Posted by 27 July 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
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.
Posted by 20 July 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
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.
Posted by 12 July 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
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.
Posted by 22 June 2010 by Senator Dennis Dawson
The Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communication, which
I am honoured to Chair, has just published its latest report entitled, Plan for a Digital Canada.ca.
The Committee and I are very proud of the work that was accomplished
through this report. It sheds light on such subjects as Canada’s fall
from grace as a leader in wireless and Internet technology. The report
also includes a number of Committee recommendations to help Canada be a
frontrunner in these fields once again.
I invite you to visit the report’s Website for more information:
www.planforadigitalcanada.ca
Posted by 3 June 2010 by Senator James Cowan
Yesterday, an article in La Presse quoted the Prime Minister’s spokesperson accusing the Senate of not having passed any bills since the beginning of this session, including the budget bill. This is clearly incorrect as the budget bill is not yet before us, having not passed the House of Commons, and we have passed six bills this session.
I have written this morning to the Prime Minister, with a copy to Senator LeBreton, asking him to correct the record. I attach a copy of my letter.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A4
June 3, 2010
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I am writing to correct certain misrepresentations of fact made by your spokesperson, Mr. Dimitri Soudas, in an interview with La Presse, as reported on June 2.
I have never previously written to you about misstatements by your spokespersons. I have always assumed that you are busy with serious matters of state, and that you, as do I, would wish matters involving political staff to be handled directly by them.
However, your new policy of refusing to allow staff to be responsible for their actions before Parliament has apparently emboldened your spokesperson to misrepresent with impunity certain facts about Parliament. Since your new policy states that it is the Minister to whom the staff member reports who is to be held responsible, I feel I have no choice but to write to you to correct the misrepresentations.
In the La Presse article, Mr. Soudas sought to justify the expected rapid appointment of a replacement for retiring Senator Michael Pitfield. He said: "Nous sommes minoritaires au Sénat et depuis que le Parlement est revenu, il n'y a pas un seul projet de loi, incluant le budget, qui a été adopté pour devenir loi par le Sénat."
Prime Minister, it is disappointing that you would try to justify your decision to appoint another Conservative senator by so misrepresenting facts about the current Senate. First of all, as you are well aware, Bill C-9, the budget bill, has not yet passed the House of Commons. It has not yet arrived in the Senate. I am at a loss to understand how the Senate could have passed the budget bill, while it was still being debated in the House of Commons. Furthermore, you are undoubtedly aware that our offer to pre-study the bill was rejected by Senator Gerstein, the Vice-Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance.
Contrary to Mr. Soudas’ statement, the Senate has passed six bills this Session.They are:
- Bill S-2, the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act;
- Bill S-3, the Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2010;
- Bill C-6, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2010;
- Bill C-7, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2011;
- Bill S-210, an Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act and the Auditor General Act (involvement of Parliament);
- Bill S-215, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (suicide bombings);
I am surprised to learn that your spokesperson, and therefore, under your new policy, you as well, dismiss all of these bills as so insignificant that their passage by the Senate did not merit your notice.
Prime Minister, I realize that you have an agenda to promote reform of the Senate. I respect any serious desire to improve governance in Canada, including reforms of the Senate. However, Canadians expect their democratic institutions to be accorded respect, particularly from the Prime Minister of their country. It is unbecoming the office of Prime Minister to blatantly misrepresent the work of Parliament, particularly when those misrepresentations are so clearly motivated by nothing more than callous political advantage.
I was disappointed a few months ago to see the Minister of Justice engage in similar conduct, and on February 4, I wrote to him, a copy of which was provided to you, to set the record straight. I said, “As our country’s Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada, your first allegiance must always be to the truth, far beyond any political or partisan gamesmanship. Our system of justice depends upon it.” The Prime Minister’s duty to the truth is no less.
I look forward to receiving a correction for the record.
Yours very truly,
James S. Cowan
Cc: The Honourable Marjory LeBreton, Leader of the Government in the Senate
*For the purposes of this distribution, the English translation of Mr. Soudas’ quotation is as follows:
"We have a minority in the Senate, and since Parliament has resumed, not a single bill, including the budget bill, has been passed into law by the Senate."
Posted by 7 May 2010 by Senator James Cowan
On March 30, Conservative Senator Doug Finley, the National Campaign Director for the Conservative Party of Canada, launched a debate in the Senate on the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada.
