The long form census is critical to getting reliable information on any number of important social groups and issues. It is this data that helps to analyze, for example, the needs of seniors, health concerns facing different groups of Canadians, the funding for francophone groups and the particular needs of certain immigrant groups. Of course, if we do not have this data, then how do we define these groups and their needs?

And if we cannot do that, then their needs can simply slip out of view and any imperative to fund these groups slips out of view too. That is, government does not have to deal with a problem if it has taken steps to make sure that there is no way to define that problem. Cancelling the long form census could be a way to diminish social program spending while minimizing political damage. Out of sight – out of mind.

On May 5, 2009, I published a blog on this site that outlined my thinking at that time on the Conservative’s Senate reform proposals. I have been giving further thought to these ideas and wanted to do an update for this blog.

I had argued last year that while reform was in order (if not inevitable), we had better be careful to consider possible unintended consequences (i.e. be careful what you wish for; you might just get it). My arguments were then and remain:

1. Because the Senate has to approve all legislation and budgets before they come into law, an elected Senate, freed from the constraint of not wanting to overturn the work of the elected House of Commons, could completely hamstring government. So, before electing, we might want to work out a way to break impasses between the two Houses of Parliament.

2. Electing Senators will not redress regional imbalance and grievance in the way that many people, Albertans in particular, think it will. Once elected, Senators will exercise their considerable powers on the basis of the current seat allocation which sees Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with 10 seats each compared to the Western provinces with 6 each, and the Atlantic region with 30 seats compared to the other three regions with 24 each.

3. Electing Senators will cause a massive shift of power from the Prime Minister, from the House of Commons and from provincial Premiers to the Senate. As elected Senators they can (and they will) hold up legislation and budgets which will diminish the power of the House of Commons. Since there are, for example, only 6 Senators in Alberta compared to 28 MPs, they will have more prominence and the power that goes with it. When elected, Senators will more aggressively exercise their role in representing regional rights and will take the power to do that from where it resides now, with the Premiers. I often ask people to name 5 members of the US House of Representatives, 5 Governors and then 5 US Senators. For most, it is way easier to name Senators than either Governors or a Congress Person. That’s because the US Senate, elected as it is, is the most powerful institution in US government.

I now have several new considerations to add to these arguments:

1. If the government wants to elect Senators, why would they limit them to just one term of 8 years? This limitation is not the case with any other elected office in Canada. And, clearly, that is because the electorate can limit a representative to however many terms they choose. Democracy would dictate deferring to the electorate. Or, is the government going to propose limiting the terms of MPs? Moreover, it is said that this reform is necessary to enhance accountability. But how is anyone accountable if they never get to run again and answer to the electorate?

2. There is no evidence that there will be real integrity in the electoral process. Clearly, many, if not all provinces, will have nothing to do with it. If they do, there is no evidence of any rigorous effort to ensure consistency in how elections are run. It was striking that Alberta, the only province to ever hold an election, decided not to hold the one scheduled for 2010. Why? It would seem that the provincial government is afraid that a Senate election would be won by the popular new party, the Alberta Wildrose Party.

3. It is not clear that there is an actual obligation for the Prime Minister to appoint the winner of a Senate election. For example, if the seats were tied 52 Conservatives to 52 Liberals, but the winner were a Liberal, would a Conservative Prime Minister hand a Senate majority to the opposition? And vice versa?

4. What about election financing? A candidate for MP can spend in the order of $80,000 for an election. There seems to be no limits placed on Senate election financing. Imagine this example. In Alberta there are 28 MP ridings. Since each Senator would represent the whole province, would they be allowed to spend 28 times the normal limit for one MP riding? That would suggest a limit of almost $1,800,000. If that is the case, will that not skew elections to those elites who have access to networks with money? Or, given the size of Senate constituencies (which in most cases is an entire Province), will the limit of $1,100 per donor be reasonable to allow them to raise enough to mount a reasonable campaign. Why has the government not considered/announced financing rules?

5. There is also a potential disadvantage against rural candidates and issues in favour of urban ones. For example, who will have the better chance based on name recognition alone, a former mayor of a big city or the former mayor of a small town? Where will the campaigning likely focus? Probably in populations centers where people can be most easily reached and this will tend to elevate urban issues.

I believe that there is room for reform. It has to be properly thought out however and should of necessity involve direct discussions with the provinces. In the meantime, there are some reforms that are easy and will open the Senate up to public scrutiny and greater accountability. I am speaking of bringing the digital age to the Senate.

