Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I rise tonight to speak to Government Motion No. 96, which proposes to allocate a further six full hours of debate respecting the motion in response to the House’s message to the Senate on Bill C-11.

Colleagues, I’m moving this motion out of a sense of duty, not one of pleasure, but I also move this motion firm in the conviction that the government has acted properly and with the utmost respect for the Senate’s legislative process; firm in the conviction that we in the Government Representative Office, or GRO, have done so quite literally every step of the way; firm in the conviction that I am not proposing the curtailment of genuine debate; and firm in the conviction that it is necessary now to break through a clearly orchestrated pattern of deliberate obstruction so that we can finally move to a democratic vote.

The decision to apply time allocation to any item of government business is one I do not take lightly. I think I can say this with some credibility given that the GRO has not invoked time allocation before.

However, I am entirely comfortable that this is the responsible course of action before us. Tonight, I’m going to focus my remarks on two aspects of the issue that we in the GRO feel are important to underscore. First, I want to speak to the context and process that has brought us to this motion today. Second, I wish to address the mechanics of the motion and the purpose of Chapter Seven of our Rules, that is the chapter that provides for time allocation.

Let me begin with the context. Colleagues, in doing so, I want to bring you into my confidence. I want to share with you the reasoning behind several strategic decisions that we made in the GRO concerning the process around the study and debate of Bill C-11, including the exhaustive amount of time that this chamber has spent considering this bill.

Quite a long time ago, honourable senators, we in the GRO made the decision that, in dealing with this legislation, we would do our very best to try to shelter the work of the Senate from an overly charged, partisan political arena in the other place, and to try to do whatever we could to allow senators from all groups the opportunity to contribute constructively to the legislative process.

[Translation]

At the very beginning, as soon as the Senate received former Bill C-10, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Dawson, and I were very clear with the government that the Senate was going to take as much time as necessary to study the bill.

Despite what might have been transpiring among the political parties in the House of Commons, we made sure that the Senate took all the time that was necessary — I think we kept our word and then some — as of May 2022, with our proposal to conduct a pre-study in the Senate.

[English]

On May 31, 2022, the Senate adopted a motion authorizing the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications to undertake the pre-study on the subject matter of the bill. The committee was afforded all the necessary procedural authorities, including the ability to meet while the Senate was sitting or adjourned to maximize its time and ensure that a comprehensive work plan could be developed.

The committee did not hold its first meeting with witnesses until June 21, 2022, nearly three weeks after the original motion had been adopted. Having launched the pre-study, the GRO expended significant political capital at the highest level of government to secure the time that the Senate needed based upon a written agreement reached in June of last year with the Leader of the Opposition in this place, which was signed by all leaders, for a final third reading vote in November of 2022.

I have that agreement with me here today, colleagues, for anyone who might wish to confirm its authenticity. Paragraph 5 of the agreement stipulates:

With respect to the Senate’s consideration of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts: [. . .] achievement of a 3rd reading Senate vote no later than Friday, November 18th, unless debate has collapsed earlier.

At the bottom of this agreement, one can see the signatures of Senators Tannas, Cordy, Saint-Germain and myself. It is also signed by Senator Plett, committing the Conservative Senate caucus in his capacity as leader of the official opposition.

As we all know, during the summer adjournment period, the Conservative Party of Canada selected a new leader. With that leadership, it was evident that the terms of the agreement would no longer be respected.

[Translation]

The bill was introduced at first reading in the Senate on June 21, 2022, so about eight months ago, and has been studied and debated extensively.

On September 21, 2022, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Dawson, began the second reading debate, and the bill was either debated or continued for 12 legislative session days after that, finally passing second reading in the Senate on October 25, 2022.

Between the months of June and December 2022, the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications held 31 meetings, including the pre-study and actual study of the bill, along with nine meetings for clause-by-clause study, for a total of 67 hours and 30 minutes.

[English]

The committee heard from nearly 140 witnesses from various backgrounds including traditional broadcasters and newer online platforms, leaders in the arts and cultural communities, academics and researchers, online content creators, Indigenous stakeholders, union leaders and government officials, as well as Canadians with disabilities and those in minority groups.

Throughout this process, I remained optimistic that the terms of the original agreement would be respected. However, while I do not know when the instruction was given to the opposition to break the Bill C-11 agreement, the Conservative leadership did not formally communicate to us that the agreement was no longer valid until very close to the November 18 deadline.

Colleagues, throughout the fall, I had regularly raised Bill C-11’s timeline at the leadership table. For many weeks, we got evasive responses. We had heard rumours and speculations of a potential breach, but we continued to have faith in the signed agreement until the very end. But with no agreement in place in November, we accepted, very reluctantly, to give the Senate more time through December and into the new year.

Following our return from the Christmas break, the Senate adopted Bill C-11 at third reading on February 2, 2023.

Honourable colleagues, I want to be clear and unequivocal with you. I did not accept the additional time for the benefit of the official opposition who, by November, were engaging in a full-out filibuster at the committee.

We chose to come to the terms of a new agreement because that was the only pathway that would ensure that senators operating independently of partisan objectives, and with a genuine desire to seek improvements to the bill, would have a genuine opportunity to do so at the clause-by-clause stage. Time allocation would have punished not only the filibustering senators, but also those senators working constructively. We simply were not prepared to do that. We did not wish to do that and we did not do that.

As I said, our goal from the beginning on Bill C-11 was to ensure that the process itself could unfold in as non-partisan a way as is possible, and that senators would be able to do their jobs, the jobs for which we were summoned here to do. We delivered on this. With a new agreement in place, amendments and subamendments were pulled. We managed to complete the process properly. The amended bill was sent back to the other place on February 2, 2023.

After a month, colleagues, of careful consideration and due diligence by the government, it provided its response to the Senate’s work by accepting 20 of the 26 amendments in total. It was sent back to this chamber with the support of the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois.

That now brings us to the message before us. I want to stress, upon receipt of the message and in keeping with my role as Government Representative, I consulted with the leadership of all groups in good faith to try to implement a constructive timetable to consider Bill C-11 at the message stage.

Upon receipt of the message from the other place, I made my expectations very clear that the Senate ought to have a thorough debate that would have had us vote on the motion by the end of last week. That has been in line with the Senate’s customary approach to the disposition of messages from the other place in a timely fashion.