In view of how secretive this government has become, it was a surprising initiative.
Click here to read my contribution to that debate, from May 4, 2010. I would welcome any comments you may have on this important issue.
Posted by 5 May 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
Recently, Senator Sharon Carstairs invited me to speak on human rights and the environment at a conference she was hosting. This was a panel discussion that included Senator Carstairs speaking about the tremendous work she is doing as Chair of an international group that works to protect politicians around the world who are being persecuted in their countries. The other participant was Senator Mobina Jaffer who is a world renowned human rights advocate and who spoke on women’s rights.
I was very flattered to speak alongside these Senators who are internationally known for their work on human rights. On the other hand, I am not an expert in this area by any measure and I had never really thought about the link between human rights and the environment or climate change, my particular focus these days. But, when Senator Carstairs asked me to consider speaking on the link between human rights and the environment, I wondered why I hadn’t connected the two before.
Well, it seems that few people have actually thought about, or at least written about, this topic, certainly as it involves climate change. Academics seem to be in a protracted debate about whether a human rights obligation can exist with someone yet to be born. They would argue that human rights involve reciprocity and you cannot have reciprocal relationships with people who do not exist yet. We have looked at climate change from the natural sciences perspective, and from an economic perspective, but the progression of the issue through academic silos seems to have stopped there.
There seems to be an obvious case to be made, however, for the human rights implications of climate change. Think about the impact of the following on our health and access to food and water: drought, erosion, changing rain patterns, glacial melt, water shortages, rising seas (due to increased temperatures causing the water to expand), violent storms, and heat. These impacts could be exacerbated by mass migration due to climate change and climate change wars.
But correlation is often not enough to compel action. Climate change could be “chalked up” simply to “erratic” weather causing the problems. And, in order to qualify as a rights issue, two causal/obligation links must be established: there has to be an obligation between generations even if it involves people not yet alive. And human activity has to be causing climate change in order for a case to be made that rights are being violated.
I think it is problematic that we cannot establish intergenerational reciprocity. If academic thought on this issue cannot keep up in a changing world, it needs to change itself. Second, many of the people whose human rights are being violated by climate change are alive today. Senator Tom Banks put the obligation this way. The climate change obligation to future generations is like a person having a $50,000 debt imposed upon them, even though it was incurred by their grandparents, and then losing their home when they cannot pay it. It seems straightforward.
The second link that has to be established is that humans are causing climate change. Admittedly, very few people now say climate change is not occurring (is this progress?). Instead they say it is occurring but we are not causing it. My answer to that is that if we are not causing it, then we are in real trouble. Because if we are not causing it, there is no chance of fixing it...unless they think that we can tinker with the sunspots to get the warming to stop at whatever precise temperature will be liveable. Their comeback is that it is normal cycles that have gone on for millions of years. But, of course, they do not seem to consider that the world has been uninhabitable for most of these millions of years and, if these cycles are the cause, then it is highly likely that they will not stop at some convenient temperature.
However, all the science tells us that natural cycles do have an effect on climate, but they do not account for a significant amount of the change we are observing. The proponents of naturally occurring climate change fail to gather sufficient evidence to support it, and then cast doubt on a solid scientific consensus. Their most famous effort involved the stolen, ten year old emails in East Anglia taken out of context. Interestingly, the Guardian and Associated Press have investigated and exonerated the scientists involved. When we have the kind of certainty about climate change that the deniers want, it will be too late. In any event, the cases that the deniers promote as evidence of faulty climate change science represent a minuscule portion of the total science. As I like to say to the deniers, if you were to find one sentence in one edition of the National Post to be incorrect would they say every issue of the National Post was without credibility?
I simply believe that it is irrefutable that climate change is occurring and that human activity is causing it. To deny this evidence is to deny gravity. And, if there is human responsibility for climate change that causes profound violation of those elements that comprise a standard list of human rights, then there is a case that in fact climate change involves human rights.
There are some advantages to the debate on climate change in invoking the human rights argument. First, the standard climate change case has been made largely within the context of the impact on states and economies. The human rights lens brings in the overdue element of the impact on people, individuals and communities and the suffering they are experiencing and will continue to experience. This may help to humanize and personalize the argument that climate change is profoundly serious. Secondly, it raises the idea of a right to information. This in turn suggests that it is the responsibility of government to clarify the confusion that many people feel about climate change science. This would give government greater political leeway to do what has to be done. Finally, human rights experience establishes a great deal of precedent for the case that we in one country often have an obligation to people in other countries.
