Statement made on 31 March 2009 by Senator James Cowan
Hon. James S. Cowan (Leader of the Opposition):
Thank you, honourable senators. I do not intend to speak long on this item; the facts really speak for them themselves. They are not in dispute.
The Senate passed the budget bill, but for two weeks on a website specially created by the government to inform Canadians about the budget and its plan to address the serious economic situation in the country, the government claimed that the Senate had not, in fact, passed the budget bill.
For two weeks, that website claimed that critical elements of its action plan to deal with the economy were contained in the budget, that it was vital for the Senate to pass it, that it had been passed by the House of Commons and that the Senate still had to do its part.
That statement was wrong.
If Canadians believe that the budget bill was critical to bringing us out of our economic mess, then the government was leading Canadians to believe that the Senate was failing to do its job for the country.
When I raised my question of privilege last week, His Honour read out to all honourable senators the statement about the Senate that was found on the government's website, and which His Honour confirmed a few moments before he spoke that were still on the government's website. His Honour said:
That is false.
There is no question that what the government was telling all Canadians about the work of the Senate was absolutely untrue.
This situation should not happen, and I am sure all of us would agree. Canadians should be able to rely on the government to provide them with accurate information about simple facts, and parliamentarians in both chambers should be able to take for granted that their government will describe their actions truthfully.
I suggest that we refer this matter to our Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament so that the committee can discover why and how this false information about our work was disseminated by the government for two full weeks; why it was not corrected even after the mistake was disclosed on the national evening news by CTV; and finally and most importantly, what steps will be taken to ensure this situation will never happen again.
Honourable senators, we do our work to the best of our abilities, all of us in this chamber, for the benefit of Canadians and for the benefit of our country.
I accept that, in the give and take of our political world, our actions may sometimes be misinterpreted or misrepresented, but that is not what happened in this case. Here we have a clear misstatement of fact by the Government of Canada to the people of Canada about the work of the Parliament of Canada.
Surely, this matter is something that deserves the attention of our Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament because when the government, of all people, does not tell the truth to Canadians about simple matters of fact concerning our work, the rights of Parliament are compromised.