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Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration

Proceedings of the Subcommittee on Senate Estimates

Issue No. 1 - Evidence - May 4, 2016 - Evening meeting

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OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 4, 2016

The Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, pursuant to rule 12-7(1), met this day at 6:33 p.m. for the consideration of administrative and financial matters.

Senator David M. Wells (Chair) in the chair.

[English]

The Chair: Welcome to the third meeting of the Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates in this Forty-second Parliament and our second meeting of today.

In our earlier meeting, we heard from Senator Carignan, and we're pleased to welcome Senator Harder to the subcommittee as our first witness. A little later, we'll hear from Charles Robert, Clerk of the Senate, who will give us some historical perspective and perhaps some guidance on a way forward.

Senator Harder, welcome. We're going to have, I'm sure, a fulsome discussion. I'll note for my colleagues and the witness that this is a public meeting. If you'd like to make some opening remarks, the floor is yours, and then we'll get to some questions.

Hon. Peter Harder, P.C., Government Representative in the Senate, Senate of Canada: Thank you. I'll be brief in my opening remarks because many of you were part of the larger presentation in the full committee.

Let me begin by saying that I appreciate your willingness to pursue this in subcommittee and do it in a timely fashion. Much appreciated.

As I mentioned in my presentations at the full committee, when I took on this role, I looked at the precedence of previous holders of this responsibility and the offices that they had and how they organized themselves. I don't have the benefit of describing how my office works or how it worked in previous times or roles.

As you know from the material that I tabled at that time, I was looking for an office allocation roughly similar to that of my predecessor so that I could exercise my responsibilities, which are largely similar in, I will acknowledge, different circumstances because of the nature of my sitting as an independent and the evolution of the Senate.

I have proposed a structure with salary ranges that yield the rough calculation of similarity. I can indicate that I also appreciate the offer at the last meeting, where there was an increase, in the short term, while the committee was deliberating. Not that I have been able to make announcements with respect to staff, but I can assure you that I've made offers. Those offers are in the process of leading to announcements so that I can begin to assemble an office as early as next week.

I have already, as you may know, had a position in my office for receptionist- and executive assistant-like functions, but until next week I will not have other permanent support. I look forward to this opportunity.

I'm happy to respond to questions and to describe why I have the structure I'm proposing, but I recognize that I don't have the experience with which to express, "Why this structure?'' It is a structure roughly similar to those who have held this office in the past and whose advice I've sought and who have indicated to me "what I need.'' So I would yield to the chair and questions and have a dialogue with you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'll also note — and I should have noted it earlier, so I apologize — that Senator Mitchell is here in support of you. Welcome, Senator Mitchell, as well. I'm pleased you're here. I hope you will be open to answering questions, if such questions arise, that might be directed to you.

I will pass the mic to Senator Jaffer, the deputy chair of this committee.

Senator Jaffer: I would also like to welcome both of you, Senator Harder and Senator Mitchell, for making yourselves available at this time.

Senator Harder, you had mentioned at the last meeting the amount that you were looking for, but to make sure we are all on the same page, if I remember, you were looking for $900,000.

Senator Harder: I think I said $850,000. You will note from the document I tabled that because of the positions, it was a range between 787 and 886.

Senator Jaffer: Also, if I'm not mistaken, you were looking at nine people.

Senator Harder: Correct.

Senator Jaffer: When looking at my notes from what you had presented, I don't remember your answer, or you may not have even been asked, but what kind of caucus members? It's an independent caucus, I know, but how many people are planning to work with you in the immediate future? What's the caucus number?

This is not a trick question. There is sort of a formula. If you have over 20 members, you get 500. You've seen that, so that's why I'm asking.

Senator Harder: I'll be open; I'm not sure that's relevant for the position I hold. I've made it very clear that I'm not the leader of the independents. It is up to the independents, frankly, to determine how and if they organize in some fashion. We'll see how that works.

At their invitation, I have met with them to discuss my role in the government business, but I wouldn't presume to be the leader of independents. I am looking for the resources to be effective in the role that I have as the Government Representative or government leader — I'm not hung up on language — that requires institutional support.

Senator Jaffer: I have one last question. Now that you have a whip and a deputy — whatever the names are — will they be looking for an additional budget as well, or would this package include their budgets?

Senator Harder: They will be looking for the budget attached to those offices, just as I'm looking for the budget attached to this office.

Senator Jaffer: Thank you.

The Chair: As a follow-up to Senator Jaffer's question, will that request come separately from you as leader or Representative of the Government? For the style or names, I'll use whip and deputy, for my ease. That will be coming later?

Senator Harder: Through whatever mechanism is appropriate in a change of personnel in that role. I presume that there is an allocation for those functions, and having assumed those functions, there will be a process to ensure administration that those people are rightly in those functions and will be staffed according to the budgets available in the precedents that are set and the allocations that are paid.

The Chair: We spoke with Senators Cowan and Carignan earlier. I'll note that Senator Carignan held the positions of Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Leader of the Government in the Senate and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and Senator Cowan was Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Their Senate office budgets and their leader office budgets were pooled to pay for their "pot of staff,'' if I can say it that way. So with Senator Carignan, for instance, he had a leader's office and an executive assistant in his leader's office. He didn't have a separate office as a representative of a Quebec district, with an executive assistant.

That is unlike, say, our current whip in the opposition. He has his office budget and runs that, and he also has his whip's office budget and runs that separately.

How do you envision running your structure with respect to that aspect?

Senator Harder: As I understand the precedent, the allocation as Leader of the Government was around $850,000, and he also had the allocation as a senator. Like him, I would expect to integrate the management of it.

I'm one person. I would have to acknowledge that I do feel a particular responsibility to exercise some of my Ontario senator role, but depending on the allocation, we'll have to ensure I have some policy capacity on issues of interest that are peculiar to the province I represent. But I'm not at all averse to having an integrated office, as I think I'll be busy enough to ensure that I'll need the coherence that an integrated office can afford.

The Chair: Thank you for that.

Senator Tkachuk: Senator Harder, you can imagine my disbelief when we talk about independent senators, especially your role as an independent senator and Leader of the Government. You are the Leader of the Government. The government is Liberal. Then you have a whip who is one of the most partisan Liberals in the Senate caucus, who comes over and says that, yesterday, he's an independent. The Liberal Party has something like $900,000 in their budget. You want something like $900,000 in your budget.

I get the feeling on my side that we're being had. I'm a Conservative, so I'm obviously a conspiracy theorist. But if it looks like one and it acts like one, sometimes it is one.

We have funding for the government leader. You just need five people. You obviously have two now, so there are three of you. You need five people to say you support the government's agenda. You're not going to sit there and tell me that you're going to say to the Prime Minister's Office, "By the way, this bill, I'm not going to introduce it; I don't like it.'' That isn't going to happen.

I think you need five people and you get yourself a name that suits your political philosophy and the money is there. We're spending all this time trying to help you do something that we don't understand. Explain that to me.

Senator Harder: My answer to that is that there is meaning to the independence that my appointment represents. Whether it's believable to you is frankly up to you. We'll see how in the exercise of my responsibilities I reflect that.

There is a role as the Government Representative in the Senate, which is acknowledged and for which there has been budget provided historically and for which there is a defined role. The difference in these circumstances is, as I reiterate, that I do not sit with a party caucus. I sit as an independent.

This is an evolving organization. The Prime Minister has indicated, as you well know, that he intends on appointing independent senators through the process that he has established. I expect that over the course of this Parliament that reality will reflect itself in the membership of the Senate.

