Rob Nicholson Profile
CPC (ON)
View Rob Nicholson Profile
2013-06-18 16:58 [p.18560]
Mr. Speaker, the member said that my comments and answers so far were very acceptable and pleasing to him. I want him to know that I will do my best to continue throughout the balance of this half hour to ensure my comments are satisfying and pleasing to him.
That said, he makes a very good point. We know what is happening. My colleagues across the aisle would like to debate this continuously and indefinitely. Then again, if we did that, the bill would not be passed before the summer break, and it is important that this piece of legislation, which, as I have indicated, takes into consideration what victims have been asking for, becomes the law of Canada.
I say to all members that there will be five hours of debate. The hon. government House leader indicated that is available to members. If members have not had an opportunity or did not take into consideration what happened in committee or during the second reading debate, I encourage them to get on their feet. Hopefully, when they analyze this, as I am sure they have over the last four or five months that this bill has been before Parliament, they will come to the same conclusion that my colleagues and people across this country have: that this is a good piece of legislation and what we need in this country.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
View Peter Julian Profile
2013-06-06 10:30 [p.17798]
Mr. Speaker, this is a sad moment in the history of this country and the Conservative government has a sorry record. In fact, it has broken a record by moving more than 40 time allocation motions in order to shut down debate and democracy. We on this side of the House think that Canadians deserve better. They deserve a government that listens.
We heard from one Conservative member of Parliament yesterday, an ex-Conservative, who was willing to stand up for democracy and stand up for the Canadian House of Commons.
The member for Edmonton—St. Albert talked about the ministerial “opulence” of the Conservatives and the fact that the ministers are spending on their limousines and five-star hotels. He talked about the myriad spending scandals of the Conservatives as well. He said, and I quote, “...my constituents are gravely disappointed”, and “My constituents demand better”.
Canadians demand better than what we are seeing from this government.
He also said, referring to the Conservatives, and I quote: “...we have morphed into what we once mocked”. He was referring to the spending scandals of the Liberals and their tendency to use closure to shut down the House of Commons.
The member for Edmonton—St. Albert also said, and this is probably the saddest thing for those who voted Conservative in the last election, “I no longer recognize...the party that I joined”.
This is how the Conservatives lead: shutting down democracy, and refusing accountability and transparency. Canadians deserve better.
How many Conservative MPs are going to stand up against this motion for closure and stand up for their constituents in the House of Commons?
View Bernard Valcourt Profile
CPC (NB)
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the member is not very much concerned about the substance of the subject matter of this motion.
The motion is about Bill S-8, safe drinking water for first nations. This bill is crucial to ensure that first nations have the same health and safety protections concerning drinking water and waste water treatment as are currently enjoyed by other Canadians.
It has taken seven years for us to get to this point. It has taken seven years of continuous dialogue with first nations, including formal engagement sessions and implementing measures to accommodate the concerns of first nations.
The proposed legislation before Parliament today is the result of hard work and collaboration. It is time to move forward.
View Dany Morin Profile
NDP (QC)
View Dany Morin Profile
2013-06-06 10:36 [p.17799]
Mr. Speaker, I would like my Conservative colleague to explain why his government insists on preventing us from speaking in the House of Commons and why he is in such a rush.
Canadians and members of Parliament, including the former Conservative member for Edmonton—St. Albert, want to be able to debate and want to see more transparency on the part of this government.
Why is this government not being more transparent with Canadians? That is what Canadians want to see.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2013-06-06 11:50 [p.17804]
Mr. Speaker, it is yet another sad day. This is not about Bill S-15. This is about a Conservative majority government under the Prime Minister and his attitude and his lack of respect for due parliamentary process.
The Prime Minister, more than any other in the history of Canada, has demonstrated borderline contempt in not allowing members the opportunity to address important issues. Canadians have a right to know that parliamentarians have been afforded the opportunity to speak and the opportunity to see a bill go through a natural process. The Conservative government has incorporated in its standard process as a majority government something that is totally abhorrent and disrespectful toward democracy.
My question is not to the minister. My question is to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons or to the Prime Minister. Why has the government decided to take such strong action with time allocation, unprecedented in the history of our country, to deny members the opportunity to debate?
If there were an ounce of good-faith negotiation, that is what should be taking place. We should have negotiation through House leaders so that there is a proper procedure to pass legislation through the House of Commons. Why is the government not doing what it should be doing in terms of preserving democracy inside the House of Commons?
