The Hon. the Speaker: I am sorry, Senator Plett, but Senator Dean’s time has expired.

Senator Dean, are you asking for more time?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I guess I could simply spend 30 minutes reading my speech of earlier today, just in order to take some time and reinforce what I already said earlier, but I won’t do that. I will keep my remarks fairly brief and may even finish before six o’clock, unless I speak really slowly.

Senator Plett: Oh, oh.

Senator Plett: Certainly.

Senator Plett: Sure.

Senator Plett: No. 

Senator Plett: Only to answer that question.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to ask the senator a question if she would take one more.

Senator Plett: I am.

Senator Plett: Will Senator Dean take a question?

Senator Plett: I don’t know. Are we?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question today for the government leader concerns a now-cancelled soccer game between Canada and Iran that was scheduled to take place in Vancouver. Instead of showing leadership and immediately condemning this game, first the Prime Minister said it was up to the organizers to explain it. A few days later, he said border agents would determine whether Iran’s team would be permitted into Canada.

Leader, the NDP-Liberal government has failed the families of Flight PS752 at every turn. Just weeks after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down this plane, the Prime Minister bowed his head to the Iranian foreign minister and shook his hand.

Last year, a lawyer for the families called the Trudeau government unhelpful in their civil case — and now this.

Leader, could you confirm that, prior to the cancellation of this game, your government approved visas and work permits for the Iranian team to come to Canada?

Senator Plett: Thank you, leader. We will await that reply. Hopefully, it will come fairly soon.

Leader, although the Prime Minister said the NDP-Liberal government had not delivered any funding for the game against Iran, Canada Soccer has recently received millions in taxpayer dollars and offered $400,000 to Iran to play that so-called friendly game. So $400,000 of taxpayer money was almost diverted to Iran. Fortunately, leader, this was stopped following public outrage, but we need to make sure that Iran does not get one penny.

Leader, what is your government doing to ensure that Canadians, including the families of victims of Flight PS752, will not see their tax dollars go towards paying a cancellation fee to Iran or bailing out Canada Soccer for whatever they spent organizing and promoting this game?

Would you also ensure, leader, that you provide that answer to us? I know you won’t have it today.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 41. As you know, this motion is very similar to Motion No. 42, which we will also be debating later this day.

I oppose both of these motions for the same reasons and will thus make most of my remarks on the motion before us now, although my arguments apply equally to both motions.

The motion before us now is asking:

That, in accordance with rule 10-11(1), the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages be authorized to examine the subject matter 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, introduced in the House of Commons on March 1, 2022, in advance of the said bill coming before the Senate; and

That, for the purposes of this study, the committee be authorized to meet even though the Senate may then be sitting or adjourned, with the application of rules 12-18(1) and 12-18(2) being suspended in relation thereto.

Colleagues, pre-studies are a legitimate tool for the Senate to use at its discretion. They have been used many times in the past and will, undoubtedly, be used again. However, when considering whether to authorize a pre-study, it is imperative that the Senate consider if the request qualifies as a legitimate use of pre-studies.

The Senate rules do not give any criteria regarding whether or when pre-studies should be used. Rule 10-11(1) simply says:

The subject matter of a bill originating in the House of Commons may be referred to a standing committee for study at any time before the bill is received in the Senate.

This means, colleagues, that in order to determine the criteria of what constitutes the legitimate use of a pre-study, we need to take a look at the historical practice of the Senate, and then we must consider the purpose of the requests before us in that context.

Over the last 150 years, 193 pre-studies have been approved by this chamber. That is fewer than four bills per year. Of those, 103 were bills that went to the National Finance Committee or the Banking Committee, and the majority were bills amending the Income Tax Act, the Bank Act and the Combines Investigation Act.

In other words, they addressed matters typically dealing with budget bills or the implementation of other policy measures with broad support. The issue to be considered in committee pre‑studies was rarely whether the policy should be implemented, but rather how.

These were pre-studies initiated for procedural or policy purposes. This is a legitimate use of pre-studies in the Senate.

Pre-studies that are authorized for procedural purposes fall roughly into three categories. One, they can be implemented for the purpose of soliciting amendments prior to passage in the House of Commons. This is done in order to prevent having a Ping-Pong match between the two houses where the legislation goes back and forth with amendments.

To prevent this, the government will ask the Senate to consider a bill ahead of time so that any proposed amendments can be incorporated into the bill on the House of Commons side. The last time a pre-study was used this way was for Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and others, in 2014. On March 24, 2015, Senator Grant Mitchell told this chamber that in his view this was an excellent reason for a pre-study. I will quote Senator Mitchell. I will not do it in Senator Mitchell’s voice, although I would like to try:

We have had an experience in the not-too-distant past where a Senate pre-study of the Fair Elections Act did result in amendments being accepted by the house, before the bill got out of the house, because they were done in parallel. With that in mind and with the minister establishing an open mind, that’s a very positive argument for a pre-study.