Colleagues, let me put this in perspective for you. During the Forty-second and Forty-third Parliaments, the Senate spent an average of less than two sitting days debating messages from the House of Commons. That statistic includes several substantial and controversial bills, like Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act; Bill C-69 on environmental assessments; Bill C-48 on the oil tanker moratorium; Bill C-14 and Bill C-7 on medical assistance in dying and Bill C-6, which implemented immigration reforms, to name but a few.

Regrettably, despite this and the very strong precedent that has existed in terms of the times that we’ve devoted to messages at this stage of our process, I was neither able to yield an agreement on a vote by the end of last week, nor was I even provided with a hint of a signal on what the intentions were of the opposition, or on the numbers of speakers or amendments.

As I mentioned in an earlier speech today, colleagues, I raised this bilaterally with the Leader of the Opposition last week. It was made clear that there would be no agreement to get this resolved by the end of last week.

We also sought, as I mentioned as well, to have assurances on a similar timeline at our scroll discussions — again, radio silence, to no avail.

Instead, debate was adjourned by the opposition for two consecutive days last week without any speaker taking the floor. This is despite a full two-week break to prepare for debate, and the message from the House being public knowledge for more than a month.

It also is despite the fact that the Government Representative Office, or GRO, shared its procedural intentions in an open and transparent fashion with all Senate groups, including the text of the motion in response to the message and the text of a motion in amendment that was drafted in collaboration with Senator Tannas.

On Thursday, colleagues, we were treated to the all-too-familiar merry-go-round of amendment and subamendment, followed by another adjournment motion and a motion to adjourn the Senate, which took us into the night and disrupted other items of business that senators might have wished to address.

Had we decided to do nothing, colleagues, I suspect we would all be here today rinsing and repeating this sad, sorry state of affairs and sequence of events.

Colleagues, while I have tried to remain optimistic that common sense would prevail at this stage of the message, I’m not naive. I am not surprised given the public statements by the Leader of the Conservative Party urging senators to prevent this bill from passing.

The Leader of the Conservative Party in the other place in a video posted to Twitter on March 30 stated the following in relation to Bill C-11, after its adoption in the House of Commons:

We have some real free speech warriors there, led by Leo Housakos, the great Spartan warrior, who held the thing up in the Senate for almost a year — a good part of the year. It’s going back to the Senate right now. He’s going to fight like hell to stop it from passing it.

This is in addition to an active website entitled KillBillC11.ca, authorized in the name of Conservative Member of Parliament Rachael Thomas which calls upon the Senate to defeat the bill despite being duly passed by the elected House of Commons.

Let us not be naive about the context before us. There is an ongoing effort to kill this bill and to prolong this process for as long as possible for the sole purpose of partisan advantage.

As the context I have described shows, the GRO has been constructive. The record will show that the Senate conducted a considerably thorough study and successfully made numerous amendments to the bill. We have done nothing to curtail debate.

As the context also shows, we have also been on the receiving end of broken promises and deliberate procedural gamesmanship. This is where Chapter Seven of our Rules comes in, and this is where I turn our attention now.

With respect to the time allocation motion before us, it is important that we understand and that Canadians who are watching us understand exactly what it is that I am proposing.

The motion would provide for an additional six hours of debate, after which the Senate will be able to vote democratically on the subamendment by Senator MacDonald, the amendment by Senator Plett and the main motion that I spoke to last week. I don’t think there’s anything abusive about this proposition. In practice, there is ample time for every senator in the opposition caucus to speak up to their maximum allotted time, with the Leader of the Opposition receiving up to 30 minutes to speak under this motion.

Under this motion, every member of the opposition, and all senators, have 10 minutes to speak to this phase of the process, and the Leader of the Opposition has 30 minutes. The time that we now have to debate gives ample opportunity for each and every opposition senator, and others, to speak. Now, during the time-allocated order — the six-hour debate — normal speaking times will apply as part of the six-hour debate.

Conceptually, it is important to be clear about the purpose of time allocation, because it is a tool that may be used abusively but that may also be used very legitimately in context where a chamber is prevented from reaching a decision.

Colleagues, I would argue that Chapter Seven of the Rules of the Senate was created for cases just like this one: cases where there is a history of dilatory tactics, cases where the objective has become delay for delay’s sake, cases where the procedural intentions of a party are being withheld from colleagues and cases where there is an effort to kill legislation through procedural delay.

It’s true: Time allocation gets a bad rap, and that’s largely because of its heavy-handed use by successive majority governments to stifle genuine debate, including in this chamber. It is important to remind ourselves that the original purpose of time allocation was not only to allow a government majority to manage the finite time of a legislative chamber, but also for the legislative body itself to overcome the use of tactics deliberately geared at delaying the progress of government legislation.

In a paper entitled Sober Second Thinking: How the Senate Deliberates and Decides, Senator Harder explains:

. . . if excessive time allocation is to be reviled, so too should tactics of delay that stifle substantive policy debates. Time allocation and dilatory obstruction are two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, under current Senate rules, absent time allocation, obstructionist senators can postpone votes by adjourning debate virtually indefinitely. Attempts to call for an immediate vote to move legislation forward can be filibustered, leading to stare-downs that can last for many days and monopolize the Chamber’s time.

Having been here for some years now, colleagues, I know exactly what that looks like. To name just a few examples, one needs only to think back to our debates around bills like Bill C-16 on transgender rights, Bill C-45 on cannabis legislation, Bill C-210 on a gender-neutral national anthem, Bill C-262 on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, and Bill S-203 on ending the captivity of whales and dolphins.

In the same paper, Senator Harder further notes:

Ultimately, to use such delay tactics to impede legislative review is not sober second thinking. Senators engaging in such practice do not showcase the “complementary” legislative role that the Canadian Constitution requires the Senate to perform. At a pivotal time in the Senate’s history, such practice is also damaging to the institution’s culture, encouraging needless conflict and distracting the Chamber from its public purpose.

In a nutshell, colleagues, time allocation can be either curative or abusive, and context is everything. Now, I don’t know about you, but I do not feel like last Thursday’s round of bells was a particularly efficient use of the Senate’s time and publicly funded resources.

Moreover, colleagues, as precedent demonstrates, there is nothing extraordinary about time allocation. In fact, it has been regularly applied to various stages of government business — and in many instances under the previous government after little or no actual debate. However, since the Forty-second Parliament, both under myself and my predecessor, Senator Harder, time allocation has not been invoked once — not once on a single item of government business. I believe this has been a testament to our desire to find collaboration and consensus on moving the government’s legislative agenda forward in a timely manner. Regrettably, sadly, this is no longer the case with respect to Bill C-11.

