In this Issue
Business Highlights
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The adjournment of the Senate on June 19 put an end to a very busy spring for the Upper House and its Committees. Between the beginning of April and the summer adjournment, several Senate Committees presented or tabled numerous reports.
From the health of the Canadian and international financial systems, through Canada-US and
Canada-Mexico trade relations,
to proposed solutions for the dwindling fish stocks in the North Atlantic, the range of subjects studied by Senate committees is vast and varied. Since Canadians do not follow the activity of the Senate on a daily basis, they do not always catch the echoes of its productive discussions and prudent recommendations.
One recent report was an exception to this rule, attracting a striking amount of attention in the media and a great many letters to the editor from readers with opinions on the subject. The bill dealing with cruelty to animals, which the Senate and the House of Commons continue to send back and forth to each other, seems to have hit a nerve.
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official portrait of the 44th Speaker of the Senate, the Honourable
Gildas Molgat, was unveiled on April 29. Senator Molgat, who
died in January of 2001, served as Speaker from 1994 to 2000. His
widow, Allison, and his daughter, Anne Marie, attended the ceremony,
which was hosted by the current Speaker, the Honourable Dan Hays.
Many Senators and MPs of all political stripes were present to hear
highlights of the many achievements of this much admired and learned
man, who was a soldier, businessman, diplomat and politician. The
portrait is the work of Manitoba artist Mary Valentine; visitors can
admire it and a series of other portraits of former Speakers in the
corridor adjacent to the Senate Chamber. |
Some people have wrongly accused Senators of blocking long-needed changes in outdated legislation that no longer reflects current values. On the contrary: there is obviously quite a broad consensus in both houses on the need for a law against cruelty to animals. The amendments suggested by the Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and endorsed by the whole Senate, are designed to protect traditional Aboriginal hunting and fishing practices and reasonable and generally accepted livestock raising and management practices.
In the debates around passage of this bill, the Senate has unequivocally demonstrated what it does best: focussing its full attention on the careful consideration of issues, enabling improvements to proposed legislation for greater benefit of all Canadians. The complete account of the Committee’s proceedings can be found at www.parl.gc.ca under “Committee Business.”
Senator's Forum
Senators’s Forum The Honourable Serge Joyal, P.C.* (LIB, Quebec, Senatorial division of Kennebec)
No one who knows anything about the Senate is indifferent to it. More often than not, however, those who criticize or want to reform the Senate have never set foot inside the Chamber, read its reports, or familiarized themselves with its work.
In fact, few Canadians know very much about the Senate and until now they did not really have a convenient means to learn about it as an integral part of our national Parliament.
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This is what personally motivated me, along with a group of renowned Canadian academics from across the country and two experienced colleagues from the Senate, to undertake a study on the history, role and functions of the Senate in our parliamentary system.
All of us wanted to present a perspective on the true nature of the Senate and to fill the clear need for objective and publicly accessible information about it. The Parliament of Canada is the only bicameral legislature in this country. Within our constitutional framework, each House has a specific role in examining bills, reviewing the budget and studying policies of public interest.
As the role of Parliament grew and became more complex, so too did the relationship between the House of Commons and the Senate, the chamber of sober second thought. Fundamentally, however, the appointed Senate has always played an important role as a complementary counterbalance to the elected House of Commons.
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| Following
the May 27 launch of Protecting
Canadian Democracy: The Senate You Never Knew, a book he edited,
Senator Serge Joyal autographs copies for Senators Raymond C.
Setlakwe and Gerard A. Phalen, Bernard Patry, MP. and Senator Douglas
Roche. |
Historically, the Senate was also intended to ensure regional balance and the protection of minority interests. The responsibility for defending minority rights has taken on greater meaning since the incorporation into our Constitution of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. The Senate has assumed a responsibility in guaranteeing these rights and freedoms and counterbalancing the influence of majorities.
Through a collection of essays, this book defines the institutional principles that underpin the Senate and its particular role as the complementary chamber to the House of Commons. We have also addressed the question of reform. Several proposals are put forward to improve the Senate, to make it better and more credible to the public, without requiring a constitutional amendment.
The end result is an understanding and appreciation of the real Senate.
* Sen. Joyal directed the research and edited
Protecting Canadian Democracy: the Senate You Never Knew, published in May 2003.
By the Honourable Lowell Murray, P.C.* (PC, Ontario, Senatorial Division of Pakenham)
The Senate provides some check on the power of Cabinet and its Commons’ majority without challenging or offending today’s democratic culture. Contrary to the working assumption of many of our critics, journalistic and otherwise, repeated studies have shown that the Senate’s work is cost effective. Its abolition would only increase the already excessive control of our governmental institutions by the Cabinet and bureaucracy.
“Triple-E” advocates, who believe that elected senators from their regions would be impervious to the call of party loyalty and could be counted on to support the perceived regional perspective instead, are not thinking realistically. It would be quite risky to proceed to an elected Senate without, at the same time, negotiating at least its powers in relation to those of the Commons, and its regional distribution of seats.
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Tightening our attendance rules, creating an ethics committee and other such improvements will not assuage those who hold a principled objection to the Senate as presently constituted. For them, the Senate’s definitive, existential flaw, that it is a non-elected legislative chamber, nullifies its virtues.
In my opinion, none of the alternatives proposed by the opponents to the system of prime-ministerial appointments would be an improvement. In fact, the patronage prerogative lets the Prime Minister compensate somewhat for imbalances of gender and race in the elected House.
I believe the Senate should consider making a number of areas of national importance its areas of continuing study. The institutional memory and continuity of the Senate would be used to good advantage in this way. The federal public service, the armed forces and
RCMP, the legal and judicial system, public broadcasting, and the National Capital Region need more serious and continuous attention than they are now getting.
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| Senator
Lowell Murray, also a contributing author to the newly released book
on the Senate, signs the copy belonging to Serge Pelletier, Exec.
Secretary of the Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and
of the Canada-France Inter-Parliamentary Association. |
* Sen. Murray is one of the authors who contributed to
Protecting Canadian Democracy: The Senate You Never Knew.
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