With respect, I would suggest that the budgets of the Senate and how we do things will evolve to reflect that. I'm not being pushy in saying that; I'm trying to be realistic. I recognize that there is a process of transition. There is a degree of ambiguity that I think people of goodwill can work through. I would ask you to judge me, the work that I do and the team that I have for what we do and how we conduct ourselves.

I don't think it's inappropriate for this kind of change in an institution. It will certainly evolve in the course of this Parliament.

Senator Tkachuk: Look, I don't think anybody argues the fact that we have the Special Senate Committee on Senate Modernization looking at changes right now. We're an independent body. We get to decide the changes that we're going to make and nobody else does, although others are trying. So my view is that if change is needed, we're more than happy to discuss it if we see some kind of an end result to this. But right now, we don't.

What you want is for us to take you at your word, give you $900,000, and you say you're going to be an independent senator and "trust me.'' Why wouldn't you go through the opposite process and trust us by forming your own little caucus, receiving the money, and you can prove your independence? I don't understand that. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to do that and put us through all of this.

Senator Harder: In fairness, my answer would be that it is not my desire or the desire of the Prime Minister, who has appointed me as the independent Government Representative, to adapt for budget purposes a construct that could be interpreted as not being independent.

I don't think it's inappropriate for me to have the budget and the resources accorded my predecessor for the role that I have.

Senator Tannas: Thank you, Senator Harder.

The reason we're here is I think in part because of what happened. As you say, the thing has evolved. We heard testimony and certainly there were a lot of public utterances around the house leader on the other side and words that came from the democratic reform person that led us to believe that there was going to be a Government Representative in the Senate who was almost going to have a briefcase and a telephone, and that was going to be it. They were going to work to help us all understand what the government stuff was. It was not going to be very much, really light.

I have to say that part of the reason I'm questioning this is because your opening gambit is, "I want the same amount of money as the last guy had who managed a caucus and did all of those things.'' Well, that's not what was advertised.

There are two things. First of all, it's not what was advertised, so what's changed? Number two, we built a budget around what was advertised, and we thought $250,000 was plenty. Now we've got a situation where there is a budget issue this year. I'm sure we can sort our way through it, but I want people to understand why we're prickly about this; this is getting made up as it goes along. You've been very transparent about that, and that's fine.

The second issue for me is, as I've just said, the $850,000. I think there is a discount that needs to come off because specifically there will be people and resources that will not be required to manage a caucus and to focus on partisan activities. I'm one of the newer guys here now, not the newest anymore, but there is no question that in both the Leader of the Opposition and a leader of a caucus and a government leader, there are lots of bodies spending lots of time managing caucus and dealing with partisan activities.

I'd be interested to know if, over the course of the last couple of weeks, you've given any thought to the bare minimum to get you to not entirely what was advertised but at least the spirit of what was advertised, which is, "I'm here, and I've got to get out and sell bills in the Senate, introduce them, and make sure that everybody understands them.'' Is it still 850?

Senator Harder: I can't speak for the testimony of others. I can only speak for conversations I've had and the role that I play.

With respect, I think that the resources available to my predecessor included not just his leadership budget but also caucus research, and a larger caucus, which is both a management challenge but also provides some resources for a leader who has a more direct leadership role and relationship with other senators.

As I look at the structure I proposed and the experience over the last while, I think the legislative process is just as complex — you could argue perhaps different and perhaps more complex. I don't think there's less press interest and a communications role, which I view as communications on behalf of not just my role but also, along with other senators, we play an active role in public communications.

The parliamentary legislative process is complex. My relationship with the cabinet process — although I'm not a minister; I am a privy councillor, and I have some of the interfaces with that responsibility as it reflects on Senate issues in particular — is such that I do think I need to have some capacity to think through the policy issues attendant to this process.

Actually, my proposal was intended to be the bare minimum because it is a period of transition, and I'm acknowledging that. Obviously I will live with the recommendations coming from this committee and the views and ultimately the decisions of the full committee.

But this wasn't done with padding as an intention; it was done to reflect the basic roles, as I see them, of the tasks in front of me. I know from the brief experience I've had that they can be quite labour intensive.

Senator Tannas: I have one supplementary. I've explained the budget process and what was originally advertised versus the reality of things and the quandary that we're in, having committed and allocated money to others and hired people. Would you want to comment on the potential, at least for this year, for the government to fill in the ditch between where we are and what you're asking?

Senator Harder: That's a good question, a fair question.

I can only report that when I have raised that, there was reference made to the precedent of my predecessor who, as you know, when his predecessor was in this office as a minister, there was an allocation as a minister. When Senator Carignan succeeded as Leader of the Government, privy councillor but not a member of cabinet, an allocation was made by the Internal Economy process which yielded the 850, roughly, and there was no supplement from PCO because of the ministerial line. That is the view of the Privy Council Office, as I've discussed it.

There is a certain logic to that. I could invent another logic, but there is the logic of precedent. I don't mean that in any fashion other than descriptive.

Senator Plett: Thank you, chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take part, even though I am not a regular member of the committee.

I want to read a couple of emails, if I could, very quickly. Two of them are from you, Senator Harder, and two of them are from our clerk, Charles Robert. You say here:

It is my pleasure to inform you of decisions taken to support my role as Government Representative in the Senate. First I am very pleased to welcome Senator Diane Bellemare as Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate. Also I want to welcome Senator Grant Mitchell to the Government Liaison role responsible for working with all Senators to pass government legislation. Senators Bellemare and Mitchell are both known for their contribution to the Senate and their support for Senate reforms. I want to thank them for agreeing to serve in these capacities effective May 3, 2016. Attached are backgrounders . . . .

Sorry; I said there were two from you. There's only one.

The email from Charles Robert states:

Please be advised of the following change:

Senator: The Honourable Diane Bellemare

New Political Responsibility: Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate (Deputy Leader)

Effective Date: May 3

There's a similar one.

Please be advised of the following change:

Senator: The Honourable Grant Mitchell

New Political Responsibility: Government Liaison (Government Whip)

You said at the start when you made your presentation that you were not the leader of the independents. Senator Mitchell is, in your words, not the whip. In the Clerk's words, because of logistical reasons or reasons of legality in the Senate — and maybe later on when Charles Robert is the witness we can ask him — thought there was a need to call him a whip and a deputy leader. You clearly made sure that you did not. You said you were not the leader of the independents, and yet you keep on referring to wanting to have what your predecessor had.

Your predecessor was the Leader of the Government. He wasn't the Government Representative. He had a caucus of 50 people. You have a caucus of no people because you have said you are not the leader of any of the independents. That means you are a caucus of one, and yet you want the same money that somebody with a caucus of 50 had.

I find it hard to square that box. You are a caucus of one. I'm a caucus of one inside a caucus of more, so I get my stipend for being a senator. Yet you want seven times as much money as I get because your predecessor had that. I think we need to compare apples to apples here.

If you are not the leader of the independents, who is? Why would that leader not also be here asking for money? We have the Conservative caucus getting a certain amount of money. We have the independent Liberals getting a certain amount of money. Now you're asking, with no caucus, to get as much money as your predecessor did.

As the government leader, I think you should then give us some direction as to whether we should also consider giving money to Senator Elaine McCoy as the leader of all of those, but I'm not sure she is, or other caucuses. You said earlier that possibly Senator Mitchell and Senator Bellemare would be coming for more money.

