Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Senator Quinn, thank you for your question. The government was very pleased to announce a national supply chain summit to discuss the challenges and strategies which you referred to, and importantly the next steps that will enable recovery for Canada’s transportation supply chain.

With regard to your specific question, the government is very aware of the importance of the port to Canada as a whole, much less the Atlantic provinces and your province in particular. I have been advised that the details of who will be invited and attending have not yet been finalized. I have been advised that different levels of government and different representatives of the industry that have an interest in supply chains and notably — and this was made explicit — ports, rail companies and trucking alliances will be in attendance.

Senator Smith: Senator Gold, during our Committee of the Whole deliberations yesterday with respect to Bill C-2, Minister Freeland highlighted that Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio, which is still forecasted to be 48% in 2021-22, is the lowest in the G7. However, CPA Canada, in a recent statement, made it clear that it recommended “the government replace the debt-to-GDP target with a ‘fiscal anchor framework’.”

A fiscal framework would move beyond the simplistic ratio and pursue a series of metrics which would provide a more complete picture of the health of the economy, but also instill confidence in both households and businesses that the government is addressing its large deficits and levels of indebtedness.

Senator Gold, why won’t your government move away from the debt-to-GDP metric and implement a series of fiscal anchors which will provide more enhanced measures of accountability but also provide some sense of certainty for businesses and consumers?

Senator Mégie: Although you said that the government is working very hard on this matter, Canada is one of the few remaining countries in the World Trade Organization that have not explicitly stated their position on temporarily suspending the rules. Nearly all developing countries, France and the United States have already supported this initiative. If the suspension is to be effective, Canada must insist that there be a concurrent transfer of know-how and equipment to developing countries. Many countries would be able to produce vaccines if they were free to do so and could rely on our support. Does the federal government plan to support this suspension? It will not work without that support.

Hon. Marie-Françoise Mégie: My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

Professors Gold, Liu and Morin, from McGill and Laval universities, issued the following statement in Le Devoir on December 11, 2021:

Taxpayers in wealthy countries have largely funded the development of new vaccines through public research, subsidies and purchase commitments. These same taxpayers can legitimately insist that developing countries have access to the vaccines as well.

The professors proposed that we amend Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime, or CAMR, to include vaccines, tests and other pharmaceutical products needed to combat COVID-19.

The CAMR makes it possible for less expensive drugs and medical devices to be produced and exported to developing countries in a health emergency, without waiting for authorization from patent holders.

Does our government plan to amend the CAMR to respond favourably to these requests to expand the list of medical products and create the right conditions for ending this pandemic?

Hon. Diane Bellemare: Thank you, Senator Yussuff, for your presentation. It was very informative.

Naturally, I am in favour of this bill. It is about having decent work, minimum standards and public health, at a time when people who are not protected find it difficult to stay home when they have a communicable disease, since they are not always aware they do. I believe that this is a very important aspect of this bill.

My question revolves around the ability or the willingness of businesses in this matter.

I know that this bill covers federally regulated businesses. These are generally larger firms that already offer benefits. From what I know about this, the Canada Labour Code has often been amended as a result of negotiations between the big unions and businesses.

Does this bill have a meaningful and significant impact, or were the large firms already offering these minimum benefits?

Also, do you still want the Canada Labour Code to be amended in future, as part of negotiations between major associations or the union movement and businesses?

Could you please comment on that? Thank you.

[English]

Senator Yussuff: Thank you, Senator Bellemare, for your question.

As you know, a number of workers and employers already, of course, provide for paid sick leave through their negotiated process or outside of that. The reality is there are far too many workers for whom it’s not covered because they didn’t have success at the bargaining table to achieve the 10 days of paid sick leave.

