Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: Honourable senators, the point at which I relieved you from your hunger pangs was when I was explaining the difference between my view of how we get our committee seats and the dissenters’ view. If you are puzzled about the dissenters’ view, it is the following: That whatever deal caucuses and groups may negotiate and, how that deal may be expressed in the Selection Committee report, it is the Senate that must give its blessing before the report and the deal can be effected.

The argument we heard on Tuesday night from a number of colleagues was, “No, no, no. The groups have nothing to do with giving you seats; it’s the Senate that gives you committee seats.”

But let me ask you this: Did the Senate as a whole come up with the deal? Did the Senate establish the criteria for prioritizing one senator over another for a given seat on a committee? Did the Senate as a whole establish the process by which conflicts over seats on a committee would be resolved? Of course not. All of the difficult work was left to the groups and caucuses. There is no escaping the fact that it is the groups that came up with the mechanism for allocating seats to members.

Indeed, that is why the Selection Committee exists: as a way to formally introduce agreements to the Senate that have been made by the groups and caucuses. To then say that one has no responsibility to the group because the Senate made the final decision is, at best, a dodge or, worse, a dereliction.

It’s a little bit like saying, “You don’t have to pay the real estate brokerage a commission on the house that they helped you negotiate a good price on because the ultimate decision to sell the house was in the hands of the previous owner.”

Now, if you still need convincing, let’s imagine a scenario where the Senate actually rejects a Selection Committee report on the formation of committees. In fact, think about what would have happened if last week’s first report of the Selection Committee had been rejected by the Senate. Do you think the Senate would then resolve into a Committee of the Whole to try and decide who sits on which committee? Of course not.

What would happen is that groups and caucuses would have to go back to the negotiating table to hammer out a fresh deal to assign seats to their members based on the new deal, and they would have to again bring it to the Selection Committee as a report to be tabled in the Senate.

There is no escaping the fact that committee seats are negotiated among groups, and the filling of those seats is a process that is internal to the group. It is in this sense that a committee seat belongs to the group rather than to the senator.

This is not a statement about favouring groups over individuals. It is a statement about the reality of how Senate committee seats are allocated.

Colleagues, I will grant that there is a way in which one could argue that portability is an issue of independence, as our Progressive Senate Group colleagues have argued, but it is in the narrow sense that senators insist on being liberated from any responsibility to the group from which the seat was obtained. In effect, these senators believe that they have an absolute right to that particular seat on the committee regardless of how the seat was obtained, never mind that other senators were deprived of that very seat because they too followed the agreed-upon protocol for seat assignment within the group.

In my opinion, though, this is not senatorial independence; it is senatorial libertarianism.

For most observers outside the Senate, this debate is arcane and seemingly trivial, but I think it gets at some important underlying questions about what it means to have a more independent Senate.

A good way to begin thinking about this question is to consider the phrase employed by Senator Mercer and Senator Cordy: that the group exists to serve senators, not the other way around. That sounds almost as good as a senator is a senator is a senator. But what does it mean?

Is it that senators join a group solely for the purpose of extracting benefits that are distributed by the Senate via that group? Is the purpose of being a member of the Conservatives or a member of the Independent Senators Group or the Canadian Senators Group or the PSG principally to get a committee seat? Is it to get on the executive of a parliamentary association; to be considered for overseas travel; to access prime office space in the East Block or Victoria building? Is that what you mean by “the group is there to serve the senator”?

Colleagues, is it not conceivable, even desirable, that a senator should think about his or her membership in the group as one which includes serving the purposes of the group? Have we become so atomistic and self-absorbed that we see our role only as freewheeling independent senators with no responsibility to a larger collective?

Is the future of the Senate one in which groups are purely platforms to assist members in carrying out transactions? That would seem to me to be a very shallow view of Senate reform, and a self-centred one too.

Perhaps I’m betraying my cultural roots, but I believe in the importance and value of a collective and of the responsibility that comes with belonging to a group. I joined a group not just because of what the group could do for me but for how it gave me the opportunity to become a better senator by working with like-minded colleagues.

Now, this is the point in my speech where some of you may be thinking, “Senator Woo wants to take us back to the bad old days of caucuses.” Since I’m the outgoing facilitator of the ISG, what I say has little bearing on the future direction of my group. But in any case, the bogeyman argument that stronger groups translate into abusive caucus behaviour is yet another red herring.

I understand some senators are still recovering from the PTSD of abusive caucus behaviour. But it is entirely possible for senators to exercise independent decision making on bills and motions while belonging to a group that values working together and has rules to foster collaboration based on fairness, respect and decency. That is in fact how I would define the ISG. Fairness, respect, collegiality and democratic practices, even in the context of a highly structured group, are not antithetical to an independent Senate.