Well, you have appointed them to positions, so I assume they are answering to you. Why would you not tell us whether they will be coming for $38,700 in the case of Senator Bellemare and somewhere close to $12,000 in the case of Senator Mitchell? They are obviously working for you.

Senator Harder: Let me respond by reiterating that I am discussing today my budget for my role, as you say, as government leader. The budgets of the deputy leader and whip du jour are established in the budgets of the Senate. I would expect that the Senate would accord those budgets to the people appropriately so named. That doesn't seem to be a leap of logic to me.

I recognize that there is a difference in an evolving Senate in which there will be a larger number of independents. It will change some of the concepts and the way in which we think of allocating budgets and resources. But, again, this is not the global discussion that we will need to have as a group of senators over the next while.

What I hope we can focus on today is the allocation to my role, as you say, as Leader of the Government in the Senate. It wasn't illogical, given that role, to focus on the requirements for that role in predecessor responsibilities, recognizing that the circumstances of the Senate organization are evolving.

Senator Plett: You are suggesting that this committee simply write an okay for $850,000 or $900,000 without any consideration to any future requests that you have already indicated you will be making. As Senator Tkachuk said earlier, let's simply exercise a whole lot of trust here and give you the money and trust you will do the right job before there is any indication that you're even doing the job that you have been appointed to do.

Senator Harder: Well, senator, I don't know if when allocating resources to other officers of the Senate, either today or in the past, this committee went through a process of determining whether or not they were doing the job in the way the committee would like to have exercised. There's a tradition of having certain offices allocated certain budgets, and because there was an adjustment of that allocation between the time that the government was elected and my arrival, I'm asking for the committee to restore, if I can put it that way, the allocation that was traditionally provided to my role. I don't think that is an unreasonable premise.

Senator Plett: When most people, at least on one side of the chamber and even a number of people on the other side of the chamber, believe you are comparing apples to oranges and you are not fulfilling the same role and your office is not fulfilling the same role and you are not even prepared to accept the title of the same role, there is a significant difference.

Senator Harder: My comments stand.

Senator Downe: I'd like to follow up on the question posed by Senator Tannas. Given the precedent, I can understand the PCO denying or saying in all likelihood to go get it from the Senate like the previous person did, but I think you would have a strong case to go back to them and explain, for some of the reasons you articulated, the difference in the roles. In effect, you were asked by them to do a different job. They are obviously providing some resources to you, even though you are a P.C., I think you indicated you would be at cabinet meetings if invited.

Senator Harder: Yes. They are not resourced. I don't get any resources.

Senator Downe: Somebody would have to get you the cabinet documents and so on if you're appearing at the meeting.

I'm just curious. Senator Tannas raised a good question: What is Plan B? If yoiui are not successful here, will they step in to fill the void given that they asked you to do this unique position?

Senator Harder: You know, senator, the generosity of PCO on Plan Bs. I don't have one.

With respect, in terms of the precedent of my predecessor as a privy councillor invited to cabinet as appropriate, there was no support for that function. There is, of course, a flow of cabinet documentation that I am responsible for administering in my office without PCO support. I suppose the messenger carrying it over is an element of support, but that's the extent. Again, as I understand it, the precedent of my predecessor.

Senator Downe: I assume when you have government legislation, the PCO, working with the minister' office, will give you draft speeches and background information. All that would be provided for you. Your staff wouldn't have to generate that because it is your job to get government legislation through the chamber. They would give you that support.

Senator Harder: I think they would give me that as they have my predecessor. I don't think that is a new level of support. It's the interface between the two that the allocation of my predecessor and my allocation contribute to.

Senator Downe: I don't want to speak for others, but I have the sense that the committee and the members recognize your responsibility for government legislation. The fly in the ointment is the caucus side of the administration, because we don't see those people, and that was part of the budget allocation. I believe that's what some of us are struggling with now.

Senator Harder: I will acknowledge, as others have referenced, that there isn't a fundraising role to my responsibilities. I appreciate that that may or may not have been part of what the Senate allocation to my predecessor involved.

As you recognized, I don't have a caucus as such. I hope I am not an isolated island. I will need to deal with caucuses that are formed and independents in some fashion to ensure that senators and I are well acquainted with the intentions of senators with respect to government legislation and the needs any senators have with respect to those important matters coming before the Senate.

Senator Tkachuk: When Minister LeBlanc was appearing before the Rules Committee, I said, "I think you're going to need a whip.'' I was kind of dumbfounded that there would be no organization. There was basically you and all our good wishes.

He said that they probably won't appoint the whip position, so what changed? Was it a "we'' decision or was it your decision?

Senator Harder: I can't speak for Mr. LeBlanc, obviously. I think in his response he was reflecting, as I have commented, on the whip function being the whipping of votes. That is not the function that I envisage.

With respect to the organization of the leadership team that I announced, those were my decisions. I believe they're important for the good functioning of the Senate.

I, along with the rest of the organization of the Senate, will have to reflect over time whether that's the right allocation or not. It does not depend just on how I act, but how the Senate itself takes shape and evolves.

As I said at the first meeting when I presented my proposal, I think that we will, over the next number of months and years, need to actively review how we allocate resources to reflect these changes of membership, organizational structure and design so that we are fair to all senators, whether they are caucused or not caucused. That determination on fairness is not mine to be made alone. It's hopefully people of goodwill sitting and adjudicating a degree of transition and the implications of that for us over time.

Senator Tkachuk: So what would be the difference between an independent who belongs to a caucus and one who doesn't?

Senator Harder: Well, it does depend on how independents choose to form groupings. There has been, over time, some discussion as to whether or not regional caucuses could emerge. There have been discussions about affinity groups or whether it's a British-style cross-bench group. Those are all models for consideration, and I am not in a position to determine that. I should not be. That is a determination to be made by the people who are in the Senate, whether they're independents now or in organized caucuses today and are saying, "In an evolving Senate, this is how I might want to participate.'' I can't predict that.

Surely in the meantime there are jobs to be done. Let's do them in a spirit of goodwill, cooperation and review. We'll come to equilibrium after some process of conversation, time, new people and new attitudes for how they would wish to express themselves individually or collectively.

Senator Tkachuk: What will be the proof in the pudding? What will show that you're more independent than us?

Senator Harder: Somebody asked me that the other day. I said that I think it will work better in practice than in theory. We have can have a lot of theoretical conversations about what is independence and all this sort of stuff. I think the proof in the pudding will be when, hopefully, the Senate as an institution is viewed by Canadians as credible, as being independent-minded both in its consideration and in its contribution complementary to the other chamber, that there are accountability structures that have public confidence, and that we have an active engagement with Canadians in our legislative role and in our committee work on issues.

This is a group sport. It's not up to the government leader or Government Representative in the Senate, call it what you wish. It's how we grab the mantle of change and articulate together what is good about the past and what is good for our future together.

Senator Campbell: As I said in an earlier committee meeting, again we find ourselves ahead of the Rules. We have a set of Rules in place that have been here for God knows how long, and we find ourselves now in a position where the Rules simply don't apply. I think we have some agreement on the fact that the Rules have to be changed to modernize.

I've been accused of supporting Senator Harder. My whole purpose in bringing this to the committee was not in support of Senator Harder. It was in support of what we as the Senate should see as fairness. We actually accomplished it. We went from $250,000 to $400,000.

In the interests of fairness, we heard today from Senator Carignan who said clearly to us that he could run his office and had run his office on $500,000 to $600,000. Admittedly it is above that, but in general terms that is what he was thinking about.