Colleagues, you are undoubtedly going to hear from some in this chamber that invoking time allocation on a bill of this magnitude is paramount to stifling debate and not in keeping with the Senate’s role of sober second thought. Let me put this in historical perspective. The previous government, represented by the members opposite me, invoked time allocation on 22 separate occasions alone during the Forty-first Parliament — in some cases after only a single day of debate at a particular stage of a government bill.

In the case of Bill C-19, a bill which had sought to eliminate the long-gun registry and reflected an electoral commitment of the former government, Senator Carignan, then Deputy Leader of the Government, gave notice of a motion to allocate time after only a single day of debate at third reading, even before the critic was afforded an opportunity to speak. In justifying the need for time allocation, Senator Carignan outlined his perspective on April 3, 2012, as follows:

I believe that it was important to set a time limit, a sufficient amount of time in which senators could debate and express their opinions, as they were able to do previously at second reading. There have been many debates on both sides of this issue, but we should be able to end this debate, once and for all, within the time allocated so that we can pass this bill, ensure that the will of Canadians is translated into a reasonable and effective bill, and move on to other bills that are just as important to Canadian society.

Therefore, if we are to apply Senator Carignan’s logic, given the considerable debate this chamber has had on Bill C-11, the Senate ought to have the right in the face of procedural obstacles to have this bill adopted in a timely way to reflect the will of the elected house.

Indeed, our colleague Senator Plett made a very strong point that the time allocation process does indeed provide a window for senators to debate legislation in the face of apparent delay. On June 11, 2014, Senator Plett noted the following on a motion to time-allocate Bill C-23, known as Fair Elections Act, after only one day of debate at third reading. Senator Plett said:

I would like to say that in fact time allocation opens debate. We are now debating. We are debating time allocation. We will debate the motion. In fact, adjourning debate is stifling debate. That is what the opposition tries time and time again if they don’t have any other avenue — let’s adjourn this.

In the same speech, he later said, “When you can’t reach an agreement, you have to do something.”

Colleagues, for all these reasons, I believe now is the time to do something. The Government Representative Office, or GRO, has supported the Senate during Bill C-11’s legislative journey every step of the way. The GRO ensured that the senators operating in good faith could get their work done properly, and this was demonstrated time and time again, as I outlined earlier. Now, colleagues, I’m asking your support to bring this to a conclusion with six additional hours of debate and a democratic vote on the message from the House of Commons, a message supported by the government, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois, all of whom campaigned on a platform to reform the Broadcasting Act, which is the subject of the message before us.

Colleagues, it is time to do something. Thank you for your kind attention.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, the point of order that was raised by Senator Housakos and spoken to, so far, by two or three other colleagues is a very narrow point of order. I know we could be here for a much longer time listening to more comments, but I believe I’ve heard enough to take it under advisement. There is also an outstanding ruling which will be coming shortly pertaining to language in the chamber as well, but I believe I’ve heard enough for the night. Thank you, colleagues, for your input.

We return to debate on Motion No. 96.

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Gold, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator Gagné:

That, pursuant to rule 7-2, not more than a further six hours of debate be allocated for the consideration of the motion, as amended, to respond to the message from the House of Commons concerning the Senate’s amendments to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Gold, will you answer questions?

Hon. Leo Housakos: I have a question for Senator Harder — I mean, Senator Gold. You’re interchangeable.

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Deputy Leader of the Opposition): I have a question for Senator Harder — I mean, Senator Gold. You’re interchangeable.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I’m not sure how to start this. We have a government leader who is wanting to move a bill forward, who says, “I will answer one question and then I will not answer any more questions.”

Excuse me. Did you want to continue debate? Thank you.

Senator Gold said — and Hansard will show that he said — he would refuse a second question. Now he’s saying that time ran out again. That is somewhat fudging the truth, Senator Gold. You said you would not accept a second question.

I find that very disconcerting when the government leader refuses to answer questions from members opposite, and yet he is the one who is a “defender of democracy.” Hallelujah! Thank you that Senator Gold finally came to the chamber to defend democracy because I don’t know how this chamber could possibly have operated for the last 150 plus years without Prime Minister Trudeau’s appointments — “independent appointments” who have voted 96% in favour of the government and yet sit in this chamber and say they are independent, over and over again.

We have still four, maybe five, senators left who have admitted that they would love to still be in a Liberal caucus, but because of Trudeau’s wonderful reformed Senate, they have chosen to go to their own caucuses.

We’ve had a few members leave, and they now vote, occasionally, for Liberal budgets. I don’t understand that either. I don’t understand where this Senate has improved in the last few years.

My most memorable times in this Senate were my spats with my good friend Senator Terry Mercer, who was every bit as partisan as I am. Senator Ringuette knows it. So does Senator Cordy. So does Senator Massicotte. They know how partisan Senator Mercer was, and yet we were best friends because we understood this is a political chamber and we had two political parties here that went toe to toe and debated legislation and, on occasion, brought in time allocation.

I, for the life of me, don’t understand why Senator Gold is somehow trying to frame this as we are opposed to time allocation. We are not. We have supported time allocation many times. Ask Senator Carignan. We got appointed on the same day in 2009, and Senator Seidman.

We have seen time allocation. We supported it on our side and on the other side. That is not the issue, Senator Gold. The issue is you have no right. The Constitution, the Rules of the Senate say you have no right. You sit there one day as, “I’m an unaffiliated senator, I am an independent senator, I’m not a member of the government,” yet you are carrying the water of the government, and you are here telling us you have the right.

No, you don’t. I read the Rules today. It doesn’t matter how badly we want to change those Rules. What you did today, government leader, is you forced our Speaker to rewrite the Rules. That is what you, government leader, will go down in history as. You forced our Speaker to rewrite the Rules. Because it doesn’t matter what the Speaker says of this issue; it doesn’t change what the Rules say. The Rules say “recognized parties.” You are not part of a recognized party. You can’t have it both ways. “One day I’m part of a recognized party. One day I’m a Government Representative. The next day I’m a government leader. Today I will answer your questions. Tomorrow, when you question me about CBC, I will say, ‘Well, I don’t answer for CBC.’”

Someday, Senator Gold, you’re going to have to accept what you are, admit what you are.

Senator Carignan: To be or not to be.

An Hon. Senator: Hear, hear.

Hon. Jane Cordy: Honourable senators, I will take a brief time to join in the debate this evening on Senator Gold’s time allocation motion. To be clear from the outset, I speak for myself, not on behalf of the members of my group. Our members are free to vote as they see fit, but I will be supporting the motion.