In the end, I know that the key element is that humans are causing climate change with the prospect of catastrophic effects, and we have an obligation to our fellow earthbound inhabitants to take care of us all.
Posted by 3 May 2010 by Senator Art Eggleton
Recently, I tabled a bill in the Senate that would amend the bankruptcy process to better protect employees on long-term disability (LTD) by granting them preferred status during bankruptcy proceedings.
Approximately one million employees in Canada have LTD benefits that are self-insured by their employers, and many of these plans are underfunded. If their company goes bankrupt, LTD employees are currently ranked as unsecured creditors and could be left holding an empty bag of benefits.
If they are disabled, and cannot work they should not be shunted aside. Their needs are not over when their company goes under. They still have to pay for their medication. They still need rehabilitation. They still need treatment. All the things that long-term disability plans provide.
By bringing LTD claimants to preferred status, employees will be more likely to get their benefit coverage up to age 65, be able to pay their medical bills and continue to live outside of poverty. And it will reaffirm the premise that people who paid their dues and played by the rules will receive what was promised them.
Nowhere is this problem more starkly illustrated than in the case of the bankruptcy of Nortel. As the company does through bankruptcy, over 400 Nortel employees on long-term disability will lose their benefits forcing many onto social assistance.
Josee Marin, a former lab technologist at Nortel, and single mother, suffers from Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition, and scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disorder. She has been on long-term disability since 2002 and doesn’t want to become a burden to taxpayers, or on her family. She just wants to be able to live the remaining years of her life in dignity. Or as she so starkly stated “I want to die in the comfort of my home not in my car or on the street.”
To help Josee and the 400 other Nortel workers this bill needs to be passed quickly. I hope that all parties will come together and do what is right and just.
By doing so some of our most vulnerable citizens will be protected and we will bring a greater degree of fairness to the bankruptcy process now and in the future.
Posted by 8 April 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
The government of BC has established that its public sector will be carbon neutral this year. To do this they will need to use carbon offsets. They have set up a crown corporation to work with the private sector to generate enough offsets to meet their zero footprint needs, which is about 1,000,000 per year.
By the way, there is a difference between a carbon credit and a carbon offset. If an emitter is under a cap and trade system and it gets its emissions below its cap (imposed on it by the government) then it can sell the amount of “extra” emission reductions to a company that could not get down to its cap. This is called a credit. If a company, however , is not subject to the cap system, let’s say because it is a wind power generator, then the company that fails to make its cap can buy a emission reductions offset created by this wind power company. So, the two are pretty much the same thing; the difference is a matter of whether the entity producing the carbon reduction is in or out of the cap system. It is possible to have a carbon market without a cap system. Then, it would be a voluntary market and everything in it would be an offset.
Carbon allocations are how carbon credits are created. When a cap and trade system starts, the authorities issue or allocations to each now regulated emitter to allow them to continue to emit to a determined level. They can issue them for free or auction them. Then each subsequent year they reduce the number of allocation that each regulated emitter will keep, thereby ratcheting down emissions. They are tradable like carbon credits.
There are several important reasons for carbon markets.
Credits and offsets mean that companies and others can buy the cheapest carbon reductions. Why should they spend more money than necessary when others might have cheaper ways to reduce carbon emissions? Companies (like all of us) hire others to do work that we do not do as well. Carbon offsets and credits can be viewed as just another service or good.
Carbon markets also allow a market to set the price for carbon rather than an arbitrary bureaucratic process.
Now, the sceptics have tried to discredit offsets with all kinds of weak arguments. I would like to answer them here and add several arguments for why carbon markets are fundamentally a good idea:
Sceptics’ Argument: Credits are an excuse for big companies to avoid reducing their pollution.
If companies can reduce more carbon emissions by paying someone else to do it than they can by reducing their own emissions, then why would we not want to get more reductions for the same amount of money? And, at the same time allow emitters a period of transition until cheap credits and offsets are used up which will increase demand, raise prices and make reductions of their own emissions more compelling.
Sceptics’ Argument (this is a variation of the first one): The rich will use credits and offsets to buy their way out of changing their lifestyle to reduce their emissions.
The rich generally pay higher taxes than most and therefore pay disproportionately for all kinds of things for society.
Sceptics’ Argument: Credits/offsets markets will be scammed by unscrupulous dealers.
