SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — The Honourable Donna Dasko

Honourable senators, thank you for your wonderful remarks and tributes, which I cherish and will remember forever.

Colleagues, it is my turn to say goodbye and wish the Senate Godspeed on its continuing journey.

When I was in Elmwood High School in Winnipeg, no guidance counsellor ever suggested that I should study to be a pollster or a senator. It has been my great good fortune to have pursued both of these roles in my professional life. Both are integral parts of Canada’s democracy, our public policy and our politics.

Has any freshly appointed senator who has not served in the House of Commons known what to expect on that first walk onto Parliament Hill? The beautiful buildings call out our history. They call out gravitas and purposefulness. Indeed, all these things are present every day. What is not so obvious is that the Senate is a community of senators and staff, skills, personalities and emotions. To make it all manageable, there is great dedication, collegiality and generally good humour.

I am so very grateful to all who make this place work so well through constant demands, changes and long hours. I want to thank everyone who works here, as warmly as I can, for all that you do, day in and day out, for this institution and for people like me and all Canadians.

I also want to thank those staffers over the years who have kept me prepared and in the right place at the right time with the right papers and well briefed. Thank you to Emily Horonowitsch, Arianna Knoefel and Dylan Odd. Thank you to Beth Atcheson, my policy adviser on all things legal, for your knowledge and steady advice. And for my team here in Ottawa, I say thank you to Tristram Barnes, my policy adviser, for his spirit and positive attitudes and Cathy MacDonald, who has been by my side now for six years and who has genially juggled all the plates in the air so beautifully over the years. It has been such a pleasure to work with her on so many things.

I also want to acknowledge and thank my three Independent Senators Group, or ISG, leaders over these years: Senator Woo, who first recruited me to the ISG; Senator Saint-Germain; and Senator Moncion. You have all fostered a positive and inclusive environment and led our group with wisdom and intelligence in good times and through the many challenges we have faced over these years.

My family — my daughter, Marion, and my son, William — has been with me through this incredible journey, always curious and interested in my life in Ottawa and so proud of their mom, as I am so proud of them. And my son-in-law, Nic, is an indispensable member of our family.

Nic, your calm demeanour is much appreciated. Thank you.

Also, big hugs to my sister, Trish, and my brother-in-law; my dear friends who are here today and those back in Toronto; and my Winnipeg cousins, whom I hope to see very soon.

I also recognize members of the Ukrainian community from the embassy and from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress who are here today. Thank you very much for being here.

And then my Senate colleagues. I have worked with so many of you over these eight years on so many interesting pursuits. I feel I have got to know you so well, and what a pleasure that has been. I have made some of my closest friends here, as Senator Paula Simons has just said, and I don’t know how I will get along without seeing you over the next period. It’s going to be tough. I think I’m going to have to show up, come back for regular chats and make regular visits. That’s my plan.

Our work is hard but ultimately rewarding. Some of my fondest memories are of travels across this country: to Prince Rupert and Terrace to study the contentious ban on oil tankers, which may soon come back as an issue; to New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to study the temporary foreign labour force, an issue that remains unresolved; across the North to study Arctic security, which remains unfinished; to Churchill, Manitoba, my home province, to study its economic potential, where more is to be done; and to Alberta on a tour from south to north, thanks to Senator Tannas.

Colleagues, we must reach out to this magnificent province in the coming months as they contemplate the unthinkable: separation from Canada.

Like many of you, I came to the Senate as an outsider from the public service or Parliament, but, in spite of my outsider status, I had been extremely interested in the Senate for many years, going back to the period between the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord, when I worked with federal and provincial clients who were trying to keep Canada together by changing the Constitution. Senate reform figured into everything they came up with. It was always on the table as an initiative. Flash forward, yet another Senate reform effort on the part of Prime Minister Harper went to the Supreme Court in 2014, which I followed very closely.

Now, I have a confession to make, something I haven’t told anyone till this very day. In 2013, I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Harper suggesting that he appoint me to the Senate. “Well, why not?” I said to myself. Sadly, I received no acknowledgement whatsoever of my request.

However, another opportunity would soon appear. In 2016, when I fully understood that our new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was introducing a new model of Senate appointments based on independence and open applications, I realized that my opportunity had arrived. I applied and was ecstatic to be appointed. I was walking on a cloud, and I came here with enthusiasm and an open mind.