In this context, I was troubled to hear in Senator Cordy’s speech her insinuation of some sinister motivation behind the Selection Committee report that is before us. She suggests that in supporting this report, the ISG is trying to prevent senators from being more independent. I reject this insinuation categorically. In what universe does fair play have to conflict with independence? Are senators who respect and abide with fairness of procedure not exercising a form of independence that includes the responsibility that comes with it?

Some of you probably feel that portability is a necessary condition for a more modern and independent Senate, and you are inclined to vote against the report because of that sentiment. You know, the very term “portability” has a nice ring to it. It has positive connotations, and it seems to go with the concept of independence. I can in fact think of situations where portability would be the desired model for committee seat assignment. But that does not mean portability is right for all models of committee seat assignment and certainly not for the current model that we employ.

The fact is when portability clashes with fairness, I think fairness should prevail. Another way of putting it is as follows: Does your right to stay on the committee of your choice trump your responsibility to the group from which you derive your seat? How you answer this question will depend on your relative weighting of individual versus group rights. This is an ancient problem in philosophy. I accept that some of you prioritize your individual rights, and that is fair enough, but I do not accept that this report undermines the independence of the Senate or the equality of senators.

Let me move to the next red herring. What should we make of the fact that the current rules allow for portability? Previous speakers have pointed out that portability is a decades-old practice of the Senate, and they are right. But defending portability on the grounds that it is tradition is very different from defending portability on the grounds that it makes sense. With due respect, I have heard a lot from senators about the importance of adherence to a traditional practice, but they have said very little about why the practice makes sense in the current context of how we actually assign seats to senators. It would seem that they are arguing in favour of tradition for tradition’s sake, which is a curious position for pro-modernization senators to take.

At best, the argument in favour of portability based on the fact that it’s currently in the rules isn’t really an argument. It’s simply a restatement of the status quo. If you are for modernization, then you have to be open to the idea that some of our rules are not fit for purpose. Rule 12-2(3) on portability is one such rule that is ripe for reconsideration.

It is even more curious that the proponents of this rule 12-2(3) are generally silent on rule 12-5. Allow me to get a little technical here. Rule 12-5 allows the leadership of a caucus or group to replace a senator on the committee with the stroke of a pen, regardless of whether that senator is leaving the caucus or group. In the hierarchy of draconian actions, rule 12-5 surely trumps 12-2(3). But it is in the rules, and it has been in the rules for at least as long as rule 12-2(3). In fact, portability would be useless to a senator who was stripped of his or her seat before that senator had a chance to leave the group.

I’m not advocating for or defending rule 12-5 as such, but I’m pointing out the inconsistency in an argument that is dogmatic in its defence of the portability rule but silent on the potentially more insidious twin rule that is 12-5. In fact, Senator Cordy has previously argued that 12-5 is an acceptable exception to the portability rule 12-2(3), which is tantamount to saying, if we’re really worried about senators who may be thinking of leaving with their seats, let’s take those seats away before they do.

Even if you take Senator Cordy’s more evolved position that she articulated on Thursday, in which she says she’s open to revisiting rule 12-5, one has to question how she can defend 12-2(3) on the grounds of tradition while challenging 12-5, which is no less steeped in that tradition.

I want to clarify that I’m not against the concept of portability. In fact, I can think of a scenario where portability of committees is justified because it does not violate procedural integrity and fairness among senators. That scenario is where senators are assigned their seats through an all-Senate process, rather than through group negotiations. In that situation, one could make the case that seats belong to individual senators for the duration of the session. But that is not how we assign committee seats currently.

Portability, you see, is an attractive concept. I would say it’s even a seductive concept, but it has to be fit for purpose. Perhaps we can move towards a selection process that is more fit for portability, but that is some ways off. In the meantime, we should design rules that fit the actual circumstances of our practice rather than an idealized version of what that practice could be.

To sum up, much as some would like to make this report about Senate independence and senatorial autonomy, the less glamorous reality is that committee seat assignment is a routine scarcity problem that has to be solved through negotiations. Negotiations only work if the parties subject themselves to the rules of the negotiated agreement and respect both the outcomes and the procedures that led to those outcomes.

If there is a principle at stake in this motion, this report, this debate, it is the principle of procedural fairness. Senators do not have a divine right to a given committee seat. They receive that seat on a particular committee by willingly participating in a group process that resulted in a favourable outcome for them but at the expense of other senators. If they leave that group, the seat should not go with them. That is the intent of the Selection Committee report we have been asked to vote on, and that is why I support it. Thank you.