View Peter Kent Profile
CPC (ON)
View Peter Kent Profile
2013-06-06 11:52 [p.17804]
Mr. Speaker, this government embraces the concept of parliamentary debate. Unfortunately, the agreement that existed among parties seems to have fallen apart, and the time has come to vote.
I would remind my hon. colleagues that the passage of this legislation to protect Canada's 43rd national park reserve involves and requires mirrored legislation in the House and in the Nova Scotia legislature. Mirrored legislation was introduced there on April 24. It achieved second reading on April 25 and third reading on May 6. It received royal assent on May 10.
There has been full debate in the Senate. We had an agreement for debate in the House, which, for opposition reasons, has fallen apart. We are prepared today to take questions about the material content of Bill S-15 and to proceed to the time allocation vote.
View André Bellavance Profile
Ind. (QC)
View André Bellavance Profile
2013-06-06 11:55 [p.17804]
Mr. Speaker, the Conservative ministers have come up with a new argument for their time allocation motions. They say that the bill has been on track for years. When speaking about a bill on the railways, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities recently told us that we had already been discussing it for six or seven years. Now, the Minister of the Environment is telling us that we have been discussing this bill for two years.
Then why now? The parliamentary session is winding down and now suddenly there is some pressing need to pass these bills even though the Conservatives have been in power since 2006. If it has been such a long time, then it seems to me that we should have had formal discussions and debate on all these bills sooner.
In closing, I want to correct the Minister of the Environment. He said there was agreement among all parties about the number of speakers. I can assure you that he certainly did not talk to the Bloc Québécois to find out when we might speak. It is funny because when they need us they do not talk to us and we are a non-recognized party and when they do not need us then we no longer exist.
I would remind the House and all parties that all 308 members here are legitimately and democratically elected, from the Prime Minister to the ministers, to every other member, regardless of where they sit.
View Peter Kent Profile
CPC (ON)
View Peter Kent Profile
2013-06-06 11:57 [p.17805]
Mr. Speaker, discussions with regard to procedures of this House should be conducted elsewhere. As you have informed the House, we are in this period to discuss the creation of Canada's 43rd national park.
In the 2000 Speech from the Throne, the Government of Canada made a commitment to create significant new protected areas. This legislation has been in the works for more than 50 years, starting with school children who wrote to protect the famous wild horses of Sable Island. In 1967, the government of the Rt. Hon. John Diefenbaker passed regulations protecting these horses, which planted the original seeds for the long-term protection of Sable Island.
The importance of the conservation gains of creating this new national treasure, this new national park reserve, cannot be underestimated. Sable Island is home to 350 species of migratory birds, the breeding ground for virtually the world's entire population of the Ipswich sparrow, and turning Sable Island into a national park would ensure its protection for generations to come.
View Pat Martin Profile
NDP (MB)
View Pat Martin Profile
2013-06-06 16:09 [p.17838]
Mr. Speaker, maybe I will have an opportunity to expand somewhat on those thoughts and remind my colleague again of the legal meaning of the word “consultation” and all that it implies.
Let me preface my remarks today with two opening comments. First of all, I am holding the bill we are debating today in my hand, an act respecting the safety of drinking water on first nation lands. There could be no more important subject for the House of Commons to be seized with, I would argue, given the state of the nation as it pertains to the right to safe drinking water in first nations communities. However, it also goes on to say “AS PASSED BY THE SENATE June 18, 2012”.
There are two things about that. Where does the Senate get off dealing with a piece of legislation before the House of Commons gets its kick at the can on it? How do the senators pass legislation? Who gave them the right, the mandate, to generate legislation? Where does their legitimacy come from? I would argue that they have no legitimacy, have no right and have no mandate to generate legislation in the other place. They have things completely turned around backwards.
Legislation is generated here by the duly elected representatives of the people of Canada, as chosen in a fair and free federal election, at least when it is not meddled with by the Conservative Party rigging elections. We are the representatives of the people. We deal with legislation. Senators have the constitutional right to review the legislation we pass. They even have a history of vetoing legislation in the Senate.
In the early years of this country, fully 10% of all the legislation passed by the people's representatives was vetoed outright by the other place. Fully 25% was amended significantly. However, rarely, and in fact, I would argue never, in those days, as per the founding fathers of Confederation's vision of our federal system, did we see legislation generated in the Senate. This is a new phenomenon.