I have not very often agreed with Senator Grant Mitchell, but I do here. This is an example of a legitimate reason for a pre-study. But colleagues, that is not what we have before us today.

The second legitimate reason for the House of Commons to request a pre-study from the Senate is to draw from specific expertise of the Senate. If the government thinks that a bill will receive a better study in the Senate than in the House, and it often does, because it is very technical, and the Senate has subject-matter expertise, then a pre-study makes sense.

We saw this in 2019 with Bill C-91, An Act respecting Indigenous languages, and Bill C-92, An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families. In each case, colleagues, the Senate had expertise which the House leaned on in order to draft better legislation. Our Aboriginal Peoples Committee made numerous amendments, many of which were accepted by the House and incorporated into this legislation.

There have been numerous other times when the government has tapped the expertise of the Senate through an in-depth pre‑study on bills specific to the Bank Act, anti-trust laws and more. There are examples of legitimate uses of pre-studies.

However, in the two cases before us today, there is no indication that this is what the government has in mind. On the contrary, the Senate seems to be viewed as a bit of a nuisance that the government is hoping to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

The third legitimate reason for a pre-study is to expedite the passage of a bill when it reaches the Senate. We have seen this with pre-studies used for budget measures, COVID-related bills and bills that are coming as a result of a decision of the Supreme Court when there is an established deadline.

For example, the Senate conducted a pre-study in 2014 on Bill C-36, an Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. The Supreme Court had struck down part of the Criminal Code and gave a deadline to Parliament to redraft the legislation. A pre-study was necessary and legitimate to ensure that we met this deadline.

The same thing happened with Bill C-14, the assisted suicide bill. Parliament had a limited window to respond to the court’s decision, and the Senate took that seriously and undertook a pre‑study.

This happened again on Bill C-7, when the legislation on assisted suicide had to be amended due to another court decision. All of these are excellent examples of the legitimate use of a pre‑study in order to respond to an urgent need to pass legislation. But, once again, that is not the case with either Bill C-11 or Bill C-13.

There is no court-appointed mandate and no impending due date that are pressing us to hurry up. On the contrary, colleagues, these bills both need ample time to be exposed to sunlight. There is no consensus on the issues, and there are many concerns.

Pre-studies undertaken because the government is pre‑emptively seeking amendments, planning to intentionally defer to the expertise of the Senate, or there is a need to expedite the passage of critical time-sensitive legislation are legitimate.

This is what we saw during the years of the Harper government.

Between 2006 and 2013, pre-studies were used for seven budget bills, two bills regarding changes to the Criminal Code and two bills on Employment Insurance.

Between 2013 and 2015, the Second Session of the Forty-first Parliament, pre-studies were used for four budget bills in order to appropriately expedite their implementation, two bills on Indigenous or Northern Affairs because the Senate had expertise on these matters and one bill on the Elections Act because many senators were at that time current or former party officials with lots of expertise on elections.

Furthermore, when it came to the Canada Elections Act, the House of Commons waited for the Senate committee to give their suggested amendments so that they could incorporate them into the legislation.

There was also one pre-study on a bill to amend the Criminal Code that I mentioned earlier, which made changes in response to a Supreme Court decision on prostitution, along with one pre‑study on citizenship and one on national security.

So, in nine years, there were 11 budget bills. Non-budget bills totalled 10, or an average of one per year, which included bills on which the Senate had specific expertise or were urgent.

This is entirely different than what we see the government leader in the Senate proposing today.

While legitimate pre-studies are initiated for procedural or policy reasons, the pre-studies we are being asked to approve today have been initiated entirely for political purposes. Rather than seeking to improve legislation, the government seems to be intent on bypassing sober second thought in order to rush the bills through unnecessarily. This, colleagues, is not the role of this chamber.

But this is not the first time this government has tried to use pre-studies as a means of compensating for their ineptitude.

In 2017, former senator Joseph Day said:

The House of Commons should not take for granted that we will bypass or circumvent our normal and traditional practices in order to compensate its own failings in managing its agenda.

Our recently retired colleague Senator Mercer added:

This pre-study will continue to allow the House of Commons to treat the Senate with little or no respect. This pre-study will continue to allow the House of Commons to be lazy and too lazy to get their work done in a timely fashion. Canadians expect better than that. Voters expect better than that. . . .

I have a message for the House of Commons: Stop wasting our time and get off your butts and do your job. Public expectation is that the House of Commons will do its job. We expect the House of Commons to do its job because everyone knows we’re ready to do ours and I will not be supporting a pre-study.

Amen, Senator Mercer.

Regardless of which party is in power, using pre-studies to try to make up for lost time has been long considered a bad idea.

In 2015, again, my friend Senator Grant Mitchell said:

It is a concern, particularly for the opposition side, often to permit or agree with pre-studies. Often there are good reasons given. One reason is the pressure of time. That is the least good reason and often that’s because the House of Commons didn’t show the Senate adequate respect and just dumped the bill on us at the last minute. . . .