While it will seem for many in the Senate like this is new, it really is not. I’ve been in this chamber long enough to have seen both sides of this debate. For example, in 2014, when my friend, the Leader of the Opposition, stated:

I would like to say that in fact time allocation opens debate. We are now debating. We are debating time allocation. We will debate the motion. In fact, adjourning debate is stifling debate.

That, of course, was when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister.

I have argued in the past against time allocation and the frequency of time allocation, particularly under the previous government. Senator Gold spoke in his speech about the frequency. I would have preferred an agreement, as I’m sure we all would have, that allowed everyone to have their piece, and then we voted. Since that option is not available, I have to consider all the factors in this particular situation before us. I’ve also considered that this is the first time that time allocation has been brought forward by the Senate leader, Senator Gold.

Senator Harder gave notice of time allocation, but it was withdrawn before it came up for debate. Unlike previous time allocations — and there were certainly a lot of them — this is not a stage for substantive debate on the legislation. In fact, it is a debate on time allocation.

Honourable senators, we’re now debating a motion to accept the message from the other place. Considerable time and effort has gone into weighing the merits of this legislation, both in the chamber and in committee hearings. As others have said, the Transport and Communications Committee — and I’m taking these statistics from Senator Housakos’s own speech on the committee report — held 31 meetings in total and heard from 138 witnesses. They received 67 briefs. In total, the committee met for nearly 68 hours. Clause-by-clause consideration lasted nine meetings. Committee members considered 73 amendments, and 26 were adopted. Certainly, there were a lot of witnesses and lots of time for questions and lots of debate at the committee and in this chamber.

Our former colleague Senator Dawson was tasked with shepherding this bill through the Senate and did a fine job of seeing Bill C-11 to the end of third reading in this chamber, and we, as senators, have done our due diligence and sent our amendments to the other place. Most were accepted and some were rejected. Two were amended, and then in the natural way of things in the past, the Senate defers to the elected members in the other place.

For those saying that we have not yet had time to debate the message received from the House of Commons, I would disagree. We have spent far less time debating in far more complicated circumstances. When Bill C-69 passed through this chamber, it was just as contentious, as some of you may recall. There, as noted by our former colleague Grant Mitchell in his speech about the message on June 17, 2019, the government “accepted 62 amendments outright and another 37 with some modification for a total of 99.”

One other senator spoke that day and it was adjourned. On June 20, debate resumed with one and a half hours of speeches, a 15-minute bell and a vote. That was it. In the end, this chamber accepted the will of the elected members in the other place and did not insist on its remaining amendments, all in less time than we will be debating this time allocation motion.

If Senator Gold’s motion passes, I would argue that we can easily complete our deliberations on this message in the six hours ahead. I would be surprised, actually, if that time period is filled.

Our right to speak is not being curtailed in any tangible way. I am very comfortable with this path forward today. I consider time allocation in this instance an acceptable solution, and I will be voting for the motion to be adopted. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Housakos, do you have a question?

Hon. Pamela Wallin: I do want to say a few words about closure, or time allocation in this case, in part because we gathered as a group, and we have a lot of new members in our group and in the Senate. I think if we even set the legislation aside for a moment, it is important that we understand the principles on which this place operates.

I believe that time allocation should be deployed with caution and restraint, and only when all other options have been exhausted; so too should challenges to the Speaker of this chamber when he offers his considered opinions and rules.

We in this place are here tonight because some of us feel very strongly about a particular piece of legislation. It is, in my mind, not a partisan issue. Bill C-11 touches us in a very personal and particular way. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the business of journalism and media. I have strongly held views. They are not partisan views. You may believe, as the government claims, that this is simply an update of the Broadcasting Act. For me and others, it is a threat to free expression. That does not make me a demagogue. I worked in the business; I understand this bill.

Free expression is not just a slogan. It’s not just free speech on a banner. Free expression is very much a two-way street: the right to speak freely, but the right to hear a wide range of views, to inform ourselves and to share our ideas that may differ. That is at the core of a democracy.

So whether it is the bill or the use of time allocation, the issue is pretty fundamental to how this place operates. What we are seeing is a clash of two fundamental principles of our parliamentary tradition. Governments are, indeed, elected and should expect to pass their legislation in a reasonable amount of time. But when governments run roughshod, they can expect resistance. That is what happened in the other place with the committee process.

Time allocation is a bit of an offshoot of closure, I guess. It is a tool that the government has every right to use, but so too does the opposition have a right to use the tools available to them to delay votes and to have hour-long bells before we vote, as annoying and as frustrating as that may be. It comes back to the age-old debate about the role of the Senate. It is our job to offer — or even impose from time to time — sober second thought, whether the government likes it or not. We are not obliged to defer to the other place. That is a choice we will make in this chamber.

I must say that what has particularly struck me in this debate is about the behaviour of the House of Commons committees. The process was nothing short of appalling. Debates were summarily shut down and motions were passed in secret. Debate was suspended and witnesses were sent home. It makes the obligation for us in this chamber all the more powerful and important. To give voice to those who were denied a voice — that is our job. That is what the very definition of the Senate is. It is very core to our role as parliamentarians. We are not a secondary house. We’re not something that is just an add-on to the process that goes on in the other place. We have a role as parliamentarians.

For many of us, this bill is a problem. Some of us find it truly offensive. But in the end, we also realize that the government will have its way. It will be a little messy. It is certainly not efficient, but democracy is messy. We must consider the consequences of our actions on both sides of the two that are debating here. If the government wants its bills passed, it should engage in discussion and negotiation. I don’t like the fact that tomorrow our committees will probably be cancelled so that we will carry on debate. If you want your legislation passed, you should create the circumstances where our committees can sit. The opposition needs to consider the implications of that as well.

A mind greater than mine once said, “The first act of all persuasion is clarity of purpose.”

This will not be our last controversial debate over legislation, but we owe all of those whom we represent that clarity of purpose, to have an honest debate. But more importantly, to respect the fundamentally different views that Canadians and senators can hold about this bill or about the right of government to limit debate because if you cannot offer people a vision of what they should do, you won’t be able to persuade them about the things they shouldn’t do. That is a challenge to our leaders in this place, and it’s a challenge to each and every one of us. Thank you.

Hon. Tony Dean: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to the time allocation motion for Bill C-11. This is, to say the least, an extraordinary day in the chamber, and yet, in some ways, more of the same.

I will start by saying that I support the motion. Our Conservative colleagues — and they are our colleagues — have once again laid out just about everything that they don’t like about an independent Senate. And it has also become more evident as the day has gone by that our Conservative colleagues would have been happy to see the demise of this bill. I certainly don’t feel the same way.