I think these amendments are going to improve the opportunity for those who do not have it, but at the same time, for those who exceed the code, I think it shows that efforts by their employers and their unions is something that we can learn from. More importantly, I think within the provincial jurisdiction, where 90% of workers reside in this country, we have a long way to go. Based on the statistics I provided this morning — whether in Prince Edward Island or in Quebec or more recently in British Columbia — we know there are tremendous gaps. In Ontario, there are just emergency measures that provide for sick days. There are no permanent amendments in the code in Ontario. I think that will be the discussion we need to have.

I’m hoping that as a result of the passage of this bill there will be far more engagement across this country to recognize that all Canadians, regardless of the jurisdiction they work in, should have paid sick days as a fundamental right of going to work. We know what this pandemic has revealed. If you have any symptom of the virus and you go to work because you have to, and you can’t take the time off, you are going to affect others. It’s going to have a profound effect on the workplace and it could have a profound effect on the colleagues you work with.

Given our efforts to try and prevent Canadians from getting sick — through vaccinations, through wearing masks and washing hands — we need to recognize that paid sick days give workers the comfort to ensure they can take time off when they need it. Equally, I think we need to recognize both employers and unions need to work harder to ensure all workers in this country have paid sick leave as a fundamental right of going to work every single day. It is something that is the norm in a lot of European jurisdictions. In Canada, we have a long way to go to achieve those same objectives.

Senator Simons: Like most Canadians, I was horrified by the sight of angry mobs of people intimidating hospital workers and patients outside of hospitals, screaming abuse at parents and children outside of vaccination clinics, but I also worry about unintended consequences. When I look at this bill, I am concerned about the prospect of a provincial government misusing this bill against strikers, especially health care workers, outside of a hospital during a strike where emotions are running high.

With your background in the labour movement, what assurances can you offer me and Canadians that there are going to be sufficient safeguards that this legislation is not misused to affect the right to strike and the right of strikers to protest outside of health facilities?

Senator Yussuff: Thank you for very kindly, senator, for your question.

As you know, when the Minister of Justice did come to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, this question was asked of him on the record. He stated very clearly that this is not the objective of the legislation and those fundamental rights are protected.

As a former leader of the Canadian Labour Congress and having spent a lot of time on picket lines and protests, I understand fundamentally what those rights are all about. I think there are safeguards, but of course we still have an independent judiciary in this country. Should any provincial jurisdiction overstep the limitations that are in this legislation, we have a course of action to restore those imbalances should they happen. But I am very conscious of this fact. That is why I asked the minister the question when he came before the Legal Committee.

Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much.

As many have mentioned, Bill C-3 is welcome and it is also long overdue. The issues that this bill is seeking to alleviate — the expansion of paid sick leave and sadly needed protections for health care workers to counter violence, harassment and aggression — were identified at the very outset of this pandemic almost two years ago. The government has been pressed continuously to bring the legislation forward. It’s here now and it’s important that we process this as quickly as we can.

However, Senator Yussuff, as you have stated, this legislation covers only those workers under federal jurisdiction, which amounts to less than 10% of the Canadian workforce. My question is geared to the implementation of the standards and the protections in this bill.

We have optimism about this legislation, but the danger we have all seen many times before is that hope and optimism do not always translate into legislation and implementation of a new law.

Given your long professional experience with Canadian unions and the worker environment, do you have specific suggestions or strategies that you are promoting or will promote in order to ensure that federal and provincial negotiation occurs, and there is a much wider implementation process of the protections of this law?

Senator Yussuff: Thank you, senator, for your question.

Once this bill is passed, there is no question that the reality that we are now faced with is how we will engage at the provincial and territorial level to broaden the scope of workers’ protections in those jurisdictions.

As you know, this federation of ours has always been a bit of a challenge. It has its optimistic moments when things happen and there are times when we struggle.

A long time ago, not so long ago, we started some work to bring forward protection for domestic violence. When we started the effort, not a single province, including the federal government, had protection for workers suffering from domestic violence. In a very short period of time, in less than seven years, every single jurisdiction in this country now has legislation that protects workers from domestic violence. It allows them to take paid time off to achieve that.

