Hon. Claude Carignan: Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Leader, some public health measures have been lifted and a relative calm seems to be setting in with respect to the pandemic, so Canadians would like to start travelling again. However, travel requires getting a Canadian passport.

Last March and April, Canadians submitted more than 500,000 passport or passport renewal applications. Passport Canada appears to be experiencing the same issues as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, where slow processing has become the institutional norm. Canadians who want to apply for or renew their passports are facing unbelievably long wait times. What is worse, the minister responsible for the issuance of passports has not given Canadians any indication of how long they can expect to wait. It is taking weeks or even months, leader. Desperate people are showing up at dawn at the Guy‑Favreau complex in Montreal to try to get an expedited passport.

What concrete action does the government intend to take to remedy this unacceptable situation?

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Senator Carignan: I do not want to repeat my speech in my response, because I do not have enough time. The important thing is to avoid a slippery slope where eventually we stop playing our role as the chamber of sober second thought. This morning I made the following observation: At the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, we are studying a bill for which 75 amendments were proposed. I was listening to us and I realized that we are quite skilled at taking a second look at bills, but maybe less so at reviewing them the first time around.

We allotted seven or eight meetings, and there are several technical aspects of government policy to address as well. I think that I would like to be able to benefit from the discussions among MPs and the direction they plan to take from a policy perspective in the House of Commons on a bill of this nature, so that we can learn from these discussions and the witnesses. Senators could then complete their study with the testimonies they will have not heard, including evidence from lobbyists that were not heard at the other place, and look at them from a certain distance. I think that is the rule in the Senate and one we should maintain, except in special situations.

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As I already mentioned, when I was government leader, for most of the pre-studies we did, the work was already done at the other place. The committee had concluded its study, the witnesses had been heard, and almost all of the amendments had been proposed, because, as you know, at the House of Commons the amendments are mostly presented in committee.

[English]

Senator Carignan: Thank you, leader. I would like to read from a message a citizen sent me:

Dear senator, I am supposed to go to Morocco with my son this Thursday. He applied for his passport on April 13 and was supposed to get it on May 20. I called for a status update two weeks ago. After waiting two hours to speak with someone, I was told the file had been transferred to the Laval office and that we would get an update by May 20. No word on May 20. This morning, I am at the Saint-Laurent office. We are supposed to leave in 48 hours. It is 6:21 in the morning, and look at the lineup, which is unacceptable. Can you do something about this?

I replied, “Wow!” Here’s what he wrote back:

Mr. Senator, this is chaos. After waiting for eight hours and thanks to my own resourcefulness, I managed to get a passport a few hours before my departure.

How will the government be compensating people who, like this individual, were put through this utterly unacceptable stress or, worse still, missed their trip and their departure altogether?

Senator Carignan: Certainly.

Senator Carignan: Yes.

Hon. Claude Carignan: Would Senator Cormier take another question?

Senator Carignan: Senator Cormier, you understand, of course, the importance of defending both official languages. Any minute now the House of Commons will be voting to refer the bill to a committee following second reading stage.

Over the next few days, the House of Commons committee should be starting to study the provisions of the bill to modernize the Official Languages Act; the debate will be held first in the House of Commons and then in the Senate.

Doesn’t the committee have other important topics to study on official languages, to ensure that the government respects both of our official languages?

Senator Carignan: I will continue reading the quote.

At second reading in the Senate several senators expressed concern that the bill, as reintroduced, had received so little attention in the Commons. Its supporters pointed out that the bill’s predecessor had been examined by a Commons committee and, despite the expressed concerns, had been passed unanimously. However, the Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs held thirteen meetings on the bill and examined it in considerable detail, hearing from almost thirty witnesses, including among others representatives from the Canadian Bar Association, the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Department of Justice, and the Elizabeth Fry Society.

Following this study and in light of the many concerns presented at public hearings:

 . . . the Committee recommended that the bill not proceed, and the full Senate adopted this recommendation without division.

The Senate’s decision on this bill was based on a far more intensive investigation than occurred in the Commons . . .

What does this example show us? It shows us that if the Senate properly and meticulously performs its role, it is beyond question essential to our democracy. I therefore urge honourable senators to not be led astray and to focus on our fundamental role of being a chamber that complements the House of Commons.

I will be voting against Motion No. 41. Thank you.

Senator Carignan: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 41, to authorize a pre-study of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

Again, the government is asking us to do a pre-study of a bill that may not have moved far enough through the House of Commons.