1. All sessions of the Senate should be webcast live, if not televised. Committee meetings are televised now although not at particularly enviable times. Webcasting would mean that anyone could see sessions live. This does not have to be very costly, but would allow Canadians to see what the Senate does, and to provide their comments and advice on that.

2. All video records of the Senate could then be archived and made “searchable” so Canadians could see them later and use them for research. Whether people want to believe it or not, there is tremendous work done by Senators who have lifetimes of expertise and experience.

3. Specialized, issue based web sites can be set up (this is just starting) to not just inform the public about given issues, but to seek their input on it. The Senate Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources is setting up such a web site on the Canadian Energy Strategy study that they are doing.

In the most recent session of the Senate, Bill S-8 was debated and ultimately passed. This bill laid out rules for dealing with matrimonial property in the event of marital break-up or the death of one or both partners in a relationship.

The issue is complicated because of several features of aboriginal culture and community structure:

1. The land in question is aboriginal land which in almost all cases is communally owned. That means that while someone can build a house on it, they cannot own that land. So, when a relationship breaks up, what is there to transfer?

2. It is particularly problematic if one of the spouses, particularly the woman, is non-aboriginal and therefore can establish no claim to stay on aboriginal land without living with an aboriginal partner.

3. In some cases, there are no rules governing how long an estranged spouse can live in the matrimonial property and who should leave the property.

The bill, now a law, calls for:

1. A “temporary” matrimonial property regime imposed by the government on aboriginal lands including specified periods of time that a spouse can remain in a home if they are not aboriginal.

2. Then, aboriginal reserves are to develop their own matrimonial property structures.

3. There will be a “center of excellence” established to assist aboriginal groups to develop rules.

4. Once they have a proposal, that proposal will have to be approved by a government appointed official and subjected to a community referendum in which at least 25% of the electorate vote.

When the debate started, I was quite convinced that something had to be done to deal with the problems that gaps in matrimonial property rules have caused in many places for a long time. I am, as are most, very concerned that aboriginal women have been disadvantaged by the gap in matrimonial property rules on most first nations land. I was hopeful that this bill would address them in an effective way.

However, as I listened to witnesses before the Senate Human Rights Committee, I became more and more convinced that the bill was flawed:

1. All aboriginal groups but one opposed the bill. The one support group is considered the representative of urban aboriginals who are subject to provincial laws because they do not live on aboriginal lands.

2. It was claimed that this law will reduce violence against women. It is not clear that the new law will do anything to support that objective. It deals with what happens to the house and property after the breakdown of a relationship.

3. While the law calls for aboriginal groups to set out a proposal for their own matrimonial property laws, there is no funding to support developing these rules. There was no budget figure presented for the “center of excellence” which would not in any event meet the need for resources required to make rules by each first nation.

4. However, the most compelling revelation for me was the opportunity to observe the difference in some fundamental cultural values. Over and over again, the point was made that this law imposes the broader Canadian concept of individual rights on the aboriginal concept of collective rights. If we have learned anything in situations like these, it is that it simply does not work to impose profoundly differing views of the world in such a condescending way, no matter how well intended the effort may be. Compounding the condescending attitude inherent in this bill, are the provisions for having a government appointee approve whatever rules package an aboriginal group might develop (reminiscent of the Indian Agent system), requiring a vote on the proposal (what other jurisdiction in Canada is required to do that?), and failing to provide resources to the aboriginal groups to develop their own system.

In the end, I just could not accept that this bill, now law, would do what it was designed to do and I had great difficulty with the fact that it does not recognize and honour the difference in rights views that are so critical to the aboriginal way of life and culture. We will not solve any problems if we do not understand the critical impact of cultural differences and respect them.

The recent BP offshore drilling disaster has raised the proverbial red flag on Canadian offshore drilling operations. It has raised the question as to whether our offshore drilling policies, procedures, regulatory regime and technologies are sufficiently better than those in the US. Are the risks of a similar disaster in Canadian waters really less than they are in the US?

I should say at the outset, that the Chair of the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources , Conservative Senator David Angus, brought the idea of studying the offshore drilling issue to me, as Deputy Chair of the Committee, shortly after the BP problem began. Our committee has been involved in a lengthy and in-depth study of the need for an energy strategy in Canada, considering supply and demand questions, security and the impact of climate change. He suggested that we detour, if only slightly, to give a timely look at the offshore drilling situation in Canada.