I know some provinces might resist bringing in paid sick days for workers in various jurisdictions, but I am convinced that the labour movement will see this as an opportunity to push even harder. Other activists and groups will join them in that effort, of course, to try to get our province — I am hoping equally, as the Minister of Labour has indicated in his letter, he will convene his provincial counterpart very shortly to have a very fundamental discussion on how they can work together to achieve this objective.

Our federal government certainly has provided many supports to the provinces to help them achieve some equality in regard to how we have dealt with this pandemic. I’m hoping similarly the federal government provides some leadership with the provinces to ensure they can bring in sick leave to complement what we are doing here in the federal jurisdiction.

Hon. Scott Tannas: Honourable senators, I want to thank Senator Yussuff for his tremendous work on this bill.

Yesterday, our group came under some significant pressure not to refuse leave, such that we would have allowed the bill to be passed last night. I won’t say there was intimidation, but there was pressure, and a lot of it. In fact, when we refused leave that was requested by Senator Gold, I heard a senator shout, “Shame.”

I would like to, for the sake of some of the new senators, and also to remind those of us who have been here longer, what should be happening now at second reading of this bill.

We should have a speech from the government sponsor; we have had that. We should have a speech from the critic; we don’t have that. We should have speeches from others, and we are, in fact, having that. We should, as senators, be sitting and listening and thinking about the intention of this bill, and considering whether or not it is worthy for further consideration. That’s what a second reading vote, which we will shortly have, is about. It is a vote to ratify if the bill is worthy of further consideration. Typically, then, once we have that vote, and if it passes, we would refer it to committee for study.

In this case, we had a pre-study done by the committee. But even in matters of pre-study, we would refer it back to the committee for clause-by-clause consideration. They would also examine the bill in its final form and see if there had been changes from the pre-study, and see if their concerns that had been outlined and enumerated in pre-study — which is one of the reasons why, sometimes, pre-study gets done — were dealt with by the government and amendments put forward in the House of Commons.

In this particular case, there were changes made. There were concerns raised by the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs that were largely ignored. There is a whole new section in the bill dealing with bereavement leave. In Senator Yussuff’s speech, I noticed that it was the last thing he talked about because it was a last-minute addition that was done in the House of Commons for wonderfully good reasons. Nonetheless, the details of this amendment and this whole new section were hot off the press last night.

I would expect that normally the committee that completed the pre-study would have some work that they would do in order to bring us clause-by-clause consideration, potential amendments and a final report before third reading. That’s how it should work. If that worked, then at that point we would have a bill with potentially some Senate amendments, or at least we would have a report that said all our concerns were dealt with, or not; this is still a concern, and this is still a concern. We could then say that the important quality control component of what we do was finished. That part of our sober second thought was done, and we could now move on to a fully informed debate in third reading of the merits of the bill as it was before us. None of this will happen. Why?

We have heard in some quarters that the bill is so urgent that we just simply can’t wait. Senator McPhedran raised the fact that a number of these issues have been around since before COVID, and they were certainly highlighted during COVID, but we are two years into it. I think it is debatable, at least, just how urgent this bill is and that it get passed with us waving it through.

We also heard, even though there were last-minute amendments and a lot of drama in the House of Commons, that we can’t put through any amendments to improve the bill in any way because the House of Commons has gone home, so there is no point in putting amendments forward. That speaks volumes about a number of things that I won’t even bother to get into right now.

The final one that always signals that there are problems with the bill is the famous letter from the minister that things will get fixed, and I see that features with this bill as well.

So colleagues, in a few minutes we will be asked to forgo our rights and obligations instead of doing our full and complete job on a bill with, to say the least, a very unusual legislative journey through the House of Commons.

It’s a bill that brings significant permanent changes to the Criminal Code and employment law in Canada and is arguably not an emergency bill to address COVID-19. There are a lot of flashing red lights for sober second thought on the bill, notwithstanding the important and positive impact the bill intends to have on Canadian workers.