“We should have changed the Rules,” as we were told earlier today. Well, we gave that a try, and we faced a barrage of obstacles. That’s probably to be expected because our Conservative friends found every possible way to shut that down at the Rules Committee. They like the world just the way that it is, and I understand that — that sort of goes with being Conservative and change-resistant.

Our Conservative colleagues made the case that the Government Representative in the Senate did not have the power to move time allocation because he’s a non-affiliated senator; he’s not a member of a political party. They would have preferred to see a Government Representative Office, or GRO, with no powers, while conveniently retaining all the powers that they have to delay. That would be very convenient, indeed, wouldn’t it? That is what we have heard today.

Not surprisingly, our Conservative colleagues are no strangers to time allocation, and we’ve heard that already. It was first adopted in the Senate in 1991. Since then, it has been used 68 times. During the Forty-first Parliament, under the previous Conservative government, notice of motion for time allocation was given 24 times in the Senate. On two of those occasions, the notice was withdrawn. Therefore, time allocation was used 22 times by Conservative senators during the Forty-first Parliament.

Senator Gold has noted some of the more aggressive and fast-tracked Conservative time allocation motions — and it was on some quite important bills: Some of the bills in question included Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, which made sweeping changes to the Canada Elections Act; and Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, which expanded state powers, policing and national security powers, while undermining civil liberties and democratic rights. Both bills received Charter challenges after their swift passage.

This was business as usual for our Conservative colleagues. So I find it a little bit rich that our colleagues have seen the light, temporarily at least, in accusing the government of shutting down debate on a bill which, as we’ve heard already, has been before Parliament for two years, has been addressed by 142 witnesses and has had significant time for debate and deliberation — and which was an electoral promise in the last election. It is our duty as senators to ensure that the bill can reach a final vote.

This is the first time in seven years, obviously, that the Government Representative has invoked time allocation. We’ve heard that this followed many attempts to come to an agreement, to negotiate and to move the bill to a final vote. Time allocation is not what any of us would have wished for, but, after a significant amount of review, the Government Representative obviously decided, as is his right, that there is interest in moving this to a vote using the tool he has at his disposal: time allocation. We know, and the Speaker has confirmed tonight, that this is eligible in the Rules.

We have heard that Bill C-11 is the most debated piece of legislation in Canadian history. Consequently, none of us can reasonably say that we haven’t had enough time to study the bill. Our colleagues in the chamber have spoken at length about the clear objectives of the bill, as well as the very technical details in which this legislation will create new regulatory requirements for Canada’s legacy broadcasters and online social media platforms. We have learned, colleagues, all that we are going to learn, and it’s time to bring the bill to a final vote.

Balancing rules is obviously important in any context but, among other things, some rules have established an unproductive and conflict-based Senate in which the ability of the official opposition to endlessly delay the progress of bills — through the use of adjournments — is theoretically offset by the government’s ability to time allocate, while cutting short debates on bills. At their very worst, our current Rules permit a single senator to delay and frustrate proposed legislation for months and — as we’ve seen in some cases — years by depriving the Senate from even voting on it. We’ve seen many examples of that.

Tonight, it’s clear once again that Senate Conservatives have been unhappy about the shift to a more independent and less partisan Senate from the outset. It’s no surprise, is it?

Tonight, we heard that Senator Plett — I’m glad that you find this so amusing — is still lamenting the loss of the “take turns in power” duopoly. We had to argue, and we had to negotiate — when we came here as independent senators — for office space, for resources, for committee seats and, in the longer term, for more equity in the complex world of rules in this place. Nothing came easy, so spare us the advice to “Just go and change the Rules if you don’t like them.”

It doesn’t end there, does it? We also entered a Senate still reeling from a scathing Auditor General’s report on spending scandals, ethics issues, a Senate Administration leadership structure without a single point of accountability and a dark cloud of sexual harassment. That’s the context that we walked into.

Independent senators tackled these long-standing, long-ignored issues one at a time. The long-delayed recommendation on an independent audit function has been addressed. We fought hard and achieved support for a much stronger workplace harassment policy in the face of considerable delay and opposition. We have a Senate that is healthier and more efficient.

So, colleagues, while some in this place lament the old duopoly, they obviously feel comfortable with the same old hard‑nosed politics. By the way, I don’t believe for a moment that in the last few years of the Stephen Harper government, it was a golden time of sweetness and light for the Liberal opposition in this place. That’s fair enough, I think.

Let me conclude by saying that, like other independent senators, I’m grateful that I don’t have to take instructions from Pierre Poilievre, as I do not have to take instructions from Justin Trudeau. I would not have it any other way. I’m working with my colleagues in this place to do the best job I can for Canadians, bringing a policy-based approach to our work as opposed to a political one.

My final note is that I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues in every caucus and group in this place. We can do great things together if we work more effectively and more efficiently together.

The us-versus-them nature of some remarks that we have heard over the last months and years — and that we have heard this evening — tells me that we have some way to go in achieving this, but I still believe it’s worth our work. Thank you, colleagues.

Hon. Diane Bellemare: Honourable senators, I rise to speak to the motion to allocate time for the consideration of the motion, as amended, to respond to the message from the House of Commons regarding Bill C-11. First of all, I’m very impressed by the senators’ eloquent debate.

I intend to vote in favour of this motion to allocate time. This is a historic day on the road to modernizing the Senate, to making it a less partisan Senate. I will say a little more later to address some of the comments made by my Conservative colleagues.

Today we have, in a sense, broken a glass ceiling in our process of modernizing the Senate. We’re voting on a motion to allocate time in the context of a Senate with four groups plus the Government Representative. This is an entirely new situation. In the past, time allocation motions were passed with only two groups in the Senate, the Conservatives and the Liberals. One of the two parties always had a majority, so the time allocation motion was passed in order to speed up the debate.

At that time, both caucuses were affiliated with their party; they had party meetings. The government’s goal was to try to get their bills passed here, or studied, but fairly quickly. Now, with several groups, it is impossible to move as quickly. It’s not easy for a government to impose its will. I think that’s the difference between the Senate of today and the Senate of yesterday. In the Senate of the 41st Parliament and prior, because the government often held a majority in both Houses, it could impose its will. The only way for the opposition party to make its point was to use delay tactics, and the time allocation motion was there to prevent those delay tactics.