The industrialized world has been trading stocks and bond for decades. Many North American investors invest in stocks on European and Asian markets without concern for the integrity of the markets. We invest in the stocks of say, banks, here in Canada everyday in great numbers and it would be to say the least very difficult for most investors to really understand how a bank works. So, how do we do all of this? We have faith in these markets and in the system of developing and verifying stocks (and bonds) because there is a great infrastructure that verifies the integrity of stocks and in turn the markets they trade on. This structure involves market regulations, information transparency, and generally accepted accounting principles. There are already international agencies that verify carbon credits. And there are functioning markets. In BC, the government has set up its own group to verify carbon credits and to help develop them. This can be done effectively.
Sceptics’ Argument: The European experience with a carbon market has not worked because too many carbon allocations were given away n the first place.
If we expect every initiative in dealing with climate change to be perfect right out of the gate, then we would never get going. We hardly expect every other government initiative or business initiative to work perfectly immediately. We would never have had oil sands oil if the process of extracting it had to be economic right away. It took years for it to be economic. It took some time for Europe to get it right but we can now benefit from that experience.
Posted by 6 April 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
I spent three days last week attending the Globe 2010 Conference in Vancouver. This is a conference held once every two years in Vancouver to focus on the business opportunities and issues arising from environmental issues and constraints. Needless to say the overwhelming focus this time was on business and climate change.
For anyone who firmly accepts the science of climate change, which is truly irrefutable, there was much to be inspired and encouraged by.
There was no debate amongst panellists, including very senior leaders in very big companies, about the science of climate change. They accept it, know that most of the governments of the world accept it, and know that they have to do something about their contributions to it. Not addressing it will have huge implications for their markets.
Business is already doing a great deal without any federal leadership. There was a trade fair floor filled with realized and commercial ideas for controlling GHG’s. There were electric cars, one made in Canada (BC), water purification systems, and any number of practical everyday products that have a low carbon footprint.
It was so evident that British Columbia is way ahead of the curve in reducing their carbon footprint and in leveraging green technology to create economic growth in that province. I had a chance to chat with Premier Campbell and congratulated him on tremendous accomplishments. He has declared that the BC government will have a zero carbon footprint this year. That will take offsets and credits. To this end Mr. Campbell has set up a crown corporation to work with the private sector to generate credits and offsets. This means that there will be real reductions in GHGs and businesses and farmers will make money. BC Hydro has recently finished creating a smart grid for its electricity system and has a state of the art control system to manage it and make it hyper efficient. Vancouver has declared the objective of being the greenest city in the world and they have the policies to back it up.
I should also mention that Senator Richard Neufeld, a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment, was the Minister of Energy and Mines in BC for eight years and was instrumental in the great progress that BC has had in its climate change initiative.
While all of this is encouraging, the problem is that it is not enough. One business leader even said that we have time on our side. This contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change. We are at a critical climate tipping point and we have to meet this challenge head on and urgently. Many business leaders are demanding federal leadership so that they can proceed in a circumstance of some certainty. There is so much economic opportunity if we can develop the kinds of technologies that the rest of the world will be demanding to meet the climate change challenges. What is it that keeps this government from acting decisively?
Posted by 16 March 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
Senator James Cowan, Leader of the Official Opposition in the Senate, and Marlene Jennings, an MP in the Liberal Caucus, recently organized a roundtable on democratic reform and citizen engagement in the political process. Clearly, there is much concern with decreasing voter turnout and Senator Cowan and Ms. Jennings responded by gathering a number of experts to discuss it.
The central question for participants in the context of citizen participation was: what is the single most significant problem with our democratic institutions. I think that the answer to that lies in the inability of our institutions to foster reasoned debate on complex, difficult and pressing problems. Raise a difficult issue and you are often shut down by catch phrases or sound bites.
Take a different view of crime legislation and you are slammed with “soft on crime”. Talk about fixing climate change and you are labelled as advocating tax increases. Climate deniers can take a miniscule portion of the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change, discredit it falsely and in doing so taint in peoples’ minds the entire body of evidence. I have said that we do not need more technology to reduce GHG emissions; we need new technologies to convince people of the significance of the problem.
Most likely, the solution to this is a conscious effort on the part of participants in the great public debates to resist the temptation to use these techniques in attacking the other side.