I submit to you that this is a shame. It’s a shame that we will not be able to do our full and complete duty with proper time and all the levers we have to improve the bill.

In June, when we ended the last session, I think we all felt a great sense of pride that we had done our work, had done it well and were looking forward to better days ahead. I don’t feel that way today. I think there is some reflection and potentially some action in the future that we need to take in order that we at all times are able to do the job that the Constitution and Canadians expect from us. Thank you.

Senator Tannas: I would agree. In fact, in your speech last night you raised your discomfort with this method of dealing with legislation. I agree with that.

On the question of unanimity in the House of Commons and how that ought to be a signal for us to waive our rights and obligations, I could argue the opposite. We are here to divorce ourselves from politics, and believe me, we would have to be the most naive creatures on the planet to think what happened with this bill didn’t involve a whole bunch of politics last night. It should be one of the first things we look at when there’s something unanimous coming from the House.

We had another example of it. It was maybe a result on Bill C-4; a result that we were all hoping for, that we would pass that bill. But the fact it came unanimously should be a cause for pause for us, not the green light to wave the thing through without our having done our jobs.

Senator Tannas: Absolutely.

Senator Housakos: Senator Tannas, I understand your perspective, and you have heard me many times echo that perspective in this chamber.

Wouldn’t you think in this particular instance, given that this bill has gone through the House of Commons with unanimous support from all parties on that side, that we have an obligation as an upper chamber to respect the democratic will of the democratic house?

Second, there are a number of amendments so far in this Forty-fourth Parliament — the example you bring up — but there were many more amendments and proposals of amendments by the Senate Chamber in the Forty-third Parliament that have been ignored. Would you agree that if we had more distinguished colleagues from this chamber in the governing national caucus on the other side on a weekly basis — I know our colleagues laugh, but I come from an era in which we had some influence on building legislation at the national caucus — would you agree with that statement?

Senator Tannas: I sure don’t want to make my friend and colleague Senator Gold uncomfortable, but you are right, Senator Batters. Senator George Baker, whose memory lives on in the chamber here — if we know him well enough, he is probably home in Newfoundland watching right now — used to talk about how the courts followed and based judgments on transcripts from the Senate.

One of the most important things that we have as an officer of the government is that we can ask a question of — and in fact we did it on Bill C-15 last spring where Senator Gold made declarations that could ultimately be important in court in the future.

So if for no other reason than that, I would say it doesn’t have to be an epic speech, but to get up, say some words and allow questions like that to be put on the record is something I would hope maybe Senator Gold might think about in the future.

It’s a very good point, Senator Batters.

[Translation]

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Honourable senators, I want to thank Senator White for introducing this important amendment, which provides greater certainty in preventing the harassment that intends to — as the bill describes — provoke a state of fear in health care professionals and, by extension, their families. These people are working so hard and sacrificing so much on our behalf during this never-ending pandemic.

We had an example of this appalling conduct last week in Prince Edward Island when the private residence of our Chief Public Health Officer was the target of demonstrators. Dr. Heather Morrison is a P.E.I. native and Rhodes Scholar, and we are fortunate to have her professional expertise when dealing with COVID. Because of the work she has led and the efforts of many other Islanders, Prince Edward Island is the only province yet to suffer a single death due to COVID-19.

Dr. Morrison and her staff have taken advantage of our geography to test everyone entering P.E.I. — with a follow-up test four days later. To be approved for entry, you have to apply in advance for a PEI Pass showing your vaccination status. As might be expected, many of these measures have greatly annoyed the usual suspects. The anti-vaxxers are upset that no one is listening to them when in fact the reverse is true. Our medical professionals have heard them loud and clear and have rejected their advice based on sound medical and scientific judgment.

To have protestors show up at the private family home of Dr. Morrison is beyond the pale, and that is why I strongly support the amendment to Bill C-3 proposed by Senator White. It would impose a serious penalty on anyone trying this stunt again.

