The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Lankin, your time has expired.

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. 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]