Now senators are cranking bills out like there was no tomorrow. Bill after bill after bill comes to the House of Commons. We get the second shot at looking at something that has already achieved all the levels of debate, scrutiny and oversight in the Senate. It is fundamentally wrong. Every time they come to our door with another piece of Senate legislation, we should reject it. We should march it back down to the Senate, drop it on the doorstep and leave it there, because I argue that they have no right. It offends the sensibilities of anyone who would call themselves a democrat, in my view.
The second thing I would point out is that in light of the importance of the subject matter we are dealing with, we should really take a moment today and reflect on the fact that the government has moved closure on this important bill, once again. If one asked how often the government uses the intrusive heavy hand of the tyranny of the majority to shut down debate and pull the shroud of its oppressive nature over our opportunity to deal with this matter, I would answer that it does it every time.
It used to be a rare, infrequent thing. Only when there was a logjam on issues of national significance or national importance would the government of the day advance a bill in spite of it being against the will of the other chamber. They were issues such as the national pipeline debate, in the late fifties. They were huge issues of national significance. Now Conservatives do it at every stage on every piece of legislation, and they do not allow a single amendment to a single bill in the 41st Parliament.
I would argue that our democracy is in tatters. This is only a facsimile of a democracy that is left here. It is kind of like a California strawberry. It has the look of a real strawberry, but when it is bitten into, it tastes like cardboard. This has the outward appearances of a democracy, but in actual fact, it falls short in every respect, because all the checks and balances have been stripped away. All the checks and balances that used to put some restraint on the absolute power of the Prime Minister's Office and the ruling party have been tossed aside. Again, that offends me.
I do not want to use my whole speech railing about those two items, but it makes my blood boil to watch the status of our great chamber deteriorate and be undermined and sabotaged by, what I would argue, some very insensitive people. We are dealing with an issue of grave concern and I want to give it the attention it deserves.
I start my remarks by telling the House that the social conditions of our first nations, Metis and Inuit people are our country's greatest failure, our country's greatest shame.
We live in the richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world and we cannot provide basic needs to a family to survive in 2013.
In Pikangikum, Ontario pipes are laying there with weeds growing over them because they have been there 5 to 15 years. There have been 100 false starts to its promised fresh water and sewage system and yet those first nations still have no running water in their homes and they are using a five gallon oil pail as a toilet. It is a national disgrace.
I have been here 16 years and for 16 years we have been saying that very same thing. When Jim Prentice, a friend of mine, was made the minister of Indian affairs, he announced that this would be his number one priority. Then I watched other ministers of Indian affairs year after year adopt one theme. Andy Scott's number one priority was education. With Jim Prentice, it was going to be water, that most fundamental and basic human right and need. How many years has it been since we have seen Jim Prentice around here? His government is now imposing, and I use that word with all the weight that it implies, a pile of regulations instead of addressing the legitimate basic needs of first nations communities.
Without fresh water and adequate housing, this permanent underclass in our society will continue. As elected representatives, it is our greatest failure. I find it hard to express how disappointed I am in us, and I say that collectively, that we have not been seized with the issue sufficiently to make significant progress on something that is so easy. We are talking about fresh water for communities. We can do this. This is not rocket science.
The government says that it is all about money, that it cannot keep shovelling money at the problem as that is not the solution. I have news for the Conservatives. That is the solution. It is a complete paucity of money that causes those pipes in Pikangikum to lay there with weeds growing over them. The government's solution is to imply that all first nations leadership is either corrupt or incompetent.
That was the government's big priority. It was not a government priority to address the basic needs of first nations people. The government wanted to clean up the act. It said that it gave them lots of money, but there was nothing to show for it. Let us do the math. With 1 million people and $7 billion in total project, $3 billion or $4 billion gets lost, what we call line loss in engineering, and $3 billion or $4 billion gets to an intended person. That amounts to $7,000 per person for their housing, education, health care and infrastructure. We pay $15,000 per student for just high school in Manitoba in non-aboriginal communities and the government allows $7,000 per person for everything. We wonder why we have a permanent underclass and we why children do not achieve their full potential.
Children are growing up in chronic, long-term, multi-generational poverty and they are not being welcomed into the full economy, even though we have all of these skill shortages. The government will bring in 500,000 temporary foreign workers and allow an unemployment rate of 85% in communities in northern Manitoba, that is people between 16 and 25 years old. Who is failing to make this connection? We are, as elected representatives. It is an appalling situation.
The shortcomings of this legislation are legion and well-documented by all of the witnesses. Virtually all of the witnesses representing legitimate first nation organizations condemn this legislation, yet it is being imposed in the customary way for them.
