Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Welcome, Minister LeBlanc.

Minister, the Prime Minister’s made-up Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference has been silent since being named to this post on March 15.

This is, of course, just what the Prime Minister wanted by naming an old family friend, neighbour and Trudeau Foundation member to the position. The terms of reference for the made-up Special Rapporteur say that he is “to provide reports on a rolling basis.” Minister, think about all the serious revelations about Beijing’s interference in our country that have been reported in the last six weeks. It is obvious that a public inquiry is required, yet we have heard nothing from the Special Rapporteur.

Minister, what communication has taken place between the Special Rapporteur and your government since March 15? Have any reports or recommendations been brought forward? Has he interviewed any ministers or their staff?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, a few minutes ago, you committed to sharing the contact information for the Special Rapporteur as per the terms of reference that I suggested. You agreed to share that contact information with us in the Senate.

The terms of reference say “interested persons.” I’m hoping, minister, that this information will be shared with the Canadian public. I would like your commitment that it will be, in fact, shared with the Canadian public as per the reference letter because, if it isn’t, minister, would you not agree that it will, again, look like another cover-up?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Your Honour, I rise on a point of order. Thank you.

Your Honour, my point of order pertains to the notice of motion given by the Leader of the Government in the Senate on April 20, when he notified the Senate that he would be moving time allocation on Bill C-11. At the time, Senator Gold said the following:

Honourable senators, I wish to advise the Senate that I have been unable to reach an agreement with the representatives of the recognized parties to allocate time to 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.

Therefore, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

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.

Your Honour, although it is no secret that this government wishes to ram this bill through as quickly as it can in order to avoid — I’m happy that Senator Lankin finds some humour in this — the continued embarrassment over its unpopularity, Senator Gold’s notice of motion does not correctly apply the Rules of the Senate and, in fact, violates them.

In this regard, there are three things, Your Honour, that I would like to bring to your attention.

First is that Senator Gold’s notice of motion did not follow the prescribed format. As I mentioned, when Senator Gold gave notice of the motion, he stated:

. . . I wish to advise the Senate that I have been unable to reach an agreement with the representatives of the recognized parties to allocate time to the motion . . . .

Yet, section 7-2(1) of the Rules states clearly:

At any time during a sitting, the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Government may state that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree . . . .

Your Honour, the prescribed format for the notice of motion under rule 7-2(1) is quite clear. Because the notice of motion by Senator Gold does not respect the required form, it is invalid. As everyone knows, there are precise ways to give a notice of motion, and the table, of course, can provide that script for all of us. Senator Gold deliberately chose not to follow the script — not to follow the language provided for in the Rules. I would then argue that since proper notice was not given, Senator Gold cannot move the motion today.

My second point, Your Honour, is that in addition to not following the form prescribed by the Rules of the Senate, Senator Gold’s motion did not meet the necessary prerequisites. As I already noted, section 7-2(1) of the Rules states:

At any time during a sitting, the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Government may state that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree to allocate time to conclude an adjourned debate . . . .

Your Honour, I do not wish to use unparliamentary language here. We have people who are quick to jump to that and call points of order on that. Allow me just to say that in making this statement, Senator Gold misled the Senate. Senator Gold never offered, privately or publicly, formally or informally, to meet to discuss a timeline for debate on this motion.

Please allow me to provide some details and context on the discussion I had with Senator Gold on his motion in reply to the House message on Bill C-11.

Your Honour, on Monday, April 17, I had a meeting with Senator Gold along with the leaders of the other recognized groups. He asked us what our plans were on this motion. I made it clear to all present, I think, that I could not give a definitive answer until we had seen the motion. We had just come off a two-week break. The government had lots of time to draft their motion. On Monday night, the motion had not been drafted, and we were told that. We were told that we would have it by midnight.

What Senator Gold was asking us to do was commit how and when we would vote on a motion that we had not seen. I finally received the motion on Tuesday morning. It was sent out the night before to my chief of staff. I think he received it around ten o’clock at night; I’m not sure of the time. I got it in the morning.