In today’s environment, everything has changed, and I think as long as there are groups in the Senate that are using strategies together with their colleagues in the other place, there is a very real possibility that stalling tactics will be used. Chapter 7, which deals with time allocation motions, is an eminently important tool to deal with this issue of delay tactics that are so frustrating because they prevent debate, they prevent us from playing our role as a chamber of sober second thought, and they also keep us from voting.

Today, with the Speaker’s ruling, which was supported by everyone, we have shattered a glass ceiling. This doesn’t mean that we will use this practice often. I don’t believe that the Government Representative in the Senate and his small team are interested in doing so, because it won’t necessarily work given the number of groups. Therefore, the motion for time allocation without agreement will be used when there are delay tactics.

However, if all groups work to truly exercise their role of sober second thought, perhaps one day we won’t use rule 7-2, but rule 7-1, time allocation with agreement to indicate that there’s been sufficient debate. As there are no limits, we will be able to take the time needed. Our imaginations will ensure that we have orderly debates, such as those on medical assistance in dying, the bill to legalize cannabis and other bills.

The intent of my intervention is simply to highlight this point, especially for new senators who are perhaps wondering what they have gotten themselves into. I believe that today is an important day, but I don’t believe that this practice will be used often.

Therefore, I will be voting in favour of the motion. Thank you.

Hon. Claude Carignan: I’d like to say just a few words, given the late hour, to clarify some things. The first is that much is being made of the fact that this is the first time a time allocation motion is being used since the Trudeau government came to power. I would point out that the reason is simple: It’s because the Rules don’t allow it. That’s why there hasn’t been a time allocation motion before now, simply because the Rules are quite clear on the matter. I understand that Senator Gold used some manœuvre today to move a motion, but the fact remains that the Rules are very clear.

Second, much has also been made of using time allocation for bills. We are at the response to a message from the House of commons stage, a stage that couldn’t be more final for a bill — something we rarely see in fact. It has rarely happened that a message is sent to the House of Commons with amendments, only to have it returned to the Senate, followed by a reply.

If memory serves me, I’ve never seen a time allocation motion used at the response to a message from the House of Commons stage. At times rule 7-1 has been invoked on a bill, on amendments or at various reading stages, but I’ve never seen it used on a message from the Commons.

That is rather disappointing because this debate was going fairly well, beyond the matter of whether we took too much time or too little. Senator Gold mentioned that he’d reached an agreement with the leaders and that the bill had to be passed before the 10th or 11th, but that didn’t happen.

That’s fortunate, actually, because the debate continued and amendments were proposed by the other group. I no longer know what to call it because there are many groups with different names. Sometimes I get mixed up, but they all have colours that resemble the Senate chamber. These amendments were adopted and sent to the other place, and most of them were accepted. The debate was therefore not in vain. The fact that it went beyond the initial deadline set out by the government leader made it possible to continue the debate and propose amendments that were accepted by the House of Commons.

Although I don’t agree with the fact that senators were able to propose other amendments, the debate was still conducted properly and that led to improvements to the bill. What’s more, even though I think that the bill needed more amendments, the fact remains that a consensus will be reached by a vote. I’m sad that this is happening at the very end of this process. We’re at the message stage. Everything was going well. We had some success. Not me as a Conservative, because I obviously don’t agree with everything in the bill, but at least the process was complete, it was carried out in a respectful way, and we were able to make some improvements to the bill, many of which were accepted by the House of Commons. Now we’re at the very end of the process and we’re tripping at the finish line. We stopped running. The race stops here. I think that is a disgraceful end to a process that was nevertheless done by the book.

Senator Bellemare spoke of delay tactics. I invite you to read Serge Joyal’s book on the Senate. The Senate’s power to pass a time allocation motion is an important act to ensure fulsome debate within the context of the process that takes place here in this chamber.

I find it unfortunate that we’re ending this whole process with time allocation on a bill that’s specifically related to freedom of expression, especially when we were just days away from wrapping up debate. It’s also unfortunate that the Leader of the Government is using a time allocation motion to respond to a message to the House of Commons. I find that sad, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a time allocation motion at this stage. I don’t think it was the right time to set this precedent.

Again, Your Honour, I think we have to be respectful of the rules and respectful of each other, but this is a disappointing end to what has been an exemplary process up to this point.

[English]

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Carignan, do you have a question?

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on the government’s motion to invoke time allocation on the Senate’s debate on the message from the House of Commons on Bill C-11. As you have heard throughout this debate, the Senate’s amendments on Bill C-11 were the product of an intensive committee study process. The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications heard nearly 70 hours of testimony from 140 witnesses, with 67 additional written submissions on this topic. The committee studied this issue tirelessly.

Since we received the message, the product of that committee study, back from the House of Commons, we’ve debated for only six hours before Senator Gold gave notice of the government’s intent to invoke time allocation. The Senate government leaders, first Senator Harder and now Senator Gold, have boasted for years about this government’s disdain for invoking time allocation and the lack of necessity for them to ever employ it. So why is the government choosing to invoke time allocation now?

After almost eight years of governing, it is appalling that the Trudeau government is choosing to impose time allocation in the Senate for the first time on Bill C-11, of all bills. With this move, the Trudeau government is censoring debate on a censorship bill.

The irony is not lost on Canadians, honourable senators. Canadians have lost a lot of trust in this Trudeau government as this legislation has worked its way through Parliament. The backlash from Canadians has been fast and furious, as citizens, and especially young people, resent the government’s attempt to interfere with the content Canadians can access and produce online.

Honourable senators, I know your email inboxes and telephone voice mail are just like mine: overflowing with emails and phone calls from Canadians opposed to Bill C-11. It is sometimes overwhelming, but it is indicative of the fact that many Canadians understand that their freedom of access to information and their freedom of expression are at risk with this legislation. People, especially young people, routinely stop me to register their opposition on this bill, not only Conservative-leaning people but also lots of people who have previously voted for the Trudeau government, as well as those who haven’t ever been engaged in politics before.

Canada’s domestic online content producers — musicians, artists and influencers — are largely united against this bill because of the negative implications this bill has in limiting their reach online and, in turn, curtailing their livelihoods.

Time allocation is one of the most political parliamentary procedures. Many senators in this chamber assert themselves as independent and devoid of partisan affiliation, but they will ultimately turn and vote for the use of the legislative guillotine on Bill C-11 simply to support this Trudeau government.

Honourable senators, don’t be fooled. Time allocation is just the government’s very blunt tool to cut short debate and force their agenda through Parliament.