I have two questions for Senator Harder. The amount that you're asking for, can you possibly spend that in the rest of this calendar year, knowing that you're going to have specific needs, specific people and that things are shifting constantly under your feet? Do you think you could actually spend that in this fiscal year?

Senator Harder: That's a good question. The model is an annual, stable budget. You are all aware of the time it takes to staff up. There are ebbs and flows. I recognize that. I'm not unused to those kinds of allocations, but I would stand by this as the framework.

Look, at the end of the day you're going to have to make decisions and recommendations. I will live within the recommendations that you make as best I can. However, I would like to suggest that being able to do my role well reflects not only well on me hopefully but on the institution itself. The office has certain aspects of responsibility that are important for all senators.

The answer to your question is that I wouldn't work hard to make sure it was spent. I would work hard to ensure that the staffing I'm suggesting is in place with the quality people in the ranges that I propose and move on. It's about having the staff and working. It's not about, "How do I spend the budget?''

Senator Campbell: Senator Carignan's — unfortunately it's all in French, which I can't read, so please correct me if I'm wrong — position was that a portion of the money that he got was actually spent on caucus affairs, caucus research, things to do with the caucus. I don't know how I square in my mind that you want the same as him, knowing that some of this — and he didn't give us a figure — was going towards his caucus at that time.

Now, I try to square that with the fact that as an independent senator I now get $7,000 more a year for research. I try to figure out how this would work when there is no caucus, when everybody's independent. How do you answer that at least a chunk of his went to caucus-related expenditures?

Senator Harder: Look, I have no insight into how he allocated his resources. All I have are the tables that describe the allocation and a rough sense of the activities. I would note that there is a separate allocation for caucus research, quite apart from what might or might not have been in this allocation.

I can't comment other than to say that I do think — and this might be provocative, and I don't mean it to be — that, over time, collectively we are going to have to look at how we allocate budgets to caucuses, to those outside of caucuses, to research or other activities, and that may provoke some degree of change from the present allocation.

That's not the debate tonight, but I simply want to reinforce your first comments that we're living ahead of our Rules and allocations. As people of goodwill, we are going to have to recognize that we're going to have to get at this several times, several iterations, over the coming years.

Senator Tannas: I seized on something there, the $7,000. If you have that amount and say, intellectually, that's what a caucus brings in terms of value, and we're replacing that with independents, for a caucus of 50, which is what the government leader had, it's $350,000. So there is something there that actually gives us some quantitative indications about maybe what the split is.

This isn't a bargaining chip because I understand that you've gone through your positions. You didn't start out with a number. You said, "What are my positions?'' So I understand, but I wanted to chip that in as my mind is turning.

Senator Harder: In response, could I just remind everybody that there is also a Senate caucus research allocation that interacts with whatever my predecessor did or did not do with his caucus. Again, quite apart from the issue of my budget is the issue of the "per senator'' resources available for research. If you did a calculation on the allocation for caucus research and divided it by senators in particular caucuses, I think you'd find that it's higher than the $7,500 that Senator Campbell enjoys as an independent.

Senator Jaffer: Seven thousand.

Senator Harder: Seven thousand.

Senator Campbell: I don't enjoy it.

Senator Harder: Yes. I think it's important that we not bite off everything in one conversation.

Senator Tannas: Understood. Thank you.

Senator Tkachuk: When you talk about people of goodwill, if we deny your application or do not fill it as fulsomely as you'd like, would we not be people of goodwill?

Senator Harder: Senator, that's an interesting question. I am not accusing anybody who doesn't agree with me of being ill-willed. This is not related to whatever that number becomes; it's how we work together in the spirit of working across whatever experiences we've had. It's a term I like because it indicates that we're on the same team as a collective group of senators, that we are people of goodwill and that we need to express that in how we experience differences and work them through.

Senator Tkachuk: We're in the same arena but not necessarily on the same teams.

Senator Harder: But we're people of goodwill.

Senator Tkachuk: I would hope so, but there is competition.

The Chair: What I'm trying to do is to build up a foundation for recommendations or a decision or discussion around the table of the subcommittee to address your request. Part of that foundation is, obviously, talking to witnesses and witnesses maybe besides you as well.

In our discussion with Senator Carignan, he said that he had significant support from the party and the resources of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons when he was in his three iterations of leadership as deputy leader, as leader, as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. He had those resources, whether it was QP resources or other policy research. Equally, prior to January 2014, Senator Cowan also had access to resources.

I would assume you also have access to some type of research or assistant resources. Certainly in answering questions on behalf of the government I would assume that they wouldn't be solely generated from your office.

Can you enlighten the subcommittee on how that might work or how it has worked thus far in attaching resources — money or people or knowledge — to costs? How have you used that or how do you envision using it as you go forward?

Senator Harder: I would want to begin by referring to your reference to Senator Cowan, given the split between the National Liberal Caucus and the Senate Liberal Caucus. That precedent is well-established. I certainly have no access to Liberal party research or anything like that in the other chamber. I do benefit from some of the Question Period preparation that is undertaken by the Privy Council Office, just as my predecessor would have. That is helpful, but it is tertiary. It's not, in a sense, prepared for me. It's material to which I have access in order to adjust to the circumstances of my role. I acknowledge that that is part of the resources, absolutely, available to me as it was to my predecessor.

I don't know what my predecessor enjoyed in addition to that.

The Chair: I'll go back to the fact that you are answering questions on behalf of and representing the government with respect to introduction of legislation and shepherding that through. In requesting assistance to help you to do your job, would you expect that to be nearby, or would the generation of that assistance solely come from your office?

Senator Harder: Well, I don't expect to walk down the hall and say, "Does anyone have an answer on X?''

I think it would work not dissimilarly to how it did for my predecessor, and that means having a receptor capacity in your office and liaison with the apparatus of government for written answers and the like.

As I alluded to in my response to Senator Downe's question today, I'm not sure the natural instinct would be to be quick, so I want to make sure that Senate business is given appropriate attention in the system.

The Chair: Thank you.

I want to go to the question of grouping. I don't want to say "caucus,'' because that has a specific meaning, but I may slip into that and forgive me if I do.

In an article I read this morning, Senator Mitchell, in his capacity, said:

I can't say whether independent senators will caucus together. I suspect that they will.

As you said, it could be on specific issues of regional importance.

I'll tie this in with a question that Senator Tkachuk asked. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then maybe it's a duck. The $7,000 allocation to you and your six new colleagues — and now Senator Mitchell and Senator Bellemare, who are clearly part of your team, and maybe another 20 people who will come in the next number of months — would appear to be, and certainly is, a significant resource if there is a pooling of that. Have you given consideration to that pooling?

Maybe I should ask Senator Mitchell if that would be a consideration because, as much as you're aligned with the government and the government's legislation, you're obviously an independent senator. I have a little difficulty with the provision of the allocation of $7,000 simply by saying, "I'm an independent senator,'' when clearly you're aligned with the government and the government's legislation.

Forgive me if I say that, along with Senator Mitchell and Senator Bellemare, but we're talking about money here. Can you give me some idea of how you envision that part of the resource? I'm not talking conceptually, because at the end of this exercise we have to come up with a recommendation that is about money.

Senator Harder: I think it's important for me to underscore that I am not the leader of the independent group, however it exists, formed or unformed, or might exist in groups or other entities. They may choose individually or in groups to pool research resources. I think that we'll see a period of some experimentation in that. It might be along regional lines or it might be along issue lines. I think there will probably be a market for ideas, pooling resources and research, but that's not for me to determine.