Later that day, Senator Gold called about that and other matters and suggested that we should meet sometime to discuss this matter. My first suggestion was that we have a meeting on Monday — yesterday — to discuss this. Senator Gold suggested that was a little late for his preferred time and that he would like to meet earlier. I replied that I could make myself available on Thursday if he wanted to meet, and he indicated that he would get back to me. He never did.

Hearing one of the bells on Thursday afternoon — late afternoon — I went across to see Senator Gold in this chamber. His deputy leader was there with him. I asked him if he thought we should have a short meeting. His response — and I don’t want to say this as verbatim — was along the lines of “now is not the time.”

You will also recall, Your Honour, that it was the deputy leader of the de facto government group in the Senate that moved a motion last Thursday to adjourn the debate on Senator MacDonald’s subamendment. It was not the Conservatives. You will further recall that the Conservatives originally opposed the adjournment. We were happy to have the question called on Senator MacDonald’s subamendment. However, it was adjourned, so we could not do that.

Immediately after the adjournment, Senator Gold rose in this place and moved his notice of motion. After only six hours of debate on a bill where we had had 140 witnesses appear at committee and over 70 hours of testimony and without any formal or informal attempt to reach an agreement on the timeline for the debate, Senator Gold rose in this chamber and stated that he could not reach an agreement with me — or recognized parties, of which I am the only one.

Your Honour, on every controversial bill that has come through this place since approximately 2017, I have been at the negotiating table and helped negotiate with the Leader of the Government and to come to mutually acceptable arrangements, and this includes negotiating second reading on Bill C-11, along with the timelines at committee and, indeed, Your Honour, at third reading. This regularly happened as well with Senator Gold’s predecessor, Senator Harder.

However, when the message comes back from the House of Commons on the same bill, Senator Gold does not have the decency to pick up the phone and call me. Instead, he misrepresents the facts to this chamber in an astonishing and self‑serving way.

Senator Gold says we have failed to agree, but I would note that there has been no failure to agree because there have been no discussions on the need to allocate time on the motion in question. Consequently, there has been no opportunity, Your Honour, to either agree or disagree. Although we are becoming quite accustomed to the fact that this government does not take seriously the need to consult, I do not think that diminishes the requirement of this rule for the government to do so.

The Rules do not permit the government to impose time allocation simply because the recognized parties do not adhere to the government’s preferred schedule. The language in the Rules is clear. The government can only use rule 7-2(1) when there is no agreement, Your Honour. In order for agreement not to be reached, there must at least be a discussion that includes a proposed timeline.

On this point, Your Honour, I would like to draw your attention to a number of citations, practices and authorities, although I am certain you have reviewed all of these. If not, I’m sure you will review these yourself. Regardless, I believe it is important to place them on the record.

In commenting on time allocation, the Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada quotes the following from page 660 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

While it has become the most frequently used mechanism for curtailing debate, time allocation remains a means of bringing the parties together to negotiate an acceptable distribution of the time of the House.

Although referencing procedure in the House of Commons, it is quite clear by its inclusion in the Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada that the same expectation applies to this chamber, Your Honour.

Time allocation is a means of bringing the parties together to negotiate. Your Honour, I regret that no such bringing together of such parties happened, nor were there any negotiations. Instead, we have a unilateral decision by the Government Representative in the Senate to curtail debate on a motion that is of significant interest to many senators of all groups as well as to all Canadians.

This is not only inappropriate, it is against the Rules. Since Senator Gold never proposed nor discussed any timeline for debate on his motion on Bill C-11, he cannot use the provisions of rule 7-2. I suspect, Your Honour, that the government leader in the Senate will object to this argument by suggesting he did not need to make a proposal or have a discussion, but that he merely needed to observe that there is no agreement. That is incorrect, Your Honour.

