Honourable senators, I’m rising to speak to Senator Woo’s motion regarding changes to the Rules of the Senate and equality among groups in the Senate.

I’ve carefully reviewed the motion and all of the individual rules that he’s proposing be changed, and I listened carefully to his speech back in March in the chamber. I certainly agree that the full recognition of the equality of Senate groups and the senators who are part of them should not wait any longer, given the historic changes that have occurred in this chamber over the last five years.

Today, we have four recognized groups in the Senate of Canada, three of which are not officially linked to a political caucus in the other place. I arrived here seven years ago, and 95% of the senators were aligned in political caucuses, the Liberals and the Conservatives. We are now 80% not aligned with Liberals or Conservatives in any official way.

In addition to the four groups, we should note that we have the Government Representative in the Senate, who does not lead a recognized caucus.

Previously, this was all unimaginable, but somehow, we’ve made it work. Quite frankly, in my mind, today’s Senate is more dynamic and more valuable to Canadians than the one in which I arrived.

Some changes were already made to our Senate rules in November 2017, in recognition of a more independent Senate. In other cases where the rules were not modified, sessional orders had been agreed to and adopted to provide for more equality among groups. An example of such includes expanding the ex‑officio status to all leaders or facilitators of recognized groups in the last Parliament.

In December 2018, the final report of the Special Senate Committee on Senate Modernization, chaired by Senator Greene, concluded that a more equal Senate requires changes on three levels. One of the levels we’re talking about in Senator Woo’s motion is the Rules of the Senate. There are two other levels, which are the Senate Administration Rules and the Parliament of Canada Act, but this motion deals specifically with the Rules of the Senate.

I would like to quote from page 8 of the English version of the thirteenth report from that special committee:

In many cases, the Senate has already made adjustments within these rules and procedures to accommodate new parliamentary groups and new leadership configurations . . . .

They were referring to temporary agreements. They go on to say:

. . . but it is time to make these adjustments more certain.

It’s time to make them permanent. It is time to recognize reality.

As we keep moving toward a more independent Senate, one where senators have more freedom to regroup with other colleagues who share the same ideas on public policy, regional perspectives or other unifying perspectives, we must ensure that the changes proposed by Senator Woo achieve the right balance between two things. The first is levelling the playing field to achieve more equality among the recognized groups, and the second is that we have to respect the fundamental characteristics of this chamber in that one of our main functions is to provide a sober-second-thought review of government bills. We still have a Government Representative in the Senate and a Leader of the Opposition, and that’s the way it should stay.

There are two things at play in Senator Woo’s motion that have led me to make this observation. First, several of these amendments aim simply, as I have said, to level the playing field among all groups. The proposals are consistent in principle, and they make common sense. Some examples of these proposals include consultations by the Speaker with all leaders and facilitators when he is considering extending the adjournment of the Senate. That has been the case; the Speaker has followed that since mid-March.

Other proposals are the agreement of all facilitators and leaders to appoint members onto the Senate Ethics Committee, to extend Senators’ Statements for tributes, to define the terms of time allocation for debate on government bills and to establish the duration of bells for votes.

Several of these changes were identified in the final report of the Special Senate Committee on Senate Modernization in December 2018. Some specific changes proposed by the motion may need, however, a more comprehensive debate. It is for that reason that I would like to table an amendment on the floor of this chamber in order to support that kind of discussion. Specifically, I would like to talk about two of these changes.

The first one is ex-officio status and voting privilege for leaders. Point 12 of Senator Woo’s motion would extend the ex‑officio status to all the leaders and the facilitators of the recognized groups, as well as to the leaders of the government and opposition. I agree with that.

However, Senator Woo’s motion goes on to suggest that it would not allow leaders to exercise a vote in committees, which is a change. During the last Parliament, and even prior to 2015, the issue of allowing ex-officio members to vote had constituted a bit of a grey zone, especially regarding the Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. In his speech, Senator Woo stated that he simply wants to prevent surprises in committees in a Senate comprised of many groups.

I believe that the ex-officio voting status for each representative, leader of the groups will be more important than ever in a multi-group Senate. It will ensure that appropriate consideration is given to contentious situations where various groups are at odds. This is particularly important in the committees that are vital to the organization of the Senate, specifically Internal Economy and the Rules Committee.

I submit that we should, therefore, be very careful of expressly prohibiting ex-officio members to vote at committees. We should allow each committee to decide on ex-officio voting in the context of their particular organization.

That’s the first item that I wish to deal with in my amendment. The second item is around the nomenclature of critics and spokespersons of a bill.

Points 4 and 17 of the motion by Senator Woo would eliminate, as outlined in Appendix I of the Rules of the Senate, the role of the critic in favour of a notion that expects that each group, including the opposition, would have spokespersons who would be allowed to speak for a 45-minute period.

I have no problem with every designated spokesperson or critic getting the full 45 minutes, but we have to recognize and be vigilant around the point that the Senate is part of a bicameral Parliament, mostly modelled after the Westminster parliamentary system. We’ve had in this chamber a Leader of the Government and a Leader of the Opposition since 1867. Senator Gold still has the privilege of appointing a sponsor to promote a government bill. Therefore, it is my submission that the Leader of the Opposition should still enjoy the same privilege, obligation and responsibility of appointing a critic — no more, no less.

I said earlier that I think the new Senate functions well. It’s more dynamic and exciting, but part of the reason is because there is somebody who gets up every morning and tries to figure out how to poke holes in the government’s sales pitch. If we don’t have that, we will be losing a huge part of that dynamic. We’ve talked about this before. The fact of the matter is, important decisions should be made by uncomfortable people, and that is the role that the opposition plays.

I’m proposing that the role of critic be retained in the definitions and that we simply add the role of a spokesperson, which would be for groups other than the government and other than the opposition.

I want to say this out loud to our colleagues in the Conservative caucus. I think many Conservative members have expressed concerns about an attack on the opposition. I don’t see anything in this as an attack on the opposition, either overt or covert. The amendments that I am proposing, I think, make doubly sure that that is not the case.

I ask that all of us consider that as we go through this. But that was definitely the lens in which I and my researchers looked through Senator Woo’s motion, and it does form the basis for my amendments.

I think we are way past playing politics or using stall tactics on this kind of reform. It is time to finish the job that we initiated some four years ago, in 2016, on modernization.

I genuinely believe that levelling the playing field, as described in this motion, does not reduce the role of opposition or take away tools available to the opposition.

I think we all stand to benefit from the important work that was achieved by the special Senate Committee on Modernization, Senator Woo and other distinguished colleagues in this chamber, relating to amendments to our rules.