I view myself as constrained by my government role, and I ought to keep an appropriate perspective from the independents. That's not to say I don't look at them as a resource for the Senate and as colleagues for issues and legislation as they come forward, but I don't have a caucus relationship.

The Chair: I just want to say for my colleagues' benefit and for the record that if there is a move towards — I'll use the word in a very general way, as a verb and not as a noun — caucusing by regions or areas of interest and I were to caucus with Senator Campbell, there would seem to be an inequity: I would have my $185,400 and he his $185,400, plus $7,000.

Senator Campbell: I'll give you 35.

The Chair: It would seem that in the structure we've established with respect to financing and the structure that is not being proposed but is suggested may occur, there would clearly be an inequity of resources. Senator Tannas and I have spoken about this.

Senator Harder: I can speculate on that. That's not the subject of my issue today.

The Chair: I understand that. I simply said that for the record.

Senator Harder: In the speculation, there could be another interpretation, and that is that you benefit from an allocation to caucus research that Senator Campbell doesn't enjoy. I'm only suggesting that at some point I'm sure this issue will need to be discussed transparently and openly amongst senators. That's not my issue, but I do think it will become an issue as the institution evolves.

Senator Plett: Mr. Chair, you asked my questions, at least in part, but I do want to continue very briefly with those.

Senator Harder, you're saying you're not the leader of these independents, but at some point the independents might pool their resources and do much of what Senator Carignan did with his resources.

You keep referring to the fact that your predecessor got this much money, and many of us have said that that's comparing apples to oranges. Clearly, you mostly disagree with us on that.

Your only reason for asking for this money, that I've heard both at Internal Economy and here today, is, "My predecessor got that,'' when your predecessor was doing something other than what you're doing.

We do want to modernize. I agree with you that our Senate is evolving. We will have more independents by fall and next spring. Would it not be fiscally responsible to come to this committee and say that you want funding approved saying, "Here's how much money I need and this is why I need it because these are the positions I need to fill''?

Your only reason for wanting it is that your predecessor got it. You have not yet, in Internal Economy the other day or here tonight, said, "I am doing the same job at my predecessor. Here's where my predecessor spent his money. I need to spend it in these places, and that's why I need the money. The only reason I need it is because he got it, and I want it too.'' That's what I said when I was at home and my mother said that just because my sister got something was not a good enough reason for me to want it too. That's the only thing I've heard here today: I want it because he had it.

Senator Harder: I think that is somewhat of a mischaracterization, if I can say that. It is true that I was guided by a particular amount, but I had no insight into how that was divided. I constructed an office structure, which I shared with the committee, to perform the tasks that I feel are important for me to exercise my responsibility. I certainly looked at that as both appropriate and within the legitimate expectations of the role.

Senator Jaffer: I don't like disagreeing with Senator Plett, but to be fair to Senator Harder, he has told us the different things he needs money for, such as running his office, paying staff, preparing for Question Period and representing the government. He has told us why he needs the money.

Senator Harder, we've had a number of meetings, and of course there is goodwill. That is why we are sitting here and not shutting the door. Of course we want your office to function, because, as you said earlier, if it functions well, we all will also function well. There is absolutely goodwill.

Part of our frustration is it changes every day. Since the election, I can tell you for me it's really frustrating — we have media here, so it's uncomfortable — because we don't know what tomorrow looks like.

I've been here for almost 16 years, and I knew if I came to work, this is how everything functioned. It's new and good; we will come out with a better product, so that's a good thing. Tomorrow we're meeting with Senator McCoy. We don't know if they are going to set up a caucus and then if they will come, obviously you, as government leader, have a bigger budget, but we may have to look at that. There are so many uncertainties.

There is absolutely goodwill. We want you to function well, but the uncertainties, every day there is something new. For people like me, we don't know where we're going.

Unfortunately, my former leader I don't think thought this through properly, and he just thought by letting us go it would be over. But it's not like that. There are maintenance payments even after a divorce. That's part of his maintenance payments now, while we try to figure out where we go. That's the challenge, really, because we don't know.

Happily there were no children.

Senator Harder: I don't know how far to go with this analogy.

Senator Jaffer: Being part of Internal, our challenge is that if another caucus is formed with five members, how do we go about that? That's the challenge. It can be formed.

Senator Harder: I acknowledge the challenge. In my earlier presentations and this one, I have tried to share with you the notion that these are issues that the Senate as a whole, this committee in particular, will have to revisit because I can't predict that. What I hope we can address in a predictable fashion is the resources available for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. We can turn that page for now, and we need to be open to looking at the evolution of roles and responsibilities.

Senator Jaffer: If I may be so bold and go with what Senator Campbell said and say to you that perhaps if you took — I've known you for years. I know you will reflect on all of this. Reflect on it, and it may be helpful not to say what the former person got, but for you to sit down and say that this is the minimum you need for now. This is just for this year, and by next year I think we will have a better footing and a better way to do these things.

Obviously we want to make sure you get the resources, because if you function well, our Senate functions well. I think there would be a greater comfort level if we had a figure that this is what you absolutely need. I'm sure with the 850 you did that as well.

Senator Harder: Again, I would reference the proposal I made: a chief of staff, an executive assistant, a director of parliamentary affairs, three legislative assistants, one director of communications, one comms assistant and one senior policy adviser.

Senator Campbell asked the good question as to whether or not that structure for this fiscal year would require those levels. I can't imagine that even if I implement the structure as proposed that it will be at the high end of this.

I want to reiterate that I have proposed a model, and the model is reflective of the responsibilities as I see them. I will be better informed after experience, obviously, but the model is, I think, a credible model worthy of the committee's consideration.

Senator Tkachuk: We should all get the same budget, then, as independents.

Senator Harder: You should all be leaders of the government.

Senator Tkachuk: Exactly. We should all be equal senators. Let's all have the same amount of money, just like they do in the United States.

Senator Jaffer: If I may respond, you obviously heard from us. You get the feeling that we should find a compromise. I'm not asking you to bid against yourself; that's not what we're saying. We're just saying that at this time we think it's a little rich.

I will say again that we do have a concern about another caucus being formed.

Senator Harder: Let me reiterate: I will respect the decisions of the committee. I did not propose an organizational structure that I thought was inflated, and I would have to make adjustments to whatever proposals you make.

Let's just finish this and move on. There are other issues of a budget nature that will require your attention. I would suggest you reach a decision and I live with it.

Senator Jaffer: A lot has been said about the research budget that our leaders or senators get who are in caucus. It's not quite true because individual senators don't get it. Some senators get it.

Senator Harder: That makes leaders even more powerful.

Senator Jaffer: It's not that the leaders get it, either; it's for individual senators' projects.

The Chair: I wanted to make a comment on Senator Jaffer's comment. She said, "We think that,'' and the subcommittee has had no deliberations on results. I didn't want it to be out there that we had pre-judged or even judged anything. This is part of our evidence-gathering, and we will do our deliberations later.

It looks like we are finishing up shortly with Senator Harder. I appreciate the frankness and the depth of the answers that he has given.

I'm purely thinking of numbers. I'm not thinking about the concept of representative, leader, liaisons or anything else. You've made a high-end request of 886 and a low end of 787. I've been chair of this subcommittee for a year and a half, and we've looked at many millions of dollars and many structures within our institution. Let's go in the middle, somewhere around 840, and throw your office budget of 185 into the mix right now, as well as the additional resources that a whip and a deputy leader bring of about 175, and possibly the pooling of the three identified members of your group. That brings us up, in my rough estimate, to around $1.3 million.