In this place, one of our roles as senators is to safeguard and preserve the rights and interests of minorities that may be overrun in a House of Commons elected by representation by population. How is invoking time allocation in accordance with that aspiration, honourable senators? I submit that it runs roughshod over the very minority interests senators are sworn to protect.

Why is the Trudeau government pushing so hard to see that Bill C-11 passes both houses of Parliament as soon as possible? The timing is perhaps curious, but not difficult to understand. Canada is in the midst of a national affordability crisis, where Canadians are finding it difficult to secure the very necessities of life, like a roof over their heads and food on their tables. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government has increased the cost of bureaucracy by 50%, yet finds itself embroiled in the biggest public service strike in Canada’s history, something that could only be accomplished by the most incompetent money managers in the Trudeau government.

Once Bill C-11 is passed, I suspect the Trudeau government will move to prorogue Parliament soon in an attempt to lower the heat and distract from its many scandals — and they’re really dodging quite a few scandals, honourable senators.

First and foremost, of course, is the alleged Beijing election interference scandal that continues to dog Prime Minister Trudeau, following him like a bad stench. Tied into that is the mess that his family’s Trudeau Foundation has devolved into. We’re told one day that the Prime Minister hasn’t been involved with the Trudeau Foundation for ten years, even though his brother signed the agreement for a questionable donation that points right back to the Chinese Communist government. In fact, you might even be tempted to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, until you open the newspaper and discover his office hosted a meeting of the Trudeau Foundation and senior government officials right within the confines of his Prime Minister’s Office.

Every day seems to bring more bad news for this Prime Minister, and we know that answering for his behaviour is not high on the list of his list of priorities. Prorogation has the advantage of keeping the Prime Minister well away from a pesky and intrusive opposition and media questions on Parliament Hill. Instead, he can hide away out of view, waiting until his Special Rapporteur magically reveals, just before the May long weekend, that — surprise — there is no need for a public inquiry into Beijing election interference, leaving the Prime Minister free to go to as many $9,000-a-night luxury beach villas as he wants. Surf’s up.

Meanwhile, with Bill C-11 rammed through Parliament, the long arm of the Trudeau government will have the ability to manipulate and influence the information Canadians see and produce online, just in time for another election. How fortuitous.

Honourable senators, you don’t have to provide Prime Minister Trudeau with political cover by passing this legislation. Our Senate produced 26 very solid and reasonable amendments to Bill C-11 after weeks of careful study, research and witness testimony. What did the Liberal-NDP majority in the House of Commons do with them? Sure, they accepted 20 of the 26 amendments, which sounds like a win, until you look closer and discover that they rejected some of the most substantive amendments. That included the most important amendment on exempting user-generated content, proposed by two Trudeau-appointed senators, Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Simons, from the largest group in the Senate.

The Trudeau government passed the amended bill back to the Senate, and now it is once again our choice to make. The government still refuses to protect user-generated content in the actual legislation, instead insisting that appending such a promise in the wording of the motion will suffice. The motion reads:

That the Senate take note of the Government of Canada’s public assurance that Bill C-11 will not apply to user-generated digital content and its commitment to issue policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission accordingly . . .

Honourable senators, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal promises come and go. Do you remember electoral reform, 2 billion trees, clean drinking water on all reserves and a carbon tax capped at $50 per tonne? It’s funny how those promises just vaporized into the ether. This one will too.

The Trudeau government wants senators and, by extension, Canadians to just trust them, kind of like how the Senate government leader consulted with our leader before declaring a failed agreement and moving time allocation — that kind of trust? There is no reason to think that this Liberal promise will hold up any better than any of the many other broken Liberal promises.

The Liberals forced this message through the House of Commons side and now they are forcing it through the Senate with this imposition of time allocation. Honourable senators, here is your chance to prove your independence. We have the opportunity and the obligation to push back for the benefit of all Canadians who value freedom of thought and expression. If those of you who were appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau vote with the government to shut down debate, consider that to be the last vestige of the independent Trudeau Senate. You hold the majority here, so you decide. Here is hoping you choose wisely. Thank you.

[Translation]

Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I rise tonight at this late hour not to offer any new groundbreaking analysis on this well-debated topic of time allocation, but simply to join other colleagues in offering my opinion.

This has been a contentious and at times heated debate, as has been the case with Bill C-11, generally. While there is much disagreement about the use of time allocation, it is clear that all senators in this chamber are acting in what they believe to be the best interest of Canadians.

I support the motion. I do not agree with the argument that the government is stifling debate, because the facts simply do not support that assertion. Colleagues, the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications has done extraordinary work in studying Bill C-11, both in comprehensiveness and length. In the Senate alone, along with a pre-study of Bill C-11 that began on May 31 of last year, Transport and Communications held 31 meetings on the bill from the time it began its study on October 25, 2022. It heard from 138 witnesses over the course of 67.5 hours of meeting time. Beyond this incredible number of witnesses who appeared before the committee, it received another 67 written submissions. Of the 31 meetings held, 9 were just for clause-by-clause consideration, which began on November 23 of last year.

During clause-by-clause consideration, 73 amendments were proposed, 26 of these 73 proposals were adopted to a total of 11 different clauses. There were 13 subamendments proposed, of which 2 were adopted, along with 8 recorded votes.

Let us all spare a thought for the fortitude of the procedural clerks and other committee staff who handled all of that. Colleagues, those statistics do not even take into account the eight days overall during which debate occurred on the messages between the Senate and the House of Commons between February 2 and April 19 of this year.

There is also, of course, the work of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. That committee heard from 80 witnesses in 32 hours over 12 meetings from the time it began its study on May 24, 2022, and debated approximately 100 amendments in its three clause-by-clause sessions, which began on June 14 of last year. It also received 52 written submissions. That, colleagues, is just Bill C-11.

Of course, there was also a full study done on Bill C-11’s predecessor in the last Parliament, then Bill C-10, at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and the Senate began second-reading debate before the dissolution of the Forty-third Parliament.

The Senate has spent more time on Bill C-11 — everyone has said this — than it has on any other piece of legislation in its 156-year history.

Honestly, colleagues, what more is there to say? The Senate, especially the members of the Committee on Transport and Communications, has more than done its work. The committee listened and debated, and so has the Senate. To argue that the government is crushing debate is simply not true.

This is the first time this government has invoked time allocation in the Senate since the start of the Forty-second Parliament in December 2015, nearly seven and a half years ago. In the Forty-first Parliament, however, under the previous government, time allocation was invoked 21 times in less than four years. It seems that support for time allocation depends on where you sit in the chamber.