First of all, it is incorrect in principle — and, again, I draw your attention to page 171 of the Companion to the Rules of the Senate, which quotes Erskine May Parliamentary Practice, 24th Edition, on page 469, which notes the following:

In addition, the impact of allocation of time or programme orders is to some extent mitigated either by consultations between the party representatives informally or in the Business Committee or the Programming Committee in order to establish the greatest possible measure of agreement as to the most satisfactory disposal of the time available.

We see in the paragraph preceding this quote that the spirit of the rule permitting the government to move time allocation is couched in the need to balance the claims of business with the rights of debate. That balance is critical in maintaining societal respect for the role of Parliament, and obligates the government to engage in actual consultations prior to invoking the rule.

I would note, Your Honour, that this principle has been reaffirmed numerous times in practice in this chamber. I would like to draw your attention to two of those. The first one is a reference on page 171 of the Companion to the Rules of the Senate.

On September 20, 2000, Speaker Molgat made the following ruling on a point of order regarding a notice of motion to allocate time. Note that, at that time, rule 7-2 was known as rule 39(1).

In his ruling, Senator Molgat said the following:

Insofar as the point raised by the Honourable Senator Kinsella is concerned, I refer specifically to rule 39(1), which simply states that if “the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, from his or her place in the Senate, may state that the representatives of the parties have failed to agree to allocate a specified number of days or hours,” that allows the deputy leader to give notice.

Honourable senators, the deputy leader has stated that an agreement has not been reached. I have no means of knowing whether an agreement will be reached. All I have before me is a motion stating that if they have reached no agreement at this point, the rule has been followed and the terms have been set out. Therefore, I rule that the point of order is not valid.

I raise this citation, Your Honour, because a cursory reading of it seems to indicate that there is no need for the government to engage in consultations, but rather that it must only state that an agreement has not been reached. This, however, is incorrect.

Speaker Molgat was simply noting that he had no way of knowing whether an agreement had been reached, and he did so in the context of knowing full well that the parties had engaged in consultation. This was first acknowledged by the Deputy Leader of the Government earlier in the day on September 20, 2000, when he stated:

. . . my counterpart, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and I have been in discussion pursuant to my attempt to reach an agreement on the time to be given for third reading consideration of Bill C-37. We have been unable to reach such an agreement, but we will continue our discussions.

Senator Kinsella, who was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition at the time, went on to affirm this fact when he said:

The rule envisages some serious discussions to decide on the timeline for proceeding with a piece of government legislation.

Your Honour, in this case, we see that there was no disagreement between the government and the opposition over the fact that an attempt to reach an agreement through discussion and negotiation was first necessary before a notice of motion could be made for time allocation. The only issue at hand during that point of order was whether a notice could be made before such discussions were finished.

In that context, Speaker Molgat’s ruling made perfect sense, as noted by Senator Hays:

To interpret rule 39 as one that is only applicable when the relationship on a particular item of discussion is totally intractable would not be consistent with the spirit of the rules, or rule 39, or the spirit of doing business in this chamber.

He then went on to say:

Honourable senators, I simply say that discussions have taken place and they have not produced a conclusion on this side. In representing the government side, I feel that is adequate.

Your Honour, I would agree that Senator Hays is correct: If discussions had taken place and they had not produced a conclusion, then the conditions of rule 7-2 have been met. But, as I pointed out, that is not what happened with the notice of motion I am addressing today. Senator Gold made little or no attempt to discuss a timeline with me. Consequently, he has not met the prerequisites to invoke rule 7-2.

The second speaker’s ruling that I would like to draw your attention to — since I believe it is germane to this issue, Your Honour — took place on February 19, 2004. In that instance, Speaker Hays was also considering a point of order on a notice of motion for time allocation. Once again, the question at hand was not whether discussions had taken place but whether the discussions were adequate. At the time, the rule — rule 39(1) — read:

. . . the representatives of the parties have failed to agree to allocate a specified number of days or hours for consideration . . . .

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Senator Kinsella, was arguing that specific criterion had not been met.