The Conservatives have been looking for validators. They have lost their number one stooge, Patrick Brazeau. They had to kick him out of their caucus. Therefore, they do not have a stooge anymore to support some of these initiatives, to say that this is exactly what first nations need, that the reason they are poor is because they are all corrupt. Therefore, they can pass some legislation to ram and impose some more accounting down their throats.
If the Conservatives knew anything about the reality of life administering a first nation reserve these days, they would know, as the Auditor General pointed out, that first nations are over-audited. These people have to put in 160-some-odd financial reports per year, over three a week, to the five funding agencies. They are doing nothing but paperwork. If they file one of those 160 documents incorrectly, they are told that they will be put under trusteeship, third-party management, because they are not managing their money properly.
Then the Conservatives impose, through the Indian Act, an instrument of oppression, if I ever heard one, an instrument of oppression unworthy of any western democracy. As per the Indian Act, they have to re-elect a new band council every two years, so nobody ever develops any expertise in doing this kind of thing.
It is a paternalistic Eurocentric cluster something is what it is.
I remind anybody who has any working knowledge of these things, and I have noticed some of the guys claiming they have spent some time on the aboriginal affairs committee, to read this penultimate Harvard study that took place a number of years ago. It noted that the degree of successful economic development in first nation communities all over North America, not just in Canada, was directly proportional to the degree of self-determination and independence. If they can get out from under the yoke of the paternalistic Eurocentric Indian Act and the meddling of naive people who are trying to impose some set of rules without any sensitivity to culture, heritage or anything else and starved for resources and finances, there would be a road forward.
This bill represents the worst manifestation of that same paternalism that we have seen since the Indian Act was imposed on day one. There is pretty much a blanket condemnation here.
This reminds me of the days of the first nations governance act, the Liberal version of imposing even more Eurocentric naivety on them. It had many of the same properties of some of the critics who came forward condemning this, after being consulted and not having any of their concerns accommodated. Some of them were blanket condemnation of which we should really take note.
Jim Ransom, the director of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, said:
The last concern we have with Bill S-8 is in the sense of how it confers to the provinces jurisdiction over first nation water systems.
What a hodgepodge of overlapping jurisdictions that is sort of a recipe for paralyzing any progress. It is almost institutionalizing some long squabble over jurisdiction and obligations.
In Manitoba, we have been dealing with this for years now when it comes to child and family services and health services. Even though the Conservatives adopted Jordan's principle, as put forward by our colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan to make the case that a child is a child is a child and deserves equal treatment whether it is under section 15 of the charter or section 35 or under first nations rights, we are not going to squabble about that. We are not going to wait for an air ambulance to take some kid to Winnipeg because nobody could figure out who is going to pay for the treatment of this child. We are going to do it now and we are going to fight with Ottawa later. That is what we are left doing.
The same is true for education. We have kids in Thompson off reserve. The budget is $15,000 a year to keep a kid in high school there. The budget for educating a similar student in a reserve 100 miles away is $8,000 per year. That is almost a 50% difference.
Some would argue that it should cost more to provide a comparable level of education on reserve because of the isolation, all kinds of different costs, the economy of scale and so forth, but it is about 50%. Then we wonder why the outcomes are poor in the education system.
No one can tell me that it is not about money and that in the richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world we cannot provide for the basic needs of a child and indeed a family to survive, because that is an absolute myth.
I heard a speech one time by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He had a very poignant way of pointing things out. He said that if one had five children and only three pork chops the solution would not be to kill two of the children, but neither would it be a solution to divide those three pork chops into five equal pieces. The social democratic view of that problem is to challenge the basic assumption that there is only three pork chops because that is the big lie in a society and a civilization like this. There is enough money to provide for the basic needs of families in this society.
Nobody worked with the communities, nobody worked in a respectful nation-to-nation relationship that we had all been promised for so many years when the government dedicated that $330 million to infrastructure in the first nations. It has become almost a meaningless cliché. People actually cringe when we use that term now because that commitment has been broken and compromised so many times that nobody believes it anymore. The relationship is so strained, the leadership is so challenged to keep a lid on that simmering pot of unrest that it is tempting fate.
I am not here to speak for anyone, but I have nothing but admiration for the leadership in first nation communities to have kept the youth down as much as they have in terms of social unrest because it is a recipe for social unrest. A bunch of able-bodied young ambitious 18- to 25-year-old youth completely excluded from the economy yet seeing on television and on their iPads what the world is really like in western society and they have none of it is a recipe for social unrest and we had better get in front of that bus or we will get run over by it, in my view.