There is a sense in the democratic reform debate that “better” rules will encourage greater citizen participation (voting). I doubt that this is really the case. There has already been a great deal of democratic reform to our institutions, like for instance free votes on private members’ bills, the election of the speaker, etc. There is no evidence of that these reforms enhance the public’s perception of Parliament.
As important as democratic reform is, I believe that part of the real reason that people are “turned-off” politics and voting may is that for so many years we have heard nothing but criticism of government and politicians. Never do we hear that government has a role to play in making our lives better and in building our country. Perhaps if the unrelenting criticism of government, often driven by ideology, was balanced with some talk of the value of government, Canadians would be more positively predisposed to participate and vote.
Posted by 10 March 2010 by Senator Grant Mitchell
During the prorogation, I had the opportunity to spend some time with junior high and high school students in schools in and around Edmonton.
At one school, a very successful Christian high school, the subject of constituency representation came up. The young man who raised it is clearly intelligent and very interested in politics. In response to something I said, he reacted with absolute surprise and said something like “You mean that a MP should not have to always do what constituents tell him (or her) to do?” Well, in fact, that is what I meant.
His reaction directly raised the dilemma inherent in representative democracy. Representative democracy means that we elect people and then let them govern on our behalf. Accountability becomes an important feature of this process since no one wants to elect someone and then let them proceed completely without some kind of restraint and guidance. So, various oversight boards can be established, like the Auditor General, to check up on what elected officials are doing. And, of course, in the Canadian case, Parliament provides checks and balances that manage what the government can do. And, frequent elections are the ultimate accountability mechanism.
The other end of the spectrum is governing by referendum where each person would get to vote on every decision. Another variation on this is expecting that elected representatives will do exactly what their constituents tell them to do.
I believe in representative democracy for these reasons:
a. One of the classic problems with direct democracy is figuring out exactly what every constituent wants is logistically very challenging. Ridings have around 100,000 constituents; representatives simply cannot communicate with everyone. And, they will receive many different thoughts and priorities from those they do hear from. Would representatives be required to poll on each issue? What would constitute a majority? These are the logistical challenges that make this type of direct democracy unworkable.
b. Moreover, there is little room in direct democracy for a representative to take positions that they believe to be right because of detailed study. These positions may not be consistent with the perspectives of constituents, in part, because constituents have not had the time or resources to study the issue with the same depth.
c. Decisions could also be skewed to regions with the biggest populations. I remember driving with a farmer while touring his farm. He made the point that representatives should only vote for the interests of their constituents. I responded with a question about him not ever wanting another paved rural road. How could urban representatives vote for rural roads? Or, what would this approach mean for the influence of central Canada which has the preponderance of representatives in the House of Commons? How could they ever vote for Western interests? The consequence would likely be what happens in the US Congress where there is continual, ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’ politics of negotiation.
d. Direct democracy can also erode accountability. In a referendum where each of us votes in a secret ballot on some initiative or other, no can be held accountable for their decision. So, if that decision proves to be a disaster, there is no one to fire for it in the next election. People demand accountability all the time and in fact one of the great drivers in institutional reform debate is the need for greater accountability. You don’t get that with direct democracy.
Posted by 26 February 2010 by Senator James Cowan
Like most Canadians, I am engrossed in the Olympics and cheering on the great athletes who are doing us so proud in Vancouver. I am also preparing for the return of Parliament on March 3rd.
We Liberals have been busy during the past few weeks, while Mr. Harper shut down Parliament to avoid more embarrassing revelations before committees of the House of Commons.
Liberal parliamentarians have organized a series of forums in Ottawa on a variety of important public policy issues. These topics have included:
- Public safety
- The medical isotope crisis
- The independence of government agencies, boards and commissions
- Aviation safety
- The Afghan detainee situation
- Veterans affairs
- White collar crime; and
- The digital economy.
On March 1st and 2nd, there will be sessions dealing with the Accountability Act and the state of parliamentary democracy in Canada.
While the Liberal Caucus has hosted these events, they have been non partisan in nature. We have heard from many experts and stakeholders and from concerned Canadians. It has been a valuable learning experience for all of us and it will better equip us as parliamentarians to deal with these important issues.
Since Parliament last met in December, Prime Minister Harper has appointed five more Conservative Senators, giving the government a plurality but not a majority in the Senate. This will undoubtedly change the dynamic in the Senate.
We are anxious to get back to work on March 3rd and to hear the government agenda as laid out in the Speech from the Throne. We will continue to be an active and constructive opposition.