But once again, the question was never whether consultations had taken place but whether they were adequate. In his response, Speaker Hays said the following:

Senator Kinsella’s point underlines the importance of precision in terms of reference to the rules. The presiding officer finds himself in an awkward position of who to believe, which is not an area I want to enter.

I will accept the notice of motion, but I will do it with this caution: Having listened to the exchange between the house leaders, I admonish them and other senators to pay close attention to the rules and to observe their requirements.

Speaker Hays accepted the notice of motion because both parties acknowledged that discussions had taken place. In doing so, he underscored that when referencing the Rules, precision is important.

Your Honour, I am asking that the same close attention be paid to the Rules in this case because, as I have noted, Senator Gold has failed to do this by not consulting, and his Notice of Motion is not in order with the Rules.

I have one final point to make, Your Honour, under our Rules. It is a disagreement between the recognized parties that triggered the use of time allocation. Rule 7-2(1) states:

At any time during a sitting, the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Government may state that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree . . . .

The term “recognized party” is defined in “Appendix I: Terminology of the Rules” as follows:

A recognized party in the Senate is composed of at least nine senators who are members of the same political party, which is registered under the Canada Elections Act, or has been registered under the Act within the past 15 years.

Your Honour, the Rules also contain a definition of what a “recognized parliamentary group” is. In fact, these terms are used throughout our Rules, making a clear distinction between a recognized party and a recognized group. Herein lies our dilemma, Your Honour. There is only one recognized party in the Senate, and that, Your Honour — and there are those in this chamber who are not happy with this — is the Conservative Party of Canada. The other three organized caucuses are parliamentary groups.

There cannot be a disagreement between recognized parties if there is only one. That is simple. I argue with myself occasionally, and I win most of those arguments. That is not the case here.

Over the last years, several changes were made to the Rules of the Senate. A lot of them pertain to the new reality of having not only parties, but also groups in the Senate. Yet, no such change was made to rule 7. This, Your Honour, was not an oversight. The Senate decided, in its wisdom, not to change the provision of rule 7, and I urge you, Your Honour, to simply follow the rule — and decide that with only one recognized party in the Senate, there cannot be disagreement. Therefore, on that point, Senator Gold’s motion is out of order.

Secondly, Your Honour, even if there was some convoluted way of interpreting parliamentary groups as the equivalent of recognized parties, Senator Gold’s motion would still be out of order.

There was never a meeting of the four parties or groups to discuss the timelines for the passage of Bill C-11, so there cannot be either agreement or disagreement under this scenario at this point.

Finally, what the government is asking you to do, Your Honour, is to not only rewrite the Rules to read “groups” where the word “parties” is, but to also see the Leader of the Government as one of those parties when this is not how the rule reads.

Senator Gold is a non-affiliated senator. He is neither the leader of a recognized party, nor the leader of a recognized group. He even says that he is not the Leader of the Government — he is a non-affiliated senator.

Non-affiliated senators have no recognized role in discussions pertaining to time allocation, Your Honour. Let me repeat that for all senators here: Non-affiliated senators have no recognized role in discussions pertaining to time allocation.

As mentioned in the sixth edition of Beauchesne’s Parliamentary Rules & Forms, on page 162, and as quoted in the Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada, “The wording representatives of the parties . . . does not include independent Members.” As an independent member, when Senator Gold says, “I cannot reach an agreement,” it is entirely irrelevant, as he does not have the standing under rule 7 to be part of any agreement or disagreement.

You will note that the Leader of the Government is not mentioned in section 7 of the Senate Rules as a necessary participant in an agreement or disagreement to trigger time allocation. This means that his role in such a Senate with respect to rule 7 would simply be to take note that an agreement has or has not been struck, and to give the notice required.

As I said, the current majority in the Senate has been ruling since 2016, and there has never been an attempt, Your Honour, to change the language of section 7 of the Senate Rules.

Furthermore, it was only a year ago, Your Honour, that the government opened up the Parliament of Canada Act and made amendments, and yet they did not change this part. Why?