Shawn Atleo has announced that the level of unrest this summer could be a concern. It is dependent on the level of accommodation that they get from the government. The leadership has to be able to tell the people that there is hope, that there is promise on the horizon. If it is the status quo and more of the same, it cannot keep a lid on it forever. I hate to say where I would be if I was a young aboriginal man today. I think I would have a very difficult time containing myself, given the injustice of it all, the social injustice of the social conditions of our first nations, Metis and Inuit youth.
I have used much of my time criticizing the fact that this bill comes from the Senate when it should not. The government has invoked closure not once, not twice, but 41 times in this Parliament on every bill, every stage of every bill and has never accommodated a single amendment to a single piece of legislation in the entire 41st Parliament.
Our democracy is in tatters. It has become a farce in three acts. The Conservatives are losing members. Principled MPs are walking out and I believe more will as they realize they have come to most resemble that which they used to most condemn, which was the corruption of the Liberal Party. It was the culture of secrecy in the Liberals that allowed corruption to flourish. The Conservatives are obsessed with secrecy and they are not making any progress on what I believe is the most pressing social emergency of our day, and that is the social conditions of our first nations, Inuit and Metis people.
View Michael Chong Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the Senate serves as a chamber of sober second thought to review legislation. I just want to highlight three pieces of legislation that have gone through this House over the years that the Senate has defeated, amended or reviewed.
For example, setting aside one's views on the difficult issue of abortion, let us look at what happened to Bill C-43 during the time of Mr. Mulroney's government. It was defeated in the Senate. It was the bill that would have restricted abortion in this country. The Senate defeated Bill C-43. Otherwise, today in Canada we would have had restrictions on abortion. Therefore, I would ask members opposite who have strongly held convictions on this whether that was a role that they would have seen as useful as played by the Senate.
More recently, after the last election, the government introduced, as part of its electoral commitment, Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act. It sailed through this House of Commons, and it got to the Senate. Suddenly the members of government and the senators realized that there were problems with respect to national security in the bill. Therefore, the Senate introduced an amendment which then forced the bill back to this House. The amendment was adopted by this House, the legislation received royal assent. That gap, that shortfall in the bill, was addressed by the Senate of Canada.
More recently, as I mentioned before, Bill C-290, that did not receive a standing vote in this House of Commons and received only one witness at committee, the very proponent of the bill, did not receive sufficient scrutiny and oversight. The Senate is currently doing its work in that regard.
Those are just three examples of the important work that the Senate has done over the years in its role as a chamber of sober second thought to review legislation.
There is a another reason why the Senate serves a useful function. That is, its role as an investigative and research and deliberative body. In the history of the Senate back to the 1960s and 1970s, the investigative work of the Senate into social policy became integral to the development of Canada's modern social safety welfare net. The development of the Canada pension plan and the Canada Health Act and the development of policies involving social transfers to the provinces for health care, education, post-secondary research and development were all influenced by the work that the Senate did over the years. More recently, the work that the Senate did on mental health influenced government and House of Commons decisions on legislation, policy and funding for mental health concerns. The Senate does the same thing as royal commissions, public inquiries and external task forces, but it does so at a lesser cost than those royal commissions and in a much quicker and more timely manner.
There is yet another reason why the Senate serves a useful function. It is the same reason why in over 50 states around the world there are bicameral legislatures: the Senate serves to provide a check and balance, not just on the majoritarianism of the lower chamber in this House of Commons, but also on the executive branch of government.
I would like to quote Sir Clifford Sifton. He was a Canadian minister at the turn of the 20th century who helped open up western Canada for the waves of immigration that settled the great Prairies and produced the powerhouse of energy and agriculture that we see today. Here is what Clifford Sifton said in the book The New Era in Canada in 1917:
No nation should be under unchecked, single-chamber government.... It must also be remembered that, under our system, the power of the Cabinet tends to grow at the expense of the House of Commons.... The Senate is not so much a check on the House of Commons as it is upon the Cabinet, and there can be no doubt that its influence in this respect is salutary.
The check that the upper chamber provides on the executive branch of government, something that many Canadians have been increasingly concerned about over the last 30 or 40 years, is a useful function. In fact, modern North American institutions are based on Montesquieu's doctrine of the division of powers as a way to best achieve outcomes in society, and the way to best achieve justness and fairness in society.
His division of powers principle is quite simple. We needed to move away from the error of the absolute rights of kings and dictators, where they held all the power, to a system of government where power was diffused. We needed a system where power was not concentrated in a single place, in the Prime Minister's Office, the cabinet or the executive branch of government, but diffused among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.