Senate committees are noted for the excellent work they do, largely in a spirit of non-partisanship. Our committee heard from many witnesses, from industry, government, and environmental groups over about a 4 week period.

One observation that raises the stakes on this issue is that 13% of Canada’s conventional production comes from offshore sites. A concern noted by Senator Angus was that polls were saying that the majority of Canadians want drilling offshore stopped.

On the one hand, there were some reassuring things. Notably, right now, there is only one discovery (as opposed to production) drilling operation in Canada’s waters. It is located far off the coast of Newfoundland. There are none in the north right now. Moreover, I got the impression that the NEB (the National Energy Board) which has a role in the regulation of this drilling has a history of great experience and competence. We have had in Canada a culture of rigorous regulation unlike what some are suggesting may have been the case in the US.

There is no doubt that the companies we heard from care greatly about doing this work properly and have a high degree of professionalism and competence. They are aware of the risks and take great precautions. We learned that the ships that are used for some offshore drilling have three sets of emergency shut-off technologies. That is the case with the one well being drilled offshore in Canada at this time.

Reassuring in a perverse way also is that Canadians now have the chance to study the BP case and see where our approaches have been better and where we might have to improve.

On the other hand, there are questions that have to be answered before Canadians can be reassured that the procedures, policies, regulatory regime and/or technologies are sufficiently different between Canada and the US that we can have some comfort that what happened there will not happen here or, if it does, we can cap the problem quickly. One major issue is the differences incumbent to drilling in the north where very cold water and ice cover makes for problems not encountered in the Gulf case. Another issue is whether there is a clear chain of command amongst the NEB, the two provincial offshore drilling regulatory boards and industry should a worst case scenario happen. This appeared to be a problem with the Gulf case.

We got many sincere answers from witnesses. And, many of these answers were from industry participants. But, in the face of their reassurances that we have nothing to worry about, really, Senator Tommy Banks kept saying: “Yes, but BP probably was saying the same things right up until the blowout.” The real issues are whether we are really different in critical ways. There will always be some risk but how do we assess what risk we are prepared to take?

This summer, the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources will be releasing its report on the state of offshore drilling in Canada.

I am honored to be the Senate sponsor of Bill C-311 which is designed to compel climate change action from the government. The bill passed several months ago in the House of Commons and has come to the Senate and begun the second stage of the legislative process. Bruce Hyer, an NDP MP from Ontario who sponsored the bill in the House, asked me to sponsor the legislation. I am very concerned about the inaction of the government on climate change and jumped at the chance to be the bill’s sponsor.

Bruce has done a great job in managing C-311 through the House and in building support for it across the country. He received the support of the Liberals and the Bloc to pass it through the House and onto the Senate. The Liberals also presented a motion demanding action by the government.

I wanted to provide some information about the bill in the hope that it might clear up some of the misinformation about its scope and potential economic impact.

The bill calls for the government to establish successive 5 year emission reductions plans. The plans have to build to a mandatory objective of 80% reduction of 1990 levels by 2050. The bill also mentions a non-binding objective of 25% reduction by 2020 of 1990 emission levels. The target plans will be reviewed by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) for the likelihood that they will meet Canada’s emission reduction goals. The bill also requires that the Minister of the Environment to report annually on Canada’s progress in meeting the target plans, and for the NRTEE to publically review the report. Furthermore, the Commissioner of the Environment must also review Canada’s progress every two years.

There is a great urgency to deal with climate change. If there are economic disadvantages in climate action, they will pale by comparison to the consequences of doing nothing or too little. There is much more economic opportunity in climate change action, however, than there is economic risk. The world understands that climate change is occurring and we need to keep up to the economic opportunities that this is creating, avoid the international reputational costs in not keeping up, and fulfill our obligation to future generations.

Here are my arguments about why this bill needs to be passed:

1.  Opponents say the objectives in the bill are too aggressive and would cause economic damage. This is simply not true. The bill states that in making its plans the government is not bound by the 2020 objective at all. It can establish whatever 2020 objective it would like.  

2.  In any event, the long term objective reflects the emission cuts that are necessary to limit the planet’s temperature increase to 2 degrees, which the Prime Minister has endorsed in the Copenhagen Accord.

3.  While the bill calls for review and monitoring of the plans and progress by the Commissioner of the Environment and the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, these organizations are already doing this.

4.  In conclusion, this is not an unreasonable bill at all. It is a bill that would cause the government to focus on this important issue and make some real progress. (Ironically, the government could actually support this bill to great political advantage and end up not being pushed to do much more than it already says it is prepared to do).

