Statement made on 29 January 2009 by Senator Tommy Banks (retired)
Hon. Tommy Banks:
Honourable senators, some of you have heard about this before, but others of you, most cogently our new colleagues, have not. The purpose of the bill is set out accurately and succinctly in the summary found on the inside of its cover.
It reads:
This enactment amends the Constitution Act, 1867, to eliminate the requirement that a senator own real and personal property of a certain value in order to be qualified for appointment to the Senate and to maintain his or her place in the Senate.
There is not much doubt, reading the Confederation debates, that in order to keep the rabble in order and to protect the interests of the landed gentry of the time, this was then a sensible provision, because even earlier than 1867, in the Quebec Resolutions, $4,000 was a lot of money. It still is. I can understand it because it only has three zeros, but it still is a lot of money.
However, in the 21st century, this does not make any sense. To put it simply, it precludes someone who is an apartment dweller from being a member of the Senate. That is a preposterous impediment. This bill seeks to remove that requirement from the Constitution by saying simply that, in order to be qualified to be named to the Senate, a person needs to reside in the province in whose interests he or she is named to this place. It does nothing more or less than that. It simply removes the $4,000 property requirement, a provision with which some of our new colleagues will be intimately and cogently familiar.
There was perhaps an apocryphal story that one senator-to-be sought to qualify by having bought a cemetery plot, which was seen to be not entirely in order. There have been instances in the past in which persons considering appointment to the Senate have actually bought the garage of someone else. That is a fact.
This is a preposterous requirement. It is antediluvian and it has no place in the requirements for being named to this place in the 21st century. I commend the attention of all senators to the clear and simple intent of this bill.
It is a little more complicated than that, so I also commend your attention to Motion No. 4 on your Order Paper today, which is umbilically connected to this bill. I will be kind and speak later and separately to Motion No. 4, but it is a matter of considerable importance to members of the Senate who represent the Province of Quebec. That has to do with the fact that the Constitution Act, 1867, requires not only that senators own property of a value of $4,000 in the province that they represent but, in addition, in Quebec, based upon the original 24 divisions in the legislature of Lower Canada, senators must own property or reside in one of those 24 senatorial divisions. Quebec, in the sense that it is represented in respect of property ownership in the present constitution, consists only of that area circumscribed by the boundaries around those collective 24 senatorial divisions. Quebec is much larger than that now.
The most egregious example can be given by Senator Watt, although there are other examples. Senator Watt represents Northern Quebec and the people of Northern Quebec — Arctic Quebec, in fact — and he does so nobly and well. However, he is obliged to own $4,000 worth of real property in one of those senatorial divisions along the St. Lawrence River. That is absurd. There are other senators present who I think it is safe to say consider that they are here representing the interests of Quebec, not necessarily of De la Durantaye, Milles Isles, Lauzon, Kennebec, Wellington, Bedford or Victoria, and who may not live in any of those senatorial divisions but still need to be here and are here quite properly.
I commend your attention, honourable senators to, first, the bill, and second, the motion, which is, as I said, cogently important in connection with it, and which requires the approval of the Senate, the House of Commons and of the National Assembly of Quebec, to which I will address myself on another day.