Now the government and its senators have the gall to ask you, Your Honour, to make changes to the Rules of the Senate through this Notice of Motion. However, Your Honour — with the absolute, utmost respect — your role as defined in section 2 of the Senate Rules is to rule on points of order. You have no mandate to rewrite the Rules of the Senate simply because the government of the day thinks it might be convenient to pass the buck to you, Your Honour, and ask you to do that.

Frankly, I find this attempt to ask you to rewrite all of section 7 of the Rules quite offensive. It is very unfortunate, Your Honour, that Senator Gold would put you, on the eve of your retirement, in a position where you are being asked to do something which is not within your power to do. They are asking you to do the job of the Rules Committee and, thereafter, the entire Senate. It would not surprise me, Your Honour, if you were currently under a lot of pressure from the government leader here in this Senate — Senator Gold — and the Prime Minister’s Office to follow their wishes on this matter. I urge you, and I plead with you, Your Honour, to not yield to those pressures.

As you know, Your Honour, in 2014, the Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said the following:

If the Senate serves a purpose at all, it is to act as a check on the extraordinary power of the prime minister and his office . . . .

If there is one truly independent senator in this chamber, Your Honour, that is you. You have done a tremendous job, as was stated even earlier today, in being independent, and in making rulings that were clearly thought through and that showed your independence.

You are leaving soon. I urge you, Your Honour, not to mar your excellent reputation and impartial track record by rewriting the Rules of the Senate in the eleventh hour of your tenure — rather than respecting and enforcing them.

I know, Your Honour, that you will do the right thing, and I look forward to your ruling on this matter. Thank you.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): This is truly a dark day for the Senate of Canada.

With respect, Your Honour, you said that the government leader says — or you refer to belonging to the government party. Senator Gold, of course, does not belong to the government party. By his own admission, he doesn’t belong to the government party.

I am extremely disappointed that this ruling would have come down without it being in writing. Clearly, this was — please, senators. I respect your right to your opinion. Have respect for mine. Except for yours, possibly. I’m getting a little tired.

Your Honour, I have the utmost respect for you, even though I may struggle with respect for others, but I want to have the utmost respect for this chamber and everybody here. And just because we, as the opposition, have a role to play as the opposition, which Senator Lankin has been a part of and, when she was a member of the opposition, did what this opposition party does, and she has a very short memory.

Senator Lankin: I never said —

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I was not going to rise on this point of order. I was going to let you make a ruling. For some reason the government leader — which he is now hopefully going to be styled as forever and a day, and we will certainly be making that request to Internal Economy that everything is changed here, that he is now the government leader, because, of course, in your ruling you styled him as such — but that’s not what I’m speaking to.

Senator Gold just simply referenced my comments as somehow being relevant in this point of order. My comments that I made about Senator Gold were during my speech. He had the opportunity to debate those comments, and he did that forcefully and vigorously.

I said earlier today, Your Honour, I may not agree with Senate colleagues, but I will defend to the death your right to your opinion.

Senator Gold has an opinion of our conversation. I have a different opinion. I relayed to this chamber what my opinion was, and he relayed what his opinion was, and they were completely opposite. One of them clearly cannot be entirely correct, and the other one possibly entirely false. I’m not sure. I had an opinion of something, and he, according to what he is saying, had a different opinion.

That is not what this point of order at all, Your Honour, was related to. The exchange that Senator Gold and I had in this chamber was about a point of order that I legitimately raised on an issue that has been a long-festering issue for seven or eight years.

Senator Housakos and then Senator Carignan spoke to an issue that happened by other senators, not Senator Gold making disparaging comments possibly towards me. I take no exception to what Senator Gold said in any of his speech, and I hope he doesn’t take exception to what I said. But I hope, Your Honour, that you will entirely ignore the comments that Senator Gold just made in regard to this point of order because they were entirely irrelevant to this point of order.

[Translation]

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.