I go to Senator Tkachuk's comment very early on in this meeting of the almost $900,000 that the independent Liberals have. We will deliberate this. I just don't want this to get out of control. The numbers are climbing, and I don't know if one aspect of this can be looked at in isolation. When you look at the resources provided by the Senate, we all have jobs to do, whether as individual senators or as groups, caucuses, working groups or otherwise.

You'll be familiar with the term "stacking.''

Senator Harder: The Treasury Board is against stacking.

The Chair: I know, and so perhaps might we be. I just wanted to put that out because that's something we're going to have to consider.

When I look at the staffing complement, it looks reasonable. You have a job to do and want to get at it, and we respect that. The business of dealing with Canada's legislation has to continue.

I did want to put that on the record again.

I will look to other senators in the room to see if they have any other questions. I see none.

Did you want to close with anything, Senator Harder?

Senator Harder: Just a very brief thank you to the committee for the diligent work that you're doing on this and other budget issues that will come before you. In my role, I look forward to continuing to work amongst all senators of goodwill to benefit our institution. That's what it's all about. The people of Canada want a Senate that works, that's credible, that's effective and relevant to their needs.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Senator Harder.

Mr. Charles Robert will now join us. I don't know how many meetings I've had in this room with you, with me sitting here and you sitting there, but we're certainly glad to have you back.

I will invite you to begin with opening remarks, but I'd like those opening remarks to include what we know as the Westminster model and how government works in the passage of legislation and consideration of legislation with respect to government and opposition and the structure. Right now, it looks as though we're clearly in a changing time where the we're all comfortable with structure may be threatened, where we find the balance between government and opposition.

I'm going to hand the floor to you. I would like you to consider that point specifically, and then we're going to go into questions.

Charles Robert, Clerk of the Senate and Clerk of the Parliaments, Senate of Canada: Well, I was asked to be brief and I will try to keep it that way.

The Westminster model that we have is very much an evolved model. Responsible government, for example, did not exist in 1700. It didn't exist when the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1689. It didn't exist when parliamentary privilege was successfully asserted and parliamentary supremacy was finally established vis-à-vis the role of the King. The Westminster model has a characteristic of being somewhat organic and very flexible to adjust to changing circumstances.

Political parties did not exist in the 18th century in the way we understand them. The opposition and the government didn't exist in quite the same way that we understand them now. That came about through the course of the 18th century as the complexity of government, relative to what was in the past, grew significantly.

The first reference according to some authorities — and I'm relatively unfamiliar with this — of a reference to an official opposition didn't occur in England until around 1825. That's only about 50 years before Canada itself became a Confederation with the government that we know now.

The whole idea of Canada being able to exercise responsible government is clearly dated to 1848, just 20 years before Confederation. The fact that we could absorb so much is part of that adaptability to the system. It is not what we were familiar with prior to Confederation.

If you look at the role of government in the 19th century, when parliamentary sessions lasted about four months — and then they would break, and they would have more than one session per year because travel was so difficult — the role of government was relatively small and minor. That didn't really start to shift until the First World War when the government's expenditures, which were at $200 million around 1914, exploded into something in excess of $700 million in a short amount of time.

That was followed by the government having greater responsibility for Foreign Affairs, which is not even in section 91, and growing to take into account the Depression and the catastrophe of the Second World War. It grew in a period of full employment and an economic boom that lasted into the 1960s. The government decided that, yes, it had the capacity to bring about social programs, and it became involved in providing those for its citizens.

In that context, there were shifts in responsibilities for the government, solidification of parties for the government and the opposition, and even the development of more than just two parties — a multitude of parties, such as the Progressives for a period and the Social Credit. Different parties came and went to respond to circumstances as part of our history. So that's what we have.

The history of political parties is something that would naturally have a focus in the House of Commons, because that is the elected house. Political parties really respond to the whole electoral process. It is somewhat different in characteristic for the members of the upper house who were deliberately chosen to be appointed — not to be elected so they would never compete with the House of Commons on the same basis and not to undermine the primacy of the House of Commons with respect to responsible government.

Senators come to the institution on a one-by-one basis as vacancies open. You can have groups, as you have seen, but that's largely because governments have chosen not to exercise their authority to fill vacancies.

But you come with a commission from the Crown that says, "We want and need your advice, and we trust you to give us sound advice.'' That's your mandate. You have no mandate from the people to actually perform a role that you have contested with other political parties to receive the support of the people.

So, yes, the tradition of political parties in the Senate does exist because it's a comfortable fit. It's a transfer of influences from the House of Commons to the Senate, just as you see the same kind of development in transfer from the House of Commons to the House of Lords in the Westminster model.

But for a variety of reasons, in part at least because there is no cap on the membership, there is flexibility in establishing the notion of cross-benchers. Cross-benchers apparently go back to the 18th century, but since 1958 and the development of life peerages, they have come into their own more than they did in the past. It is a substantial component of the membership of the House of Lords, and it suits some because you can appoint people for their expertise and not for their political allegiances.

So there are patterns that might be looked at if we want to evolve into something different from the comfortable fit that we have had, but that's really a choice for the Senate to make. It can be influenced, however, by the nature of the appointments and the appointment process that has been established.

I'm not really sure if I'm answering your question, but it's a stab in the dark.

Senator Tkachuk: When you talk about 1700, the King ran the country. The administration of government was a little different.

Mr. Robert: When he thought he had absolute rule, he lost his head.

Senator Tkachuk: That's right.

Political parties are shops in the window that people go to. That's why we have them. There's something about the House of Lords that encourages cross-benchers. Even with the old rules — not counting the new rules — they never got paid. Now they got paid on a daily basis.

Outside the government, they can appoint a zillion, if they want. They have 870 now. They can appoint more.

You may be a practising physician and you just wander over there when there's a health bill that may interest you. Then you write in your £350, or whatever it is, you vote and you're gone. That's a great way to be a cross-bencher. You can be an engineer, a doctor or whatever, and you go when that interests you.

We don't have that here. People expect us to come to work. We have a job, so we actually have to — but we have a little communist organization: We are all guaranteed pay; we can't get fired. This is nirvana here.

So you need a way to manage it. Without anyone managing it, I think this will be a very undisciplined place. That is what will happen here. That's my prediction.

Senator Tannas: We've had this discussion before. I'm interested in your thoughts. I want to separate the whole caucus, caucus activities, caucus funding, et cetera — groups — because I think, first of all, we have to focus on what Senator Harder's job is. As near as I can tell, his job is to be the mechanism to introduce and promote government legislation. We also have a mechanism that's important and demonstrated to have been there since the beginning, and that is opposition.

If I walk down the hall, I see a guy with a beard who was a government leader in 1867, and I see a Senate opposition leader from 1867. There is a picture of both of them there. Fortunately, the Supreme Court can't tell us this is wrong. That's actually gone on from the beginning.

I would argue it's just as important. Let me posit to you that the actual introduction of legislation and the promotion of such — all the mechanics that go with that — and the criticism of that legislation, particularly in a house that is supposed to take careful consideration, I would say that they are at least as important and at least as intense as each other. In my view, there wouldn't be much difference.

In fact, if I look back at the numbers that we were given, it's interesting. There's only one year in all of the years that we've been supplied funding for a government leader and an opposition leader where the government leader got paid more than the opposition leader. In fact, every other year, going back 20 years or whatever that mighty list is, the opposition leader got paid more and had a budget larger than the government leader.