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In our recent debates on Senator Gold’s motion, much was said about the Senate being responsible for the use of its time. Indeed, esteemed colleagues, the Senate is an independent legislative body that manages its affairs according to its rules, practices, customs and traditions.

Although the Senate, as conceived by the Fathers of Confederation, is a chamber of sober second thought, it also has a duty to undertake inquiries in order to hold the government accountable for its decisions. We conduct these inquiries of our own free will and at our own direction. Furthermore, you know as well as I do that the Senate has the power to legislate, except in the case of money bills.

Let’s return to the Senate’s main role of taking a second look at government bills and, more generally, at bills passed by the House of Commons.

We must undertake this task with consideration for our specific mandate of representing the regions and protecting minorities. The Senate was created as a counterbalance to an elected chamber that represents the people, but where the anglophone majority could overwhelm the francophone minority. The equal representation of regions thus became a foundational principle and ensured greater protection for less populated provinces.

Confederation in 1867 was made possible by this commitment to a Senate serving as the counterbalance to the government and supporting the principle of equitable representation of the regions.

The Senate is then one of the three fundamental pillars of the democratic system that make up the Parliament of Canada. It is a pivotal player in shaping our body of law, and its role cannot be trivialized or relegated to that of a mere advisory body. When legislation is passed in the House of Commons, it is sent back to us for a thoughtful and, ideally, non-partisan second look.

The Senate is known and respected for its thorough and studious review of legislation. Similarly, Senate studies regularly end up influencing the passage of public bills because of their quality.

The predecessor to Bill C-13 is Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts. It was introduced for first reading on June 15, 2021, a few days before the summer recess and a few weeks before the prorogation of Parliament, which occurred in August 2021 and came as no surprise to anyone. When we look at the history of Bill C-32, we can see that it went through first reading on June 15, 2021, but the second reading, committee review and third reading stages were not completed.

The Trudeau government waited five years and eight months to introduce its bill to modernize the Official Languages Act, with the only result being that the bill was introduced in the other place at first reading and then it was never debated.

So, yes, I was quite surprised when I learned that we would be debating a motion regarding a pre-study of Bill C-13. This government dragged its feet for so long on this file that the fact it is asking us now to do a pre-study of this bill seems very odd indeed.

I would remind colleagues that the Senate does not normally begin studying a bill before the other place has completed its study. Bill C-13 is still at second reading in the House of Commons at this time. After four sittings during which the House debated this bill, the government adopted a time allocation motion on May 20, which means that the bill will be referred to the Standing Committee on Official Languages today.

Aside from the fact that the government, for unknown reasons, suddenly seems inclined to expedite the study of this bill, there is absolutely no reason the Senate should bow to the government’s will and abandon its customary and constitutional practice of carrying out a second review of the bill once it has been passed in the other place.

During debate on Motion No. 41, Senator Gold and Senator Saint-Germain quoted statements I made when I was government leader in support of the pre-study of certain bills. Indeed, as I said earlier, I recognize that a pre-study can be useful under certain specific circumstances. However, it must not become routine, because that would distance the Senate from its fundamental role as a chamber of sober second thought. Most importantly, a second study carried out by the Senate must not supplant committee work in the House of Commons.

Therefore, when considering a pre-study, the bill to be studied must at a minimum be in the legislative process in the other place, the committee study must ideally have been completed and amendments must have been presented. There must be a certain urgency to moving the bill along, whether because the end of the session is imminent, or there is a legal requirement or the bill has such a narrow but important application that it is vital to deal with it as quickly as possible. Those are some elements that need to be considered. However, the Senate is master of its own schedule and it may take into account any other consideration in determining the pertinence of a pre-study of a bill. I must insist that pre-studies should not become the norm, but rather the exception.

In that sense, Professor Paul G. Thomas, in a work edited by our former colleague, Senator Joyal, entitled Protecting Canadian Democracy: The Senate You Never Knew, rightly points out, and I quote:

The original role of the Senate was to complement . . . the House of Commons, which . . . was seen as the centre of political life in the country.

Other than the pre-studies on supply bills that are usually done in the Senate, six pre-studies were done under my leadership in two years, in 2013 and in 2014. With two exceptions, namely the pre-studies for bills C-15 and C-23, all of these pre-studies were done after second reading stage in the House of Commons, and especially after the committees tasked with studying them held their meetings.

