Hon. Joseph A. Day:

Honourable senators, I will join in the debate on Bill C-10, and I remind honourable senators that we are debating Bill C-10 at this time. We are debating Bill C-10 and not Main Estimates, supplementary estimates or the budget. Bill C-10, honourable senators, is "An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and related fiscal measures." I emphasize "related fiscal measures." That is the title of Bill C-10.

For the benefit of those honourable senators recently appointed, I will take honourable senators back to June 12 of last year when we were dealing with Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget. That was a year ago. We complained, honourable senators, about the omnibus nature of that bill and title last year and I leave it to honourable senators to determine whether the change in title has achieved the obvious intended goal of allowing Bill C-10 to become an omnibus bill. It is, in fact, an omnibus bill and should not be referred to solely as budget implementation.

Honourable senators, observations were attached to the committee's report, after study of the Bill C-50 last year at this time. It is worthwhile to hear what was said by the honourable senator's committee after due consideration of the bill last year. It had in its title "budget implementation":

The majority of the Committee strongly objects to the practice of including legislative measures that have no direct relationship to budgetary matters in budget implementation bills. This practice has the effect of discouraging serious parliamentary scrutiny, and creates a situation in which parliamentarians are loath to conduct a proper examination of non budgetary measures for fear of delaying budgetary items that are more pressing. In the present bill, the government has included a large number of amendments to Acts of Parliament that are not related to fiscal management or economic policy. In particular, the majority of the Committee notes that major amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act properly belong in a stand-alone bill, which should also address the backlog of applications that is now approaching 1 million.

Honourable senators, last year we saw the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act included in the Budget Implementation Act. This year we find equalization pay and pay equity. We find a number of other pieces of legislation, such as the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Competition Act and matters relating to Air Canada shareholdings. The government is following exactly the same process that we strongly objected to last year. Our observations have not achieved the desired result.

Let me take you to the debate that took place with respect to that same Bill C-50 at this time last year. I will only refer to a few items here to make the point that I wish to make, but I refer honourable senators to the budget implementation bill and the debate in its entirety, if you would like to see the mood of the Senate expressed at that time. I submit that it is similar to the mood of the Senate that is being expressed — and will be expressed — with respect to this particular bill, Bill C-10.

The point that was made, honourable senators, a year ago in the committee report was that we strongly objected to this practice of including legislative measures that have no direct relationship to budgetary matters and are found in budget implementation bills. The practice discourages proper in-depth scrutiny, for which we traditionally are well-known in this place.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Senator Day: Honourable senators, what we did last year to try and alleviate the problem, as soon as we saw this bill coming down on us, is that we asked this chamber for the right to conduct a pre-study of the budget implementation bill. Honourable senators will have heard Senator Di Nino indicate that this is the earliest the budget implementation bill has been brought down in a long time. The difficulty with that is that when you bring down budget implementation bills quickly, you give even less time for this chamber to properly study them.

We had no time to do a pre-study this year because we were rushing through the supply bills on Supplementary Estimates (B), which we handled very quickly last week, and Supplementary Estimates (C). I filed a report on that today. You can see that we are fully engaged in trying to assist the government in having proper supply in order to conduct the business of government.

They have brought this bill in very quickly and early, albeit with an important reason. We all recognize that reason as the economic downturn. However, while you are doing that, why not help those of us who must study this bill by excluding those extra items requiring in-depth and extensive study from any budget implementation bill? Why make this an omnibus bill when the government is professing to want the bill dealt with quickly and expeditiously?

Honourable senators, we are hopeful that the statements made in this chamber — especially in relation to a bill such as this budget implementation bill — are taken back to the government to aid it in determining the easiest way of obtaining its supply. There are supply bills and budget implementation bills. They are two separate things.

Let me provide you with my concluding remarks when I spoke on Bill C-50 this time last year at third reading:

In the future, I think this chamber — if it is not done before such a bill arrives —

— and by that I meant severing the bill and excluding those non-fiscal, non-budgetary measures in a budget implementation bill —

— should seriously consider splitting such bills. I do not recommend this course of action to delay the progress of the government's legislative agenda but, rather, to ensure that major policy initiatives receive the full and expert attention of the relevant committee that has the institutional memory and the focus to evaluate that particular portion properly.

Honourable senators, that was the message we sent to the government at this time last year with respect to a budget implementation bill.

The bill last year, as many honourable senators will know, was considerably smaller than this particular bill. Bill C-10 that we are dealing with today has 528 pages, 471 sections divided into 15 parts, and impacts and amends 42 different statutes. Honourable senators, that is what we are being asked to deal with expeditiously and with a minimum of scrutiny.

Honourable senators, we have received an extraordinary range of unrelated measures in a budget implementation bill, many of which are not of an urgent nature. Many items in this bill require urgent attention and we want to direct our attention to those. However, this practice of including other, non-budgetary items exploits the good faith of parliamentarians who wish to cooperate on those matters of clear urgency. It undermines the capacity of Parliament — both chambers, not only the Senate — to hold the government to account. These are fundamental issues, honourable senators.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Senator Day: It prevents committees from evaluating legislation properly and it precludes public participation in the committee process that is terribly important to this particular Senate and to the various Senate committees. If this practice continues, honourable senators, it will result in the legislative process being deemed irrelevant. We must guard against that at all costs.

Honourable senators, we recognize — all of us in this chamber — that there has been a major increase in unemployment. We understand that there are significant numbers of bankruptcies occurring. We know that this is an unprecedented economic downturn. Honourable senators, we are demonstrating our sensitivity to that situation. We are acting quickly. We returned here last evening as a chamber in order to receive the bill as soon as debate was concluded in the other chamber. We agreed to expedite the passage of the bill through first reading. We are planning to have the Minister of National Finance before our committee on Tuesday next, if that can be arranged, and it looks very much as though it will be. The other place had one month to deal with this bill. Is it unreasonable to suggest that this chamber and the committees of this chamber should have at least the same one-month period to deal with matters? Is that unreasonable?

Honourable senators, if the economic downturn stimulus package aspect of this bill needs to be dealt with more quickly, there is clearly a solution. Enough money, millions and billions of dollars, is sitting in some of the 14 infrastructure programs that have already approved by Parliament and that have not flowed. I suggest that part of the economic stimulus package in Bill C-10 can wait to allow for proper scrutiny. I further suggest that a big part of the stimulus package is in the Main Estimates, which we should be getting on with, rather than dropping it to deal with Bill C-10.

I point out as well that we were informed by Treasury Board that the big part of the budget stimulus package will be in Supplementary Estimates (A), which will not be coming until late April, early May, flowing out of the Main Estimates.

The solution, honourable senators, is to allow this chamber and its committees to do their job, or, alternatively, to remove from Bill C-10 those aspects that have nothing to do with budget implementation and immediate fiscal needs. That solution is in the hands of this government.

Recent Statements from Liberal Senators