Yes, I know some money came from the federal government, but that was probably the right idea. That's where the resources go. The opposition leader doesn't have that. If it's a government bill, it makes sense to me that if they want to supplement more than is needed to just get the mechanics in the Senate done, they should probably do that.

What do you think of those theories?

Mr. Robert: The activity theory is an interesting one. When I speak to public groups, as I frequently do, I try to explain the role of the Senate as a complementary chamber. I do point out that the House of Commons really has the unfortunate task of doing the heavy lifting. Most government legislation begins in that house, and then the Senate gets it as the chamber of sober second thought. There's a real opportunity to hone in on whatever might have been overlooked, underplayed or not sufficiently examined in the Senate. So there is real value added in the process that we follow, in the model of two houses.

What you see in the Senate that you do not see in the house — and this plays up somewhat the idea of the potential of independence — is that sometimes the most intense debate on a bill can happen within the caucus grouping on one side. For example, several years ago there was an extradition bill with provisions that authorized the Attorney General, the Minister of Justice, to sign extradition orders that could lead to the extradition of a citizen or non-citizen to a jurisdiction where they could suffer capital punishment when up on proper conviction. It was inside the government caucus of the day where you had the most intense battle over whether or not that was the right path to follow. To be candid, the opposition just joined in the fray because it was fun. But the battle was inside a caucus.

You would not see that in houses accustomed to party discipline, not publicly. You would not see it in the House of Commons.

It's a curious thing that the Australian parliamentary system is modelled on Westminster. You would expect that the House of Representatives is the confidence chamber, but the determination of whether or not legislation will become acts of Parliament actually rests more often than not with the Senate, because the government rarely controls it. Where party discipline is strong, you know what the outcome will be in the House of Representatives when the government has the majority. It's a question mark when the bill goes to the Senate.

As an appointed body, the ability of the Senate to flex its muscle is less obvious than it would be in the Australian Senate model. There's self-discipline exercised by senators here. At least 12 times in our history the government has had a minority. The Harper government certainly had a minority in the early days, but ultimately that did not threaten the mandate the government had received from the people and the ability of the government eventually, at any rate, to secure its legislation.

Diefenbaker never had a majority in the Senate, but that did not threaten his mandate. As John A. Macdonald himself explained, the Senate would never establish itself to block the clear will of the House of Commons representing the will of the people.

The model is different. There is an opportunity for senators to act independently, if you like, from the partisan discipline that is a normal feature of elected houses. So the idea, perhaps, being promoted by the government is if we actually encourage that independence, let's see what happens.

Senator Campbell: Thank you. That history was really amazing. I didn't realize that it was that recent. I assumed it was much more ancient than the last couple of hundred years.

Is there any precedent that you know of where suddenly the government decided that the second chamber would just be independent? Has that happened anywhere within the Westminster system?

Mr. Robert: I can't answer that question definitively. I would suspect not, simply because Canada has been resistant to the idea of creating an elected upper house. It's that feature which creates the challenge and the benefit of being a member of this house.

Senator Campbell: If we are basically all independent with titles attached to us, why do we have whips? You were saying we would never threaten the house. I agree with you on that, but one would then assume if everybody was independent, you wouldn't have to have a whip. Yet in the past there has clearly been party discipline on both sides.

Where did the whip come in? Where did that come from?

Mr. Robert: An explanation may come from the fact that no model is perfect. There are problems with the system as it has evolved. One example is that the House of Commons can't cope with amendments we propose to legislation, not in the sense that they think it's wrong. They just don't have the time built into their sitting schedule to cope with it.

I remember on one occasion, there was a bill dealing with juvenile criminal justice. There was an amendment proposed that the government didn't object to in principle, but it was coming towards the end of a sitting cycle. The June adjournment was looming, and the government was already in extended hours to try and cope with what load of business it wanted to dispose of before the summer adjournment. Here there was the prospect of an amendment coming to the Senate on this bill that they would have to fit into their already tight schedule. So rumours indicated that they had put out whips to try and make sure that whatever you thought about the merits of this amendment, please resist.

Well, in the end, the amendment passed because the Speaker should have voted and didn't, or did vote and shouldn't have, because it was a tie. If the Speaker had voted, it would have been a defeat or a win, depending on how it went. I don't think I have remembered it all, but it was a dramatic moment in the Senate. The government had to deal with it no matter what. They had put in as much pressure as they possibly could — so far as I could understand from my vantage point — to try and secure the defeat of the amendment.

Senator Jaffer: Can you give us examples of how the Senate has been adaptive?

Mr. Robert: We are a model of adaptability. We have the capacity to do it that far exceeds most other chambers, and we can do it on the fly.

Senator Jaffer: Can you give an example?

Mr. Robert: Yes. Pre-study was developed by Salter Hayden to deal with particular tax measures that are very complex and require a lot of time for proper analysis. He started doing this in the 1970s, but it wasn't incorporated into our Rules until the 1990s. So we were dealing with it for 15 to 20 years. It is curious how we never get credit for what we do, even though we sometimes do very brilliant work.

In the case that I remember reading about, Salter Hayden, this was a major rewrite of the Income Tax Act. Senator Hayden knew tax law like most evangelists know the Bible. He encouraged this practice of pre-study to allow the Senate to take the time it required for its skilled, knowledgeable members to actually go into depth with this study. So they did. They proposed all sorts of amendments. The government picked it up in the House of Commons. They incorporated most of it when the bill was still there. It came to us and we'd already done our work, so we passed the legislation in relatively quick order.

What does the media say? "The Senate is so lazy that they pass a complex piece of legislation in just a few days. What's the matter with them?'' That's the difficulty and the challenge that you always face.

Senator Campbell: I think you just got the quote from the Hill Times.

Mr. Robert: But that's a demonstration.

Observations to bills that have no procedural weight but provide a yellow flag to the government about concerns that the senators picked up in their analysis of legislation is a brilliant innovation. It's not even allowed in our Rules. We don't even mention it, but we do it anyway because we think, "Hey, this is smart and this is something that we can do.'' We don't foul up the government's timetable, but we discharge our responsibilities as we think fit by pointing out weaknesses that we don't think are critical but are still important enough to flag. That's what we do. That is what the Senate is actually brilliant at.

Senator Tkachuk: We adjust the Order Paper, too, to move business along.

Mr. Robert: Yes, but the House of Commons has other ways to do that because they allow the government to exercise more control than we have here. The idea that we actually give priority to government legislation only dates from the early 1990s, and it was the result of the debacle over the GST. The government of the day said, "We can't do this anymore.'' This is where, in fact, the party dimension raised its head in a more prominent way than was known previously. We said, "Look, the Order Paper has to be restructured so that, for sure, Government Business will get some kind of priority or consideration.''

Senator Tkachuk: And shorter speeches.

Mr. Robert: Yes, because time limits were actually put in place. You're exactly right.

Senator Jaffer: You're talking about us not being in an elected house because they didn't want the competition with us.

Mr. Robert: Yes.

Senator Jaffer: But one the strongest powers we have is legislation.

Mr. Robert: Oh, yes.

Senator Jaffer: We can hold it up. You've given some examples. How was it determined that we would have equal rights — almost, not for money bills?

Mr. Robert: We do have equal rights. The only limitations are not in the exercise of power but in the order of consideration. The financial legislation must begin in the House of Commons, but it doesn't mean that the Senate doesn't have an opportunity to look at it. For sure, you do.

