Hon. Joan Fraser: This is another downtown voice, honourable senators. I do not know anything to speak of about wheat, but in my years here I have learned something about this place. I would like to address a point that has been made again today by Senator Plett, Senator Eaton and frequently by the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

It goes roughly as follows: We won the election; therefore, we have a mandate to do this. The implication is that it is illegitimate for those of us on this side of the chamber to raise questions.

It is true that there is something called the Salisbury principle.

Senator LeBreton: Will we get a lesson now?

Senator Fraser: Yes, I will try to give a lesson to some of the newer senators. They do not have to listen if they do not want to, but I think it is worth putting on the record.

Senator LeBreton: We will get one of your editorials now.

Senator Fraser: The Salisbury principle says, basically, all other things being equal, that if a government has been elected with an explicit element of a platform that it then brings in through legislation, it will not be blocked by the Senate, even if the opposition has a majority in the Senate, in general, all other things being equal — but all other things have to be equal.

If, for example, the Senate believes that the proposed legislation is contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then, even if it was in the platform, the Senate will probably end up opposing it. There are other examples that I could give. One that came to mind is not federal, but it is provincial. however, it keeps coming to my mind because so many of the speakers on the government side say, as if it were an absolute good, that this bill will give freedom to farmers.

Not all freedoms are necessarily desirable. The National Assembly of Quebec could decide, in its wisdom, to give me and every other Quebecer the freedom to drive on the left or the right-hand side of the road, depending on how I felt that morning. This is not a freedom that I would wish to have, because it would lead rapidly to chaos and to many deaths. This is a freedom that I am perfectly glad to have restricted, thank you very much.

In this case, I am willing to accept, for the sake of argument that many, maybe even most of the wheat farmers in the West voted for the Conservative Party. It has been their party for years and years, and they trusted it.

They presumably trusted the Minister of Agriculture when he told them we will not do this without giving them a chance to vote. They presumably trusted their party and their government not, in one fell swoop, to abrogate the existing legal protection for their vote at the same time as it imposed a new regime upon them.

In fact, that is what is happening. The government has refused to consult farmers. It refuses to pay any attention to the consultation that was conducted in which a majority of those farmers said, "We don't want your change, thank you very much." That makes the mandate that the government got in its election much less clear.

I would submit to you, therefore, honourable senators, that as the chamber of sober second thought, it is the Senate's duty to go to the farmers and hear what they have to say. That is all we have been saying on this side.

Senator Plett said that this bill is going to pass. We can count. We know the bill is going to pass, but we are not doing our duty if, at the very least, we do not try to go out there and see those farmers where they live and work and hear what they have to say.

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