The bill is now stalled in the Senate. I spoke to the bill at second reading on June 1, 2010, shortly after we had received it. Senator Banks spoke shortly after as we waited for the Conservative “critic” to speak. The tradition is that at least one member from each party in the Senate, and certainly the critic, speak to each bill before it goes to a committee for further study. Should they have wanted to, the government side in the Senate could have spoken at any time to further debate. For now, the bill is in limbo until the government speaks on it.

Or, to put it another way, how did a Liberal minority on the Finance Committee manage to defeat 4 parts of a government bill?

The Senate Finance Committee has spent several weeks reviewing the government’s budget implementation bill, Bill C-9. All bills that come from the House of Commons have to pass through three readings and committee stage in the Senate. Many senators were very concerned that the bill had serious flaws that required examination. The committee heard from over 100 witnesses and deliberated for over 60 hours. While I am not a regular member of this committee, I have been in the past and I sat on it as a replacement for one of our members for the last two weeks.

Liberal senators felt that the basic problem with the bill is that it is a flagrant abuse of parliamentary process. An omnibus bill at 900 pages, 2200 clauses, and 24 parts, it is longer by far than any budget bill ever before. It contains, moreover, many provisions that have nothing to do with the budget. The contention is that the government has used this bill as a “Trojan horse” for getting through legislation it would be unable to pass in a minority parliament without the “hammer” of non-confidence if defeated.

Budget bills are required to implement those features of a budget that require some form of legislative change to authorize their implementation, but they should be short and limited to budget matters. (Budget implementation bills should not be confused with the many kinds of “supply” bills that authorize the actual money to be spent as a result of a budget.)

In addition to our concern that this bill is an abuse of process, we also found some serious substantive weaknesses in it, including:

1. The bill redefines certain financial services as being eligible for GST and then makes that tax retroactive 20 years.

2. It seriously weakens the environmental impact assessment process by allowing the minister to greatly diminish the scope of assessments. When I asked the minister if he would assure us that he would ensure that climate change implications of major projects would be reviewed, he would not make that commitment.

3. The government has carte blanche to sell the Atomic Energy Commission of Canada without any review or any evident conditions. About the time that nuclear energy is becoming increasingly important in the world due to climate change fears, this government is getting us out of it without a clear vision of what is to come.

4. The bill confirms private sector involvement in international mail services which is seen by some as eroding the market monopoly of Canada Post.

Each of these concerns represents a provision that has no reason for being in a budget implementation bill.

So, the particularly significant feature of this process was that we were able to overturn those four sections even though we did not have a majority. Here is how it happened. In fact, on the committee of 12 members, the Conservatives have 7 places and we have 5. Senator Lowell Murray is a Progressive Conservative who is widely respected and the Conservatives had selected him for one of their spaces. He then decided to vote with us because he shared our concern with the nature of this omnibus bill and with some of our substantive concerns.

So, when these four sections were called for vote, the votes were a 6/6 tie. And, under Senate rules, a tie reverts to the status quo and so the sections were defeated.  One amendment advanced by Senator Murray was defeated in the same way, on the same tie.  The rest of the bill passed “on division” meaning there was opposition but not with the intention of defeating the bill.

C-9 is now back in the Senate for third reading. We’ll soon find out whether these amendments will pass in the Chamber, which would send the bill back to the House of Commons for their approval.

Honourable senators, after pretty much gutting the government's support of renewable energy projects in the last budget, the government has now turned around and is putting $240,000 into polling Canadians on how they feel about renewable energy. It is the quintessential putting the cart before the horse.

Can the Leader of the Government in the Senate tell us why it is that, on the one hand, the government is gutting support to the non-renewable energy industry while, on the other hand, it is polling people to find out how they feel about the non-renewable energy industry?

Please click here to read the full text of my question

Recently I met with representatives from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.  They brought "Mr. Stinky," which is a specimen of a 9,000 year-old glass sponge reefs with them to Ottawa from British Columbia. “Mr Stinky” is from the spectacular reefs off the coast of British Columbia, some living 250 metres deep, that cover up to 1,000 square kilometres as far north as Hecate Strait and as far south as B.C.'s Sunshine Coast and the Strait of Georgia, including off Galiano Island.

These representatives were in Ottawa to celebrate Oceans Day and to help bring awareness to this important reef to Parliamentarians.

Check out this brochure to learn more about this fascinating reef.