Senators, I want to speak briefly about the fine line between denying legislation and rushing to pass legislation. By now, even the newest of senators have experienced the desire of the government to have government bills passed quickly. Although it is understandable for them to want their bills passed, it does not remove the Senate’s right and responsibility to examine these bills and check them for mistakes, unintended impacts or the need for amendments — like Senator White’s amendment that will improve this bill.

Over the years, senators have been urged, pleaded with and otherwise encouraged by members of successive governments to pass legislation as quickly as possible. Again, this is understandable. However, I believe we should take the time we need both as a matter of principle and because, as we discovered in 2007, of what can happen when we fail to do so.

The 2019 report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer about changes to disabled veterans’ benefits under the New Veterans Charter serves as a good lesson on how rushing legislation can have a long-term negative impact. The Government of Canada, with the full cooperation of all the opposition parties in the House of Commons, decided to pass the New Veterans Charter legislation as quickly as possible. In that respect, they succeeded. From the time it was first spoken to in the House of Commons to the bill receiving Royal Assent, three days passed. The amount of actual debate in chamber and committee was less than five hours. Only two minutes of that five-hour debate was in the House of Commons. The balance was in the Senate.

To be clear, everyone acted with the best of intentions, but we all know what road is paved with good intentions. We did a lot of paving in the Senate leading to the passing of the New Veterans Charter. Put simply, colleagues, the Senate failed in its duty. We did not study the legislation carefully. We did not correct the mistakes in the legislation. We were rushing to do our job. Sometimes — many times — it is precisely our job not to rush.

We can’t say we weren’t warned. At a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, where the Senate sent the bill — because we were in a rush, rather than sending it to the Veterans Affairs Committee or National Defence Committee, we sent it to the Finance Committee — Sean Bruyea, a retired Canadian Forces captain and long-time veteran advocate, testified before the committee. He stated:

We all know that the government wants to be seen as honouring veterans, but that does not necessarily mean that their veterans charter is free of errors. . . . We believe disabled veterans and the CF would rather have it right than have a flawed and unjust charter right now.

Unfortunately, we did not heed his advice.

The 2019 report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer indicates this failure of the Senate has cost disabled veterans and their families millions of dollars in lost benefits. Think of that, senators. We tried to assist veterans; we tried to assist their families. These people were injured serving Canada, disabled and in need of assistance, and we allowed a bill to go through that cost them millions of dollars. One of the significant changes in the New Veterans Charter was a replacement of the long-time monthly pension benefit with a lump sum. That change, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer indicated, cost veterans and their families. That is our fault. That is the Senate’s fault.

The House of Commons was unanimous in passing this bill. We heard discussion today where people said, “Oh, well, if it’s unanimous in the House of Commons, our hands are tied.” This is another example of where the House of Commons passed it in two minutes. As I said, we don’t want to question their motives. They thought they were doing something important and proper, but they missed the errors in the legislation. The Senate compounded the problem in our rush to do what we thought was the right thing. That’s why the Senate needs to take its time.

Honourable senators, over the years, there are lots of examples of ministers rushing the Senate. I’ll give you a minor example. In 2016, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade had in Minister Freeland, then Minister of International Trade, to talk about ratifying the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement that Canada had signed but not yet ratified. The minister stated how embarrassing it would be if Canada didn’t ratify it, because it would come into force when 110 World Trade Organization, or WTO, members ratified it. When the minister appeared, 96 countries had. The minister said it was important for Canada to be seen as an effective and energetic participant in the multilateral trade community and requested, “Let’s get it done.”

Colleagues, it bears noting that this bill, at that point, had been in the Senate for five weeks. It took 27 weeks for it to go through the House of Commons. I might add that it enjoyed the support of all the major parties in the House. The need for energetic participation was rather late coming.

