Statement made on 14 February 2008 by Senator Mac Harb
Hon. Mac Harb:
Honourable senators, I wish to make some comments now. I will be brief.
This inquiry is timely. I am sure my colleague, if she were to look at the statistics of bills that come from the other House, from private members of the other place to this house, she would see that a far larger number of those bills come through the Senate, are adopted by the Senate and receive Royal Assent. Many more bills come from the House of Commons to the Senate, than the reverse.
I do not understand why the government worries at all about bills that go from the Senate to the House of Commons. It is literally impossible for any public bill introduced by a senator and passed through the Senate to ever become law in the other place. Why? Because reform has taken place in the other place.
My colleague will correct me if I am wrong but if I have a bill, and I have a couple of bills now before the Senate, and my bill receives the unanimous consent of the Senate and receives approval at all three stages and goes to the other side to sit on the Order Paper of the House of Commons, it will not be debated, discussed or adopted unless one member of Parliament who has a bill high up on the Order Paper drops his or her bill off the Order Paper and adopts my bill.
Honourable senators, I am not elected. I am appointed. However, honourable senators can understand that someone who must go to their electorate, who has already one or two private member's bills before the House of Commons and must face the electorate, might not give me the priority by dropping his or her bill off the Order Paper and adopting my bill to move it through the process.
I believe we must make the push, on the government side in the other place with our meetings with the House leaders on the other side, to have parity in the system, in order to have fair treatment, transparency, and reciprocity. If we are to deal with their bills and give them priority even at the committee level, surely they should give our bills respect and fair and proper treatment when they go to the other place.
Never mind all the frustration that we go through; and I am a frustrated, backbench senator, almost at the far end. I know it does not matter how much I work, or that I have 500 or 10,000 letters supporting a piece of legislation that I bring before the Senate. It does not matter if the Senate approves that legislation. If one member of the other House does not adopt it, the bill will not go anywhere.
That important part is missing from this whole debate on the functionality of Parliament. Do we need to talk about the reform of the Senate? Excuse me but I served in the House of Commons for 16 years. If we need reform in any place, we need it in the House of Commons. That is where the powers are. That is where ineffectiveness and inefficiencies exist. I say this in all fairness and I am not afraid to face an electorate. I faced them five times. Thanks to their confidence, I was elected every time.
Honourable senators, the bottom line is that when we talk about the democratic deficit, it exists there as much as it exists here, but it exists to a lesser extent here. We are appointed as part of a constitutional requirement of the government represented by the Prime Minister of Canada. They are not. They are elected every time. They have to face their voters.
If reform is urgent, it is urgent on the other side. Part of that reform, I submit, can begin now in our discussion. I think Senator Comeau can stand up to them and say, I cannot handle the work anymore because I must take adjournment on — I think today it was about 9 or 10 bills.
I am not sure Senator Comeau will be able to prepare 10 speeches to speak on those bills. Never mind: as my colleague has said, all he is doing is buying time. We all know that. That situation is not productive and does not help any one of us in advancing the agenda. It creates a bunch of frustrated senators, starting with me.
In essence, the inquiry is very timely, and it is extremely important for the committee that deals with rights of Parliament to get hold of it and arrange a meeting with the other place, to sit down with them to establish some sort of protocol.
The honourable senator is quite right to say that when this matter goes to committee that normally the department and minister appear before the committee to put the position of the government on the record, not here in discussion of second reading because second reading is normally approval of principle. The fact is that we agree with the principle. We should refer this to committee and let the committee deal with it. That would be more efficient than letting something sit for 15 days.
I have a bill that I have not spoken on, and it is on day 13. I am waiting for day 14. I am not hopeful. It will not go anywhere. I know that. I will speak on it, move second reading; one senator will stand up, take the adjournment, and it will sit for another 15 days. The election will come and, here we go, another six months are gone. I have time on my hands. I have another 20 or 21 years to bring these bills back again to ensure they see the light of day, no matter what.
We are all wasting valuable time. Canadians want to see real action. When they see these kind of fizzles and whistles and gimmicks that take place by playing with the rules in order to not have a bill passed by the Senate and be approved by the House of Commons, that does not serve democracy at all. I will stop here. I know it is 4:15 and many of my colleagues want to get on with their other responsibilities.