I will close by reiterating again, colleagues, that time allocation is appropriate in this situation, where the bill in question has been so thoroughly and exhaustively debated, with its principle being debated over two different Parliaments. There is nothing left to say on this bill that has not already been said many times. I thank you, colleagues.

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Carignan, do you have a question?

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on the government’s motion to invoke time allocation on the Senate’s debate on the message from the House of Commons on Bill C-11. As you have heard throughout this debate, the Senate’s amendments on Bill C-11 were the product of an intensive committee study process. The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications heard nearly 70 hours of testimony from 140 witnesses, with 67 additional written submissions on this topic. The committee studied this issue tirelessly.

Since we received the message, the product of that committee study, back from the House of Commons, we’ve debated for only six hours before Senator Gold gave notice of the government’s intent to invoke time allocation. The Senate government leaders, first Senator Harder and now Senator Gold, have boasted for years about this government’s disdain for invoking time allocation and the lack of necessity for them to ever employ it. So why is the government choosing to invoke time allocation now?

After almost eight years of governing, it is appalling that the Trudeau government is choosing to impose time allocation in the Senate for the first time on Bill C-11, of all bills. With this move, the Trudeau government is censoring debate on a censorship bill.

The irony is not lost on Canadians, honourable senators. Canadians have lost a lot of trust in this Trudeau government as this legislation has worked its way through Parliament. The backlash from Canadians has been fast and furious, as citizens, and especially young people, resent the government’s attempt to interfere with the content Canadians can access and produce online.

Honourable senators, I know your email inboxes and telephone voice mail are just like mine: overflowing with emails and phone calls from Canadians opposed to Bill C-11. It is sometimes overwhelming, but it is indicative of the fact that many Canadians understand that their freedom of access to information and their freedom of expression are at risk with this legislation. People, especially young people, routinely stop me to register their opposition on this bill, not only Conservative-leaning people but also lots of people who have previously voted for the Trudeau government, as well as those who haven’t ever been engaged in politics before.

Canada’s domestic online content producers — musicians, artists and influencers — are largely united against this bill because of the negative implications this bill has in limiting their reach online and, in turn, curtailing their livelihoods.

Time allocation is one of the most political parliamentary procedures. Many senators in this chamber assert themselves as independent and devoid of partisan affiliation, but they will ultimately turn and vote for the use of the legislative guillotine on Bill C-11 simply to support this Trudeau government.

Honourable senators, don’t be fooled. Time allocation is just the government’s very blunt tool to cut short debate and force their agenda through Parliament.

In this place, one of our roles as senators is to safeguard and preserve the rights and interests of minorities that may be overrun in a House of Commons elected by representation by population. How is invoking time allocation in accordance with that aspiration, honourable senators? I submit that it runs roughshod over the very minority interests senators are sworn to protect.

Why is the Trudeau government pushing so hard to see that Bill C-11 passes both houses of Parliament as soon as possible? The timing is perhaps curious, but not difficult to understand. Canada is in the midst of a national affordability crisis, where Canadians are finding it difficult to secure the very necessities of life, like a roof over their heads and food on their tables. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government has increased the cost of bureaucracy by 50%, yet finds itself embroiled in the biggest public service strike in Canada’s history, something that could only be accomplished by the most incompetent money managers in the Trudeau government.

Once Bill C-11 is passed, I suspect the Trudeau government will move to prorogue Parliament soon in an attempt to lower the heat and distract from its many scandals — and they’re really dodging quite a few scandals, honourable senators.

First and foremost, of course, is the alleged Beijing election interference scandal that continues to dog Prime Minister Trudeau, following him like a bad stench. Tied into that is the mess that his family’s Trudeau Foundation has devolved into. We’re told one day that the Prime Minister hasn’t been involved with the Trudeau Foundation for ten years, even though his brother signed the agreement for a questionable donation that points right back to the Chinese Communist government. In fact, you might even be tempted to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, until you open the newspaper and discover his office hosted a meeting of the Trudeau Foundation and senior government officials right within the confines of his Prime Minister’s Office.

Every day seems to bring more bad news for this Prime Minister, and we know that answering for his behaviour is not high on the list of his list of priorities. Prorogation has the advantage of keeping the Prime Minister well away from a pesky and intrusive opposition and media questions on Parliament Hill. Instead, he can hide away out of view, waiting until his Special Rapporteur magically reveals, just before the May long weekend, that — surprise — there is no need for a public inquiry into Beijing election interference, leaving the Prime Minister free to go to as many $9,000-a-night luxury beach villas as he wants. Surf’s up.

Meanwhile, with Bill C-11 rammed through Parliament, the long arm of the Trudeau government will have the ability to manipulate and influence the information Canadians see and produce online, just in time for another election. How fortuitous.

Honourable senators, you don’t have to provide Prime Minister Trudeau with political cover by passing this legislation. Our Senate produced 26 very solid and reasonable amendments to Bill C-11 after weeks of careful study, research and witness testimony. What did the Liberal-NDP majority in the House of Commons do with them? Sure, they accepted 20 of the 26 amendments, which sounds like a win, until you look closer and discover that they rejected some of the most substantive amendments. That included the most important amendment on exempting user-generated content, proposed by two Trudeau‑appointed senators, Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Simons, from the largest group in the Senate.

The Trudeau government passed the amended bill back to the Senate, and now it is once again our choice to make. The government still refuses to protect user-generated content in the actual legislation, instead insisting that appending such a promise in the wording of the motion will suffice. The motion reads:

That the Senate take note of the Government of Canada’s public assurance that Bill C-11 will not apply to user‑generated digital content and its commitment to issue policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission accordingly . . .

Honourable senators, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal promises come and go. Do you remember electoral reform, 2 billion trees, clean drinking water on all reserves and a carbon tax capped at $50 per tonne? It’s funny how those promises just vaporized into the ether. This one will too.

The Trudeau government wants senators and, by extension, Canadians to just trust them, kind of like how the Senate government leader consulted with our leader before declaring a failed agreement and moving time allocation — that kind of trust? There is no reason to think that this Liberal promise will hold up any better than any of the many other broken Liberal promises.

The Liberals forced this message through the House of Commons side and now they are forcing it through the Senate with this imposition of time allocation. Honourable senators, here is your chance to prove your independence. We have the opportunity and the obligation to push back for the benefit of all Canadians who value freedom of thought and expression. If those of you who were appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau vote with the government to shut down debate, consider that to be the last vestige of the independent Trudeau Senate. You hold the majority here, so you decide. Here is hoping you choose wisely. Thank you.

[Translation]