At the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee, questions were asked: “Why the rush?” “Why such a tight deadline?” “If Canada ratifies after the 110, we’re still a member of the agreement. What’s the rush?”

“No,” the minister said. “We need to ratify right away because we anticipate 14 countries will ratify it in the next week.”

She was questioned about this. Her answer was “absolutely.” When other committee members expressed further doubt, she said, “Everyone has been acting on this.” In other words, colleagues, it was crunch time, and we had to act quickly. The committee set aside its concerns in light of the minister’s sense of urgency. The committee had one more meeting and reported back to the Senate on Thursday, November 24, and it was passed in the chamber two sitting days later on November 30. That’s a total of six weeks in the Senate, less than a quarter of the time it spent in the House.

When did the WTO finally get the 110 ratifications? They did so on February 22, 2017, three months to the day after the minister said she was absolutely sure it would only take a week.

The purpose of this little story isn’t to challenge the minister’s judgment or powers of prediction. She was merely doing what all ministers do, which is the utmost to get her legislation passed. Every minister wants their legislation passed. They’re convinced theirs is a good bill, perfect the way it is. Anyway, they believe we can fix the problem later after it’s passed. If our newest colleagues haven’t heard such arguments yet regarding regulations or adjustments promised but rarely delivered, I’m sure they will.

One example of how we did perform our duty is from December 2015 when Bill C-3, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2016, arrived in the Senate. Once again, the House of Commons acted with impressive speed. They did the first reading, second reading, Committee of the Whole and third reading in 17 minutes. Of course, such speed is possible when you don’t actually look at the bill. It was only when Bill C-3 came to the chamber that it was noted by Senator Day that the bill wasn’t all there. A schedule referred to in the bill was not included. Blaming administrative errors, the House of Commons forwarded the corrected version the next day. Needless to say, there was no mention in the other place that it was the Senate that spotted and corrected this error.

Colleagues, I keep hearing about the new Senate and how it is non-partisan, has merit-based appointments and is independent. But last night, the Senate acted like the old Senate with threats and pressure not to have any discussion or review of this legislation, “Let’s get it passed because it was unanimous in the House of Commons” and “Let’s go home and enjoy the holidays.” Senator Tannas and Senator White received the bulk of the pressure, but it was a group decision from the Canadian Senators Group to further a motion tabled in this chamber on at least two occasions, that we want at least five days of debate on every bill so we’re not rushed.

Colleagues, if the House of Commons realizes no bill will be passed without five days of debate, we know what will happen. We will get the bill five days earlier because they want it passed.

In conclusion, I would like to quote once again one of the founders of the Senate, Sir John A. Macdonald, when he said:

There would be no use of an Upper House, if it did not exercise, when it thought proper, the right of opposing or amending or postponing the legislation of the Lower House. It would be of no value whatever were it a mere chamber for registering the decrees of the Lower House.

Colleagues, if all we do is approve, then our approval means nothing. Let us remember that as we go forward. Thank you, honourable senators.

[Translation]

Senator Bellemare: Thank you. As I listened to you, my spontaneous reaction was that, yes, Senator White could introduce a bill when we come back after the holidays to amend the Criminal Code so we can improve this bill and make it better, more perfect. That is true, that could be done.

I understand your frustration, Senator Downe, and I think we’re all frustrated. That said, here’s my question: Don’t you think it would be more appropriate to proceed, as Senator Tannas suggested, with a comprehensive re-examination of the relationship between the Senate and the House of Commons? That way, we could avoid taking this bill hostage to make it more perfect, as Senator White put it. In any case, Senator White clearly stated that he will vote in favour of the bill. That’s the price we have to pay. The solution I would opt for is to initiate a more formal dialogue with the House of Commons about our frustrations. Don’t you agree?

[English]

Senator Dupuis: My question has two parts. Here is the first. I agree with everything you said except for the last sentence. You said in your first sentence that your group came under some significant pressure yesterday, and you even talked about intimidation. Those were your words. You said you did not agree with that and that you even heard the word “shame.” I also heard that word and I think that it is unparliamentary and unacceptable.