It has been an absolute privilege to be a parliamentarian for the last eight years, since June 6, 2018, the same day as my brother — and here he is still beside me — and to participate in this way in the life of Canada and the issues of the day.

The new model of the Senate does not alter Canada’s formal constitutional provisions for the Senate. Still, in the changes it has made to appointments and the changes the Senate has made and will continue to make as to how we work together, this new model was bound to open a new chapter in the life of the Senate, and it has done so. Of all the efforts to reform the Senate that I have seen in my lifetime, the independent Senate is the only reform that has succeeded.

Colleagues, like many of you, I also came to the Senate with a passion for democracy, public policy and politics. For most of my career, I worked to incorporate the views of Canadians into public policy and communications, as most of my clients were non-partisan public servants at the federal and provincial levels of government. I always viewed my work as an exercise in democracy, and I undertook this work in the same spirit. I always respected Canadians’ views and the diversity of views, even those views I disagreed with.

The independent Senate is uniquely able to take the views and beliefs of Canadians into account in our deliberations, given our lack of direction by a partisan caucus.

Two weeks ago in this chamber, our honourable colleague Senator Batters said, “. . . we have a responsibility to listen to the views of Canadians on issues that we vote on here.”

I agree entirely with this view. Yet in my experience here, the views we hear from and engage with are those of civil society groups, stakeholders, interest groups and experts. We meet with them, we receive correspondence from them and we invite them to our committees. This is all entirely legitimate, I might add — entirely — but we rarely take into account the views of ordinary Canadians in any systematic way.

I tried to do this here by commissioning public opinion research in several areas I was working on, including issues facing women, gun control, support for Ukraine and, of course, the Senate. I encourage senators to do this; it is the essence of democracy to consult Canadians, to consider their views and experiences on public policy issues and, more than that, to understand their beliefs and underlying values.

In my view, the changes to the Senate make it better able to perform its formal constitutional roles and to contribute to the well-being of Canadians.

Parliament has been bicameral since its inception and, as such, it is an integral part of our governance system. The Fathers of Confederation sought to balance representation by population in the House of Commons with representation on a regional basis in the Senate, ensuring that the more populous provinces could not simply overrun the interests of the less populous. Over time, and particularly since the patriation of the Constitution of Canada in 1982 and the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the protection of provincial and territorial minority interests has expanded to include other rights holders, including Indigenous Peoples, linguistic minorities and those groups protected by constitutional equality rights.

The Senate is now much more representative of Canada than it has ever been, and, in fact, it may be the most representative legislative body in the country. This chamber is now 55% women, ranking as the third highest in the world for women’s representation when it comes to upper chambers. Compare that to the dismal ranking of our elected chamber over at the other place, which ranks as number 71 in the world. We have also seen a significant increase in Indigenous senators, representing 10% of this chamber, and other appointments reflecting the diversity of Canada.

This diversity has affected how we work for the better. We have extended our reach to include a broader and deeper spectrum of views in all our work. And the Senate has led substantive responses to social movements, including truth and reconciliation, Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo movement, gender-based violence and so many others. The single amendment moved last week by Senator Bernard on Bill C-9 and passed by this chamber is one example which proves my point.

Whatever the future of appointments to the Senate brings, I think it’s essential to the functioning of our democratic institutions and the relationship that we have with Canadians that representation of the full population be bedrock, just like the granite under our feet. This is also the basis for my Bill S-213, as I believe that the government and Parliament and Canada’s political parties must find ways to improve representation in the House of Commons, just as we are committed to doing so in other federal institutions.

The move away from partisan to independent appointments has also enhanced the Senate’s ability to fulfill another core constitutional function: that of providing sober second thought.

In two must-read essays prepared in 2018 and 2019, Senator Harder described the new Senate as no longer a rubber stamp to the government and much better able to carry out its role as a complementary body to the elected Parliament. The new Senate, he noted positively, has more vigorously debated legislation, has appended strong observations and has proposed significantly more amendments to government legislation than previous Senates have done. The new Senate, he concluded, is effective and useful and produces better public policy outcomes for Canadians. These conclusions are as relevant today as they were seven years ago.