The Senate, in a bicameral system of government, serves that end of the division of power. It serves that end of diffusion of power. It serves that end to provide a check and balance on the concentration of power in one place. That is why, as I said earlier, there are 50 countries around the world with bicameral legislatures.
In addition to these reasons why the Senate serves a useful function, let us talk about the practical, political realities of abolishing the Senate. The reality is that Canada exists today in part because of the Senate. It was the deal that brought the provinces and colonies before Confederation into the federation.
In fact, when we read the Debates on Confederation, it is clear that colonies like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec would never had joined this federation had it not been for the Senate. They made it clear they were worried about the rapidly growing populations in Canada West, now Ontario. They were worried about being subsumed by the majoritarianism of a rising Ontario. That is why they wanted the upper chamber to serve as a protector of their interests, whether they were regional in nature, reflecting smaller populations, or linguistic, reflecting the francophone realities in many parts of the country.
Many of those provinces, legislatures and national assemblies would not agree to the abolition of the Senate. They would see it as a diminution of their voice here in our nation's capital.
The political and practical reality is that abolition of the Senate is not something that is going to happen. It is not something that we could easily reopen without addressing the other demands that were made during the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, those divisive debates of the late 1980s and early 1990s. There are many more things on the table. If we went to a Dominion-provincial conference on first ministers to talk about the abolition of the Senate and whether or not we believe that would require the 7/50 amending formula or unanimity amongst Canada's 11 legislatures, the point is this: it would be opening a can of worms that no one in the House would want to open.
In particular, I ask members from Quebec on both sides of the House what they would expect the Province of Quebec to demand, with respect to the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society or the recognition of Quebec's nationhood. What would they expect in terms of the demand for a veto on the part of provinces for any future changes to the Constitution? What would they expect when terms of the original Meech Lake demand completely devolve immigration to the provinces and relinquish federal control about who comes into our country and who is accepted to be a citizen?
It would reopen the debate about who gets the power of appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada. There are all the sorts of issues that certainly would be reopened for those who advocate the abolition of the Senate. Therefore, for a practical reason, abolition is not really something that we can pursue, nor is it something that I support. It is also something that we cannot do through the back door.
The Constitution of this country, with its written and unwritten aspects as they have been interpreted by rulings of the Supreme Court, is the basic law of this country and we must respect that Constitution. We must respect the way it needs to be amended. We should wait until the Supreme Court renders its judgment in the reference case that the government has asked it to consider.
Mr. Speaker, while I believe in a bicameral Parliament, while I believe that we need a lower and upper chamber for the reasons I have just outlined, I also believe that the Senate needs to be reformed. We need to have term limits. My suggestion to my fellow parliamentarians is that we should have term limits based on the life of a Parliament. Therefore, instead of setting a fixed term limit of eight or nine years, we should base it on a Parliament. When a Parliament is dissolved for the purposes of a general election, that is when senators should seek re-election. We might want to go to a system where a senator serves for the life of two or three Parliaments before seeking re-election, but I strongly believe that we need to have a system where there a limit on the length of time a senator can serve. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will give us some guidance in that respect.
I also believe that we need to have popular consultations or elections of senators. That is incredibly important. That way we can provide Canadian citizens the accountability they are seeking for the upper chamber.
We need to do this thoughtfully. We cannot do it willy-nilly. There are unintended consequences if we proceed too rapidly and too rashly. If we are to proceed with term limits and an election of senators based on the court's ruling, then we also need to strengthen this very House of Commons.
In Ontario, the province from which I come, we have 24 senators. In Ontario, unlike Quebec where senators serve at large, if 24 senators run in province-wide elections we could see up to six million or more voters voting for a senatorial candidate. In that situation it is not inconceivable that a single Senate candidate could win an election with four million, five million or more votes, dwarfing the number of voters and constituents that members of this chamber represent. Accordingly, when those senators who have the legitimacy of being elected with some three million to four million votes confront the House about what should be done with certain pieces of legislation, we need to think about strengthening this House of Commons to ensure that the increase in the power of the Senate, because of term limits and elections, is reflected also in an increase in power of this part of the legislature, the House of Commons. This would ensure that the people's place that is represented by 308 members here today has an effective and continued voice as the primary centre of power in our nation's capital.
For all those reasons I believe the Senate serves a useful role. I believe members should vote to ensure its continued operation. While the institution is not perfect, and while those who have made mistakes should be held to account, let us ensure that our institutions remain strong to respond to the future challenges that Canada faces.
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