As we prepare for the session, I would welcome your comments and suggestions.
James S. Cowan, Q.C.
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Posted by 17 February 2010 by Senator Mobina Jaffer
Hello and welcome to Vancouver!
I am delighted that you are visiting my home province for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
I have been a Senator for British Columbia since 2001 and am very proud to represent the people of our wonderful province, which is currently hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. I am also pleased to welcome you as a representative of the Games’ two official languages: English and French.
Welcome as well to this small discussion forum, where people can express themselves freely and share their Olympic experiences.
We have all been preparing for this international event for years and have created special strategies so that our two official languages will be highly visible.
I have worked hard to ensure that French and English will be truly well represented during the Olympic Games.
As has often been said, this is a “golden opportunity” and a major showcase for our linguistic duality, our cultural richness and our world-renowned multiculturalism.
Over the years, I have offered the various agencies and institutions involved in organizing the Games my expertise, my experience, my personal commitment and especially my participation as a Senator from the host province.
A tremendous amount of work has gone into incorporating both of our official languages into all aspects of the Games, and I have fought to ensure that
- the buildings used for the Games have signage in English and French;
- broadcasts and the media place great importance on the French language;
- signs for roadways and public transit are in both official languages at least;
- high-quality translation services are evident everywhere.
These are only some of the projects we have brought to a successful conclusion.
Now it is your turn to think about your visit to British Columbia and share your opinions and experiences with me (and us), whether you attended the opening of the Games, the sporting events themselves, the medal award ceremonies or the closing of this magnificent Canadian event.
Please write to me about your experiences and share your impressions of the presence of English and French. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Mobina S.B. Jaffer
Posted by 9 February 2010 by Senator James Cowan
Please find below a letter that I have sent to the Hon. Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice, regarding the work of the Senate as it relates to the government’s law and order legislative agenda.
February 4, 2010
The Hon. Rob Nicholson, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Justice
Room 105 EB
The House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Dear Minister Nicholson,
I am writing concerning several statements made by you on Friday, January 29 when defending Prime Minister Harper’s appointment of an additional five Conservative Senators. In the past 12 months, Prime Minister Harper has made an unprecedented 32 appointments to the Senate – the most Senate appointments made by any Canadian Prime Minister in a 12-month period since Confederation.
I was puzzled to read press reports in which you defended the latest Senate appointments as necessary to allow your Government “to move forward on [y]our tackling-crime agenda.” You accused the Liberal opposition of having “obstructed that agenda in the Senate.” According to a transcript of your press conference, you said:
"The Ignatieff Liberals have abused their majority in the Senate by obstructing law and order bills that are urgently needed and strongly supported by Canadians.”
I can only assume that you have been misinformed as to the progress of anti-crime legislation. In fact, as I am sure your Cabinet colleague, Senator Marjory LeBreton, would tell you, the overwhelming majority of your Government’s anti-crime bills had not even reached the Senate when Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose to prorogue Parliament. Indeed, an honest examination of the record compels one to acknowledge that the greatest delays to implementation of your justice agenda have resulted from your own Government’s actions – sitting on bills and not bringing them forward for debate, delaying bringing legislation into force, and ultimately, of course, proroguing Parliament. That action alone caused some 18 of your justice-related bills to die on the Order Paper.
As a Canadian Press report described, “Indeed, [Prime Minister] Harper himself has done far more to delay his own crime legislation, by proroguing Parliament and other stalling tactics, than Liberal senators have ever done.”
Your Government introduced 19 justice-related bills in the House of Commons. Of these, 14 were still in the House of Commons at prorogation. Of the five justice bills that passed the House of Commons and came to the Senate:
- two passed the Senate without amendment;
- one (the so-called Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime bill) was tabled by your Government in November in the Senate but not brought forward for further action after that;
- one was passed with four amendments and returned to the House of Commons which did not deal with it before Parliament was prorogued; and
- one was being studied in committee when Parliament was prorogued and all committee work shut down.
There were a further two justice bills that your Government chose to initiate in the Senate. One was passed by the Senate after 14 days, sent to the House of Commons, passed and given Royal Assent. The other was tabled in the Senate on April 1, but has not been brought forward by your Government for any further action since then.
In terms of the status of the 14 law-and-order bills in the House of Commons, that had not yet reached the Senate when Parliament was prorogued:
- Four of these bills have been sitting in the House of Commons at first reading, three in that state since October, and one since November – your Government chose not to bring any of these bills forward for second reading debate.