Bill C-15 was a bill to implement certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Land and Resources Devolution Agreement, a very specific bill limited to a region. With regard to Bill C-23 on reforming the Elections Act, the House of Commons committee began its meetings before the Senate did, but we agreed with the government that we would conduct a parallel study so that the government could benefit from the considerable electoral experience of several senators. This was actually effective, because several amendments that were made in the House of Commons came from the Senate.

If you will bear with me, we could take a look at some of the examples of pre-studies we did in the Senate when I was the government leader.

The committee concluded its study of Bill C-24 on citizenship on June 3, 2014, and the Senate started its pre-study on June 10, 2014. A House of Commons committee finished studying Bill C-36, to amend the Criminal Code in response to a Supreme Court ruling, on July 15, 2014, and the Senate started its pre-study on September 9, 2014.

A House of Commons committee finished its study of Bill C-51, An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, on March 31, 2015, and the Senate started its pre-study on March 30, 2015.

Honourable senators, I don’t think I could be accused of excessive or inappropriate use of pre-studies in the Senate. In nearly every case, the Senate committee started its study after the House of Commons committee completed its own study and had already heard from witnesses and made amendments, all before the pre-study.

I reread the statement Senator Gagné made when she moved her motion, and, frankly, I did not see even a shred of justification for a pre-study of Bill C-13.

Actually, honourable senators, there are more reasons to refuse this pre-study than there are to authorize it. The first and most important reason is that this pre-study flies in the face of the very reason the Senate exists. A number of us point out every once in a while that we are a chamber of sober second thought, which is what the Senate was conceived to be. It is becoming increasingly worrisome to see the government use the Senate to advance its own legislative agenda, either through pre-studies or by simply introducing government bills in the Senate. In doing so, the government is adding to the Senate’s workload and preventing it from fulfilling its duty of sober second thought, relying on the wisdom and vast expertise of its members.

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Also, as I have already amply demonstrated, no one has provided us with any evidence of whatever urgency might justify a pre-study. Quite the opposite is true. While I am in no way denying the importance of modernizing the Official Languages Act, I believe that this must be done in an orderly, careful manner, taking the time to do it properly, without putting the cart before the horse.

In response to a question from Senator Plett, Senator Gagné said the following to justify a pre-study of Bill C-13:

I believe that’s one more reason to conduct a pre-study, in order to guide the government and inform its analysis.

You see, colleagues, with all due respect to Senator Gagné, this statement clearly illustrates that the government’s representatives in the Senate do not have a clear understanding of the duties of our institution. If we want to guide the government and inform its analyses, our preferred tool is our power of inquiry. That is how we should be informing the government’s actions, as much as possible. Using pre-studies to guide and inform the government would pervert our own actions. It would essentially turn us into an advisory committee and betray the role we have played in the federation since 1867.

To give Senator Gold some credit, when he was trying to justify a pre-study of C-11, he at least could point to the somewhat more extensive history of that bill’s predecessor, Bill C-10. He certainly did not convince us, but at least he had a few slightly more substantial arguments to rely on.

In the case of Bill C-13, other than the text of the bill itself, we are faced with a complete lack of analysis, debate, testimony or any kind of serious thought from the other place. Asking us to proceed with a pre-study of Bill C-13 is tantamount to asking us to do the work of the House of Commons, which is certainly not our role. I have said it and I will say it over and over again, this is a chamber of sober second thought whose objective is to enrich the work of the House of Commons and improve bills, not to do the House’s work.

If we constantly stray from our purpose and allow ourselves to be drawn into the legislative vagaries of the government, our very essence will be lost, and we will certainly lose our way in the confusion of purposes, not to mention it will be difficult to distinguish between the two chambers.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, in preparing for this speech, I had a quick look at the book edited by our former colleague Senator Joyal on the history and functions of the Senate. The book is entitled Protecting Canadian Democracy: The Senate You Never Knew, and I highly recommend reading it.

To explain the importance of sober second thought, I have selected a passage written by Professor C.E.S. Franks, who recounted a situation that occurred in the Senate as follows:

The “Son of Sam” Bill. In October 1997, Bill C-220, with unanimous consent and without amendment passed second reading, committee, and third reading stages in the House of Commons all in one day and was forwarded to the Senate. The bill, a private members’ bill amending the Criminal Code and Copyright Act to prevent convicted persons from profiting by writing works describing their crimes, was essentially similar to bill that had died on the Order Paper of the previous Parliament. That bill had received Third Reading in the House despite potentially serious concerns expressed by the House committee that had examined it: that it exceeded the criminal law power, that its effect would reach beyond the incarceration period, and that it addressed a problem that was already being resolved intergovernmentally.