Facetiously, when I speak to public groups, I've always said that the Senate has never demonstrated the same sort of suicidal tendencies of the House of Lords. The House of Lords had its powers curbed as a result of a Liberal budget defeat by a small "c'' conservative House of Lords in 1909. A much more democratically minded country, less hierarchical than the United Kingdom in the 19th century, never thought that its upper house would behave — to be somewhat hyperbolic about it — in such an arrogant way as the House of Lords.

There's the whole idea that the senators actually come from the people. They're not the great and the good as you see in the United Kingdom. They're not hereditaries. They are people who have been designated to make a contribution. At the same time, they're not expected to be politically ambitious.

I am going to use more street language. If you have fire in your belly, go to the House of Commons. Try to become a parliamentary secretary or try to become a minister. Try to go for the top job.

You don't do that in the Senate. You come here because you are already credited with being successful people, and your role is to make a contribution because you care and because you can.

Senator Jaffer: I want to talk about cross-benchers. I spent a week in London last week, and I'm really annoyed that we keep talking about cross-benchers. Their voting record is 12 per cent. As Senator Tkachuk said, they only go if they want to. They all have full-time jobs. They all run charities. I mean, this is just like a hobby.

When we compare cross-benchers with us, this is our full-time job and more. Most of us started at 7:00 this morning and are still working. It's worse than even working a so-called proper job. This is overtime now. What I'm saying is that we compare with cross-benchers, but I don't think that's where we are heading. This is our full-time job, unlike them, for which it is a hobby.

Mr. Robert: I don't know. I cannot speak about what the Modernization Committee is looking at, but I think the attractiveness of the cross-benchers is the sense that they are deliberately and overtly independent of any political party. But the challenge comes from the idea that we're a house of a limited size. We top off at 105, 113 in the worst case scenario. That's a relatively small group.

You can see it yourselves in the dynamics of the house when you are in the chamber. When I first joined the table in the mid-1990s, I remember hearing some speeches that actually changed opinions. It changes opinions because you are independent-minded, even if you are partisan. The most unusual thing — it was in fact quite bizarre — was that there was a bill being discussed. This was during the Liberal-government era. The Chair of the Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee, a Liberal, was fighting for an amendment the government didn't want, and a ranking Conservative senator was fighting for the government, opposing the amendment that the government didn't want. That's a dynamic that you would never see anywhere else, except possibly in the House of Lords. It was just a wonder to behold that people would actually behave that way.

Senator Plett: There's been a lot of back and forth here in the last few weeks about Senator Harder being the Representative of the Government versus the Leader of the Government and about, in the last couple of days, Senator Bellemare's title and Senator Mitchell's title.

Am I allowed to call myself the "senator representing the plumbers of Manitoba,'' or do I actually have to be the senator from Manitoba, representing the province of Manitoba?

Mr. Robert: I'll answer the question perhaps a different way. When you made reference earlier to the text that had been sent out announcing that we had received information about Senator Bellemare and Senator Mitchell, the letter that I was copied on, that was sent to the Speaker and leadership, indicated that Senator Bellemare was in fact the Deputy Leader of the Government, to be styled the Deputy Government Representative, and a similar structure in the titles for Senator Mitchell was also in the letter. When we shipped it out, we took note of the two titles that were being used.

It is my understanding that that falls into practices that have been established in recent years, when there were controversies about political affiliation and parties, when there were amalgamations or not among parties. So we didn't see that as something contrary to the courtesies we extend to senators in trying to respect their wishes with how they are styled or titled.

In the conversations that I've had with those who know the law better than I, a style component has no legal weight. It's basically a preference.

If that is true, perhaps it would be permissible to allow you to be designated "a senator from Manitoba who has a particular interest in the welfare of plumbers.'' I really can't answer that and say, "No, we wouldn't do it.''

Senator Plett: You might have to find out.

Mr. Robert: I might have to find out; that's true. I will be looking forward to a letter tomorrow, perhaps.

In terms of the geographic designation for senators appointed outside of Quebec, we have made changes that you would even see in the floorplan to respect the designation of —

Senator Plett: I'm a senator from Landmark, actually.

Mr. Robert: That's right. The oddest one was a senator from Bloor and Yonge in Toronto, for a very specific reason that we understood and went along with.

Some senators have been appointed from provinces where there is no clear entitlement as there is in Quebec to be the senator for De Salaberry or Wellington. We just go along with it. If that's what you would like, we will do what we can to accommodate.

Senator Plett: But does the Parliament of Canada Act play into these, especially with titles such as government leader and whip? Whip of what? You say he is the whip styled as something else, but what is Senator Mitchell the whip of? Does that not have to follow some kind of precedent, or can they just simply throw it out there and do whatever mood hits them that day?

Mr. Robert: I'm not sure that's a question that I can really answer. I think Senator Harder indicated that he was appointed as the government leader in order to function in a certain way that is recognized by our Rules and practices.

If he had been appointed, let us say, the Government Representative, could he access the rules that allow him to rearrange government business? Could he possibly even propose a time allocation motion to deal with the disposition of certain bills of the government or other items of the government if he were not entitled to claim, "I am the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and I want to style myself the Government Representative to support the ambitions of the government, as announced so far, to try and reform the Senate.''

If he were not the government leader, as I said, he couldn't invoke those rules.

Senator Plett: Maybe I'm getting off track, and that's certainly not my intention. I think it's all relevant because money is being asked for and more money will be asked for. Senator Mitchell has been appointed as whip, to be styled as something else. What is Senator Mitchell the whip of?

Mr. Robert: The only answer I can give you is what the title says — the government. He's the government whip. If you have puzzles about that, it's for you to sort out.

Senator Plett: Okay. Fair enough.

Senator Jaffer: When we had our separation, I understood that you had to belong to a party that in the federal —

Mr. Robert: — Electoral act.

Senator Jaffer: To be a caucus, right? You had to be a member of a party?

Mr. Robert: You have to be a member of a party that is registered under the Canada Elections Act. I think over 20 parties are registered under the Canada Elections Act. The Rules I think also stipulate that you can never fall below five. I think those are the two criteria that apply.

Senator Jaffer: You also have to be a member of the party as of the last Canada Elections Act. You can't form a party now, right?

Mr. Robert: Let's just go to the glossary in the Rules. This is another innovation. We dealt with this because we never had to do it before, so we decided we would actually sort it out. "Recognized party,'' a caucus, and this is I think the only time in the Rules where the word actually appears —

Senator Jaffer: What page are you on?

Mr. Robert: I'm reading from page 126 in the Rules of the Senate, which states:

Recognized party

A caucus consisting of at least five Senators who are members of the same political party. The party must have initially been registered under the Canada Elections Act to qualify for this status and have never fallen subsequently below five Senators. Each recognized party has a leader in the Senate.

In some sense, the party already had to have existed in the Senate and have been above five in order for this to kick in.

Senator Jaffer: Already existed in the Senate?

Mr. Robert: I believe so. That's how I would read it. The party must have initially been registered to qualify for the status and have never fallen subsequently below five. So if ever you fall below five, you lose your status.

Senator Jaffer: You mean the party has to exist in the Senate?

Mr. Robert: Yes. You can be a communist, a rhinoceros, a socialist.

Senator Jaffer: You said the party had to exist in the Senate?

Mr. Robert: Yes, because if it didn't exist you couldn't have five.

The Chair: Are there any other questions from colleagues?

Thank you, Mr. Robert. Thank you for your contributions and your scholarly work.

(The committee adjourned.)