My question for you is this: How should we interpret the last sentence of your speech today? You said that this bill brings significant changes to the Labour Code and the Criminal Code, but you ended by saying, “this is a shame.” How should we interpret that, when you just complained about the use of that word at the beginning of your speech?

I completely agree with you, but aren’t you yourself applying pressure and intimidation by using those terms?

[English]

Senator Dupuis: Here’s the second part of my question. You talked about how the usual procedure wasn’t followed. I agree. In the context of our work, shouldn’t we mention the fact that we are agreeing to limit committee work because our representatives, be they facilitators or leaders, agreed on a course of action that the government is forcing us to adopt or at least trying to force us to adopt? Shouldn’t that aspect be part of the work that you said was a good idea?

[English]

Senator Mercer: Thank you, Senator Tannas, for your comments. The preliminary part of my question is my usual rant at this time of the year in parliamentary life. You will hear it in December, and you’ll hear a similar rant in June: When are we going to get our act together and defeat or not debate a bill that they desperately want across the street in the House of Commons?

It’s not good to have the power to do it if you never use the power to do it. Yes, this is not the legislation to do it on because this is an important piece of legislation for Canadian workers. But, time after time, they say, “Oh, the House of Commons is leaving today. By the way, here are two bills that we must have before you can go home.” Well, guess what? We are the masters of our own fate. We can table the bill, ignore the bill, not do anything with the bill or we could defeat the bill. But, sooner or later, this chamber needs to stand up and say, “No, I’m sorry. This is June 28. We’re going home. We’ll see you in September,” and let them deal with the problem that they have created. It’s not a problem that is created by senators.

Senator Tannas — I have to get a question in here so I haven’t broken any of the rules — would you agree that we, collectively as 105 senators, need to find that moment and that piece of legislation that we will either leave on the Order Paper or defeat just to get the government’s attention — and not just the government’s attention, but the attention of all members of the House of Commons — so that we should treat each other with respect because this is not respect.

Senator Tannas: Thank you, Senator Dupuis, and you’re absolutely right. I would not want to be quoted that this bill is a shame. It is not. It is very worthy and will provide further quality to the experience of employees under federal jurisdiction. I think it will provide important leadership for other provinces to follow. What I meant is it’s an important bill, and it is a shame that it doesn’t get the value from us that it deserves and — I would say, arguably, given the rather chaotic end to the bill in the House of Commons — that it quite rightly may need. So on that, I thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

With respect to your second question on the procedure, we actually just a few days ago reintroduced something that goes toward laying down a procedure to fast track that would require transparency and require someone to stand up in a debate and say, “This is why this should be fast-tracked,” and explain to us and to Canadians why the normal processes that were thoughtfully put in place over the last 152 years need to be cut away so that we can quickly get something done. At least we would have that discussion in the open rather than at a leaders’ meeting or with arm-twisting in the chamber to do something.

So you’re quite right. That needs to be part of the reflection that we take, and we should take it again before our backs are to the wall and we are in this exact same situation again.

Senator Tannas: I think the whole thing that we need to do is try and escape — this feels very much like the days when you and I and others were part of caucuses, we accepted the whip and we didn’t ask a lot of questions. We had a job to do, and that was to push through what our colleagues on the other side needed us to push through. I think it’s an evolution that we need to go through and we need to do it purposefully.

With respect to defeating something, I hear you. Something that could be just as effective is to amend a bill after they’ve gone home, do our work, send the amendments to an empty house and then see how important it really is. That is the other thing that we may want to do is just simply restate that it doesn’t matter whether the House of Commons goes home or doesn’t go home; if we see amendments that are needed, we will do them. That may be an easier, simpler and probably more frequent case that we run into — like this one, potentially — where we could do our job without blowing up the world.