Every new senator, myself included, has their start by trying to learn about the core and reach of the powers we have accepted to take on within this role. How do we make decisions related to our core legislative responsibilities? Independent senators consider many principles and decide as individuals what weight we give to them. We have differing views about the issues and the solutions, sometimes causing strains. We have impatience at the pace of change, sometimes causing tension. Bills that are especially important and subject to time pressures can produce significant “hothouse” friction. Human nature being what it is, it is easy to add to the sparks.

How does one proceed? This is at heart a deeply human space that requires deeply human participation and practices. Disagreement is unavoidable but must not become personal. We must be willing problem solvers, using our skills and the tools available to us. This is what most of us have done in our other careers before we got here, and we need these skills more than ever in this setting.

It is senators who must make this place work.

I think we are evolving in a positive direction. We have heard mention of the most recent poll findings on public perceptions of the Senate from this March. The four surveys I commissioned form benchmarks for how Canadian views on the Senate are changing. Still, I was reluctant to commission this latest survey, fearing that the results may be less than positive. From the Nanos survey, we heard that 8 in 10 Canadians want future governments to continue with the independent Senate, while only 5% of Canadians want a return to a partisan body where senators sit as members of a political party. Just as important, in my view, the survey shows that positive impressions of the upper chamber outweigh negative views for the first time in a decade of polling. Positive views have inched forward, and if I look at the tea leaves and deeper into the data, the reason behind that is a growing appreciation for the Senate’s role in reviewing legislation and the growing awareness that senators work hard. This applies to all senators, not just independent senators. This is all very good news.

My experience tells me that we have to keep communicating with Canadians and engaging with them about our work. When I arrived here in 2018, the Senate proceedings weren’t even televised — imagine. The other place has been televised since 1977. But here? Oh, no. We couldn’t be too brash. We had to be very careful about this. This 20th century stuff was pretty doubtful — never mind the 21st century and never mind social media. We were back in the previous century. Well, we installed cameras and began the broadcast of regular Senate sittings in 2019. This is important and vital for our transparency as an institution, which, in turn, is vital for our accountability to Canadians. By the way, that survey shows that 23% of the public say they have seen the Senate on television at some point.

We’ve made great progress in our communications efforts in recent years with conventional media and social media outreach, but senators have to keep telling the story of our work and our worth.

Our evolving and modern Senate, I believe, is contributing to our democracy today in a more vital way than ever. The benefits are more inclusive representation, more scrutiny of government and Parliament and better policy outcomes for Canadians.

Colleagues, when we look around the world today, it is clear that democracies face numerous threats.

Political polarization divides societies into hostile camps where political differences undermine social relationships and discourage interaction across ideological lines, and this force is growing.

Political disinformation is the deliberate creation and spread of false or manipulated information designed to deceive the public and erode trust; it is fuelled by advancements such as AI, and this too is growing around the world.

Global authoritarianism is expanding, with approximately 72% of the world’s population now living under autocratic or hybrid rule, according to a report from UN Women.

What is also shocking is that our neighbour to the south is at the forefront of democracy’s decline, with all these negative trends in full force.

How are such threats to democracy affecting this country? I will make just one bold generalization based on research: In most dimensions, Canada is doing better than others in dealing with these challenges and in maintaining a healthy democracy, although, of course, there is much more that we can do.

Colleagues, I have always been optimistic about this country. Through mistakes, learning and successes, we find ways to live and prosper together.

The Prime Minister said in his moving speech on May 5, announcing the appointment of the Honourable Louise Arbour as the thirty-first Governor General of Canada:

. . . that Canada’s place in the world is to be a country that lives [by certain] propositions and helps others to live [by] them as well.

The Senate has embraced this endeavour. Our gaze must not only be inward, since the very nature of our past and present require us to look and to reach outward as well.

The situation closest to my heart is the brutal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. I hope that the Senate will continue to advocate for and support Ukraine and contribute to peacemaking around the world. Please, honourable senators, continue this work.

My time in the Senate has deepened my confidence in this country and its institutions, leaders and Canadians.

In these tumultuous times, I urge the Senate to continue being a strong pillar of our democracy. It will be hard work. It will take a wise mix of bravery and strength.

I will miss the Senate, dear colleagues, and I will miss you.

Thank you, meegwetch.