The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Honourable senators, is leave granted?

Senator Plett: Thank you, Senator Tannas. First, this is in no way to take away from your speech. I agreed with it 100%. As I said earlier today, Senator Tannas, I think I gave you a fair bit of credit for suggesting a way forward because of your issues about giving leave — or your caucus’s issues about giving leave — and how the Leader of the Government could move this forward.

I spent a bit of time this afternoon talking about and maybe paving the way for explanations that I have to make out there about what might be perceived as time allocation or a programming motion. So I guess I want to read something into the record and then ask you a question.

I just looked up what a programming motion, in fact, means. A programming motion can be used by the government to timetable a bill’s progress through the House of Commons by setting out the time allowed for debate at each of its stages. The motion is usually put forward for agreement immediately after a government’s bill has passed its second reading. Typically, it’s the government that would put forward a programming motion which would have time allocation, and so on and so forth.

I guess, Senator Tannas, I’m only asking this for the record because I don’t know that we need to debate what a programming motion is. I do not want to take anything away from Senator Gold. He has been very cooperative in trying to work this through. However, if the story is to be told correctly, this was actually a motion and an idea brought forward by the leader of the largest group in the Senate and the Leader of the Opposition in order to bring this to a close and to put some time constraints on it. The government agreed after the other four parties agreed.

I would simply like your affirmation that that, in fact, was the progress that was followed here.

Senator Plett: If I could indulge the chamber for just one second, we have, I think, five speakers left. I know we have 25 minutes. I would like to, with leave, simply ask this chamber that we not allow any questions but we allow all five of these speakers to speak and have their 10 minutes. It takes us where it takes us. I think it would be wrong for us to drop the last two speakers for the sake of 20 minutes.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, it is so good to see that, depending on whether it suits our purposes or not, our principles about leave as well as other things can change as they need to. We certainly appreciate that.

Not to put a damper on anything, but I have about a 75-minute speech here, so that puts us to what time? Sorry, colleagues, the rest of you may not be able to speak. You may as well go home, and Senator Gold and I will take care of the rest of the business.

I was reminded by my lovely wife today that I made a mistake earlier when I said that I had voted with Senator Gold. She said that I was supposed to remind him that, in fact, Senator Gold had voted with the opposition in the last vote, and not the opposition voting with him. I want that corrected for the record, please. Senator Gold, we appreciate that you voted with us.

Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Bill C-28, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (self-induced extreme intoxication). I have already said that I will support this bill. I am going to spend at least 10 minutes telling you why I shouldn’t. Then I will turn myself into a pretzel, like those who give leave one day and then don’t the next, and vote for something that I will be telling you for 10 minutes that we shouldn’t ever support.

This bill purportedly responds to the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada in Brown and Sullivan last month, which found that section 33.1 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional. The ruling by the Supreme Court came down on May 13, 2022. We heard nothing from the government on this matter for five weeks. I think the Prime Minister was on an airplane.

Suddenly, the bill was tabled just before the end of the session on June 17. No debate was scheduled on the bill for four full days, colleagues.

Then we were told that the bill we have before us, Bill C-28, must not only be adopted in extreme haste, but must essentially be adopted with no substantive legislative review at all. This, of course, is what our friend and colleague Senator Patterson was concerned about earlier today.

Honourable senators, for five weeks we heard absolutely nothing and then suddenly, as is customary with this government, panic set in. The government claims that in the five weeks from the court decision to last week, it was busily consulting on this bill. It claims that since the court rendered its decision it has consulted with about 30 groups. That is quite a large number.

Minister Lametti claimed, during our brief meeting in Committee of the Whole with him this week, that these groups almost unanimously approve of the government’s response to this bill. This is surprising, colleagues, on several levels.

First, it is surprising that the government was able to consult in a fulsome way with 30 groups in just one month, but that is what they say they did.

On other bills, this appears to have been completely beyond the government’s capacity. Just this past Monday, the Senate passed Bill S-7, which was also a government response to a court ruling from October 2020. Bill S-7 was introduced in response to a decision by the Court of Appeal of Alberta that struck down a section in the Customs Act. On that matter, the government was given 18 months by the court to introduce legislation in response to its ruling. Yet not only was that deadline missed but, as senators found out when the bill was studied at committee, the government had actually consulted with absolutely no one prior to introducing the bill. That was an extremely complex bill involving extremely complex legal issues.

Now we have this bill, which also deals with an extremely complex legal issue. Yet, if we are to take the minister’s word for it, in just one month the government was able to fulsomely consult with groups that unanimously approved the government’s course of action.

Honourable senators, I have to say that this stretches the imagination. I believe there is another explanation as to why the government took so long to introduce this legislation. It is quite simply due to the fact that its priorities are elsewhere. This is not a government that pays a great deal of attention to policy details. It throws borrowed money at problems and does not pay much attention to how money is spent.

It makes you wonder, colleagues, how there could be those of us — or you — who voted an hour ago for a completely out‑of‑control budget. There are even those who call themselves conservatives who voted for it. I find it extremely strange that we have conservatives who voted for that — conservatives who ran on a platform of being a conservative. Yet here they are.

I am not sure how many of you listen to Simon & Garfunkel. I am of that age. As Simon & Garfunkel sang, “Heaven holds a place for those who pray.” So, conservative colleagues, there is hope for you if you repent. A few years ago, Chuck Cadman promised to keep the Paul Martin government alive. After he voted he said that he then had to go and ask God for forgiveness. God forgave him, and he will forgive you.

And this government does a lot of signalling and proclaiming colleagues. I am sure that in relation to this decision by the Supreme Court, someone saw a potential political opportunity. It was an opportunity to look decisive. I do not intend to speak very much about the substance of the bill, as you may have already realized. That is better left to others. Senator Patterson has a lot more to say about that. But I do note that many senators in this chamber have, in only a short time, raised some very significant issues.

Senator Carignan referenced a learned professor at the University of Montreal, one who specializes in criminal defence who argues certain dimensions of extreme intoxication may not be covered by this bill at all. On Tuesday, Senator Cotter said:

. . . what I worry about here is that the proposal, as heartfelt as it is, will miss the mark and almost nobody will be able to be convicted under this provision.

Senator Cotter and I did not start off on the best of terms, but I certainly have come to respect the tremendous knowledge that he has and the expertise that he brings to the Legal Committee, and I respect that quote.

Senator Pate quoted Sean Fagan, counsel for the defence in the case in question, when she said, “. . . the law would be entirely ineffective due to the burden placed on prosecutors.” I recognize informed concern and skepticism when I see it, and it is informed concern and, I’m sure, some skepticism, Senator Pate. This is why I’m so concerned about the way in which the government is attempting to frogmarch this bill through both the House and the Senate, and even that it is doing so badly.

On Tuesday, the government’s vaunted hybrid system crashed. We all know that. We shut down here because we could no longer operate. Fortunately, our Leader of the Government has not to this point suggested that we continue with this horrible system of hybrid since. I have the fullest confidence in him that he will not come forward with that. I want it in Hansard that I trust Senator Gold that he will not bring this forward.

But the government’s House leader, Mark Holland, wants and was just given another year of this system that has already failed us so many times. Why? Because he says there might be another pandemic coming, honourable senators. There just might be. Dr. Ravalia, have you heard of a pandemic that is coming?

Senator Ravalia: No.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?