- Another bill, Bill C-19, was tabled in the House of Commons by your Government in March, 2009, brought forward for two days of second reading debate in June, and not brought forward for any further action since then.
- Similarly, Bill C-35 was tabled in June, brought forward for one day of second reading debate in October, and no further action taken since then.
- Seven justice-related bills were being studied in Committee in the House of Commons as of prorogation. That work, of course, was required to stop immediately upon prorogation.
- One bill – Bill C-34, the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders bill – got as far as to be reported back from the House of Commons Committee on December 7, before dying on the Order Paper with the Government’s prorogation of Parliament.
I fail to understand how this factual record could lead you to say, as you did in your press conference that, “the record also shows that the Liberals are soft on crime” or that the Liberals in the Senate “obstructed” law and order bills. In fact, as I am sure you will now recognize, it is your Government that has failed to move forward a number of your own anti-crime bills. And, of course, by choosing to prorogue Parliament, Prime Minister Harper chose to let 18 of his Government’s 21 “tough-on-crime” bills die on the Order Paper. Comparing the numbers, Canadians would have to conclude that it is the Harper Conservatives who have chosen to obstruct law and order bills – while shamelessly trying to smear the Liberals and the Senate with the blame.
It is difficult to take a law-and-order agenda seriously when it is argued with so little respect for facts. Justice above all depends upon truth. As our country’s Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada, your first allegiance must always be to the truth, far beyond any political or partisan gamesmanship. Our system of justice depends upon it. How can Canadians have any confidence in their justice system, if the person responsible for that system – the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada – is prepared to play fast and loose with the truth?
In your press conference, you pointed to three bills as evidence of Liberal Senators’ supposed “obstruction” of your Government’s agenda: Bills C-15, C-25 and C-26.
Bill C-15 was passed by the Senate with four amendments. These amendments represented our advice to the House of Commons, reflecting what we heard and concluded after listening to testimony from Canadians about the bill. That is our job as members of the second legislative House of Canada’s Parliament. We fully expected to hear back from the House of Commons with that House’s considered response to our advice. Unfortunately, that was not to be: instead, Prime Minister Harper chose to prorogue Parliament. The Senate’s work – done in the best tradition of Canadian parliamentary democracy – was lost.
While we may disagree as to whether the Senate’s amendments improved the bill (as I would say) or weakened it (as you would say) what cannot be truthfully said is that the Senate either delayed or obstructed the passage of the bill.
What “killed” the bill in the end, was not the Senate but the Prime Minister in shutting down Parliament before the House of Commons had a chance to consider the amendments proposed by the Senate.
I was particularly surprised that you referred to Bill C-25 during your press conference. That bill, which dealt with limiting credit for time spent in pre-sentencing custody, passed the Senate without any amendments on October 21, 2009, yet as of this writing, according to the Library of Parliament and the Privy Council Office, the bill has still not been brought into force by your Government – more than three months later. One is left to wonder whether you simply forgot to bring it into force? Or was the bill more about the appearance of being “tough on crime” than actually taking action? Certainly we now know that bill was not as urgent a priority for the Harper Government as was initially represented.
Finally, Bill C-26 was being studied by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee when Parliament prorogued. As of prorogation, that bill had been in the Senate for 38 days. By comparison, the bill spent 42 days in the House of Commons. Committee study of proposed legislation is what many observers say is among the best work of the Senate. I am sure you want Canada’s criminal legislation to be the best and most effective it can be, and would agree that the proposed changes to the Criminal Code regarding auto theft require careful study consistent with our parliamentary system. Unfortunately, that work had to cease because of prorogation.
As Minister of Justice, and as a personal proponent of a strong law-and-order agenda, you have a duty, which I am sure you recognize, to uphold the truth and not mislead Canadians. Accordingly, I am confident that you will wish to quickly correct the record, and agree that the Liberal opposition in the Senate has not in fact “obstructed” your Government’s anti-crime agenda. To the contrary, the greatest delays to the implementation of your agenda have been due to your own Government’s actions in failing to bring bills forward for debate, dragging your feet in bringing legislation into force, and most significantly, proroguing Parliament.
I look forward to your clarification of these issues for Canadians.
Yours very truly,
James S. Cowan
Cc: The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Cc: The Honourable Marjory LeBreton, Leader of the Government in the Senate