Hon. Frances Lankin: Honourable senators, I’ve listened very carefully to the discussion tonight. It has ranged from a clear discussion of the merits of using time allocation at this point in time into discussions about reform of the Senate, where we’re headed or where we should be headed. There is no doubt there is a lot of disagreement in this chamber still. I live in hope that we will continue to have these discussions and perhaps come to a point where we can see a road forward together.

One of the things I would like to say about the speeches I’ve heard tonight is that there isn’t one of them with which I didn’t agree with some elements of what people said. I also disagreed with some elements of what people said.

One of the things that makes it difficult for me with my particular temperament and not being able to keep quiet when Senator Plett says certain things — of course, he can’t keep quiet when I say certain things either; it’s good across the floor — is when a position of the meritorious behaviour of the opposition is put forward as only speaking on behalf of Canadians. We all speak on behalf of Canadians. There are Canadians who have polarized views on this particular piece of legislation before us, as there is on others.

This is on both sides; I include this for the GRO — the Government Representative Office — as well as for the opposition: There isn’t a monopoly on representing what Canadians think. There are tons of scorn heaped upon us from people opposite who say that we’re not independent and put a partisan label on us. That would suit their purposes in terms of their concerns about a loss of official opposition status in a reformed Senate. We understand that those are the things at stake, but all of the people here represent voices of Canadians.

Your job, as has been said, is to bring forward and highlight the voices of Canadians who are not heard through other processes. That does not mean that we will necessarily all agree with what all of those voices have to say. It’s like just a couple of hours ago, maybe it was, when Senator Plett took a shot at me and said that I said that the Rules Committee worked on consensus and that should never happen. Well, no, but I don’t think the Rules Committee works on consensus; I think the Rules Committee puts forward a position of working on a consensus and certain people say, “No, no, no. We don’t have a consensus.” For me, that is exercising a veto, essentially.

We have these tensions, and I think they come primarily from a different understanding and desire for the direction of the Senate.

When it comes to what that means at this moment with the time allocation motion in front of us, I have a history in partisan politics and I hate time allocation motions. I think people should be responsible enough to take the debate as far as it needs to go to hear the variety of voices and to ensure that we have a deliberative discourse that allows us to hear each other.

There is nothing about how this chamber operates that actually supports that.

When I got here, I was appalled when I saw this practice where one person would speak and another person would stand and take the adjournment. It would sometimes be two or three weeks before we got back to that person. How do you listen to each other and ensure you have a coherent debate going forward? I was told that senators needed time to prepare after what they heard.

Maybe it’s not a good example — maybe it’s just the example that I lived in the Ontario legislature — but when we had debates and discussions when a bill came forward, we worked at it and didn’t skip around and adjourn and not come back to it. We talked things through. We got to a point where, responsibly — most of the time — the points had been made. They’d been heard in committee; they made sure there was a full range of witnesses. In fact, every group was able to put forward names, so you could tell there was a full range of views coming forward. Then we debated it out in the legislature, and we came to the point where we voted.

The problem here — and the reason it sticks in my craw that I’m going to support time allocation — is because I have seen with this bill that we have had fulsome debate. In fact, nobody has really talked about the fact that there was a bill in the prior Parliament — Bill C-10 — that was the same as this. It has been around a few times here. We’ve had fulsome debate in this chamber. We had fulsome committee hearings. If that makes up for something that was lacking in the other chamber, as Senator Wallin pointed out, then we have done that; we have made up for that.

I think the characterization that I heard earlier tonight from the leader of the opposition, namely that the government was ramming this through, was unfortunate. I don’t think that is an accurate description. We are at the message stage. For those who are listening and wondering what this is all about, we don’t have the bill before us right now. We are debating putting a time limit on how long we can debate about the message that came from the other place, and the question, fundamentally, is do we accept the message or send it back? And yet, a number of people there would propose that the six hours that have been set aside, one, is not enough; two, is the representative ramming it through; and, three, is not respectful of the voices. None of that, in my view, is true.

I wish we would have an opportunity to have a real debate about the vision of reform in the Senate. If the opposition is tired of feeling like they’re not respected in the things they say, I would say that I respect them in the things they say. I don’t often respect them in the things they do in terms of how they conduct themselves in this place, but I have to say that sometimes I descend to the same level. I apologize for that, Mr. Speaker. You’re the one who has to worry about that the most.

But I would love to have that discussion. I’m not opposed to seeing opposition voices and the Conservative values brought forward. I believe in cognitive diversity. I believe in having all these views on the table. I do oppose you trying to label who I am in my politics, like the colleague directly across from me who tonight said, “You’re a Liberal.” That’s interesting. I voted Conservative, and I’ve voted New Democrat. Sorry, Prime Minister, I’ve never voted for your party.

Don’t tell me who I am. I have my own values and politics, and I bring them to bear in the best way I can in the spirit and respect of what I think this chamber is about. The basic problem is that I don’t think we have an agreement about what this chamber is about.

Thank you very much, Your Honour.

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