Colleagues, I’m not opposed to the Senate authorizing pre‑studies which are for legitimate purposes. But that is not the case before us today.

The House is not pre-emptively and proactively seeking amendments, nor does it have any intention of soliciting the expertise of the Senate in deference to us, nor is there a need to expedite the passage of critical, time-sensitive legislation. Instead, they just want us to hurry up.

This government and this Government Representative in the Senate are seeking to normalize the practice of pre-studies by suggesting that they are a way of ensuring in this chamber that “. . . there be sufficient time for adequate study and debate regardless of how quickly or not legislation arrives.”

I will again quote Senator Gold:

. . . the authority to pre-study proposed legislation is within our power and affords us the time to properly scrutinize legislation without prejudice to the time . . .

Colleagues, with respect, this is nonsense. The Senate doesn’t need to pre-study in order to have sufficient time to do our job properly. Our timetable is in our own hands, not the government’s.

Senator Gold is making the absurd suggestion that the Senate should rush the bills now so we do not have to rush them later. I would argue that we should not be rushing them at all.

The legislation Senator Gold is referring to is not part of a budget implementation act. It does not amend the Income Tax Act. It does not implement policy which has already been considered and approved by the other place. In fact, we have every expectation that before we receive either of these bills in this chamber, they will be amended in the other place, possibly making our work redundant and a complete waste of time.

MP Chris Bittle, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, acknowledged that amendments to Bill C-11 were likely a couple of months ago when he said:

We are eager to see this bill before committee and to engage in discussion on how to make it better, ensuring its principles and what we and the minister have set out are met. There is room for amendments and room for discussion, and the proper place is in committee. . . .

The Senate is supposed to provide sober second thought, but that is difficult to do when we won’t even have the final copy of the bill.

This is not a new concern. Our previous colleague Senator Joan Fraser raised it back in 2014 when she said:

As the Leader of the Opposition has just suggested, what exactly are they going to be studying? We don’t know what’s going to be coming to us from the House of Commons. I would gather, from listening on the weekend to various interviews with the minister in charge, Mr. Poilievre, that the bill will be stuck in the House of Commons committee for the next month. Is it still going to be the same bill when it gets out? If not, why are we doing the pre-study?

Senator Mercer made a similar observation in 2017 when he said:

My fundamental question: What if we had time to do the pre-study and in the process, by some miracle, something happened down the hall and they changed something in the budget, they found something wrong and they fixed it while we’re up here wasting our time studying something that’s different? We want to study what’s actually going to be before us.

Last week, Minister Petitpas Taylor launched the consultations for preparations of the 2023-28 plan for official languages. These are very important this year because they will help to inform the work of parliamentarians on Bill C-13. So why is the government rushing Bill C-13 in committee while it launches consultations with the Canadian public on how this bill could be improved and implemented? Would it not make more sense, colleagues, for the Senate to wait until the results of the consultation are in its hands before we do our review of the bill?

Colleagues, the only reason we would be required to expedite these bills is to facilitate the government’s political agenda before it has concurrence in the other place. This is an affront to the role of the Senate, and especially a Senate which the Prime Minister says he wants to be apolitical.

Senator Gold said himself:

I stand here as the Government Representative, and I’m telling you I do not know when it will arrive. It is nonetheless a top priority of the government that is doing all it can to get it to the finish line. . . .

The legislation is “. . . a top priority of the government . . .” so we should apparently just jump into line and accelerate its passage into law.

I would remind Senator Gold that the working majority which the government wrangled out on supply and confidence measures does not give them a majority in the public’s eyes. Politically, they were granted a minority. So it is absurd to suggest that just because something is a priority to them, it suddenly becomes a priority to all Canadians and the Senate should be expected to treat them like they have a majority.

If they want to speed things up, then the NDP-Liberal government has the tools it needs at its disposal. It has the majority of votes in that chamber, and they don’t need our help to get their work done.

I understand that even though they have a working majority in the House, they still can’t get anything done in a timely fashion. But that, colleagues, is not our responsibility to solve.

Colleagues, pre-studies are legitimate when used for the right reasons, but this government wants to use them simply to make up for its own ineptitude. And I would argue that when a government gets in a hurry to pass legislation which has no clear policy or procedural reason to be expedited, we better slow down and take a careful second look.

Contrary to what this government wants us to believe, time is an essential ingredient in the democratic process, especially when a bill is as controversial as these two bills are.

Time allows for increased public awareness, increased public debate and increased public buy-in. It is not just senators who need to be convinced that legislation is worth supporting, colleagues; it is Canadians who also need to be convinced, and this takes time.

Having studies run concurrently in both the House of Commons and the Senate is a terrible way to create public policy. It gives everyone the impression that something is being rammed through Parliament, and it does nothing but stoke the fires of cynicism and suspicion.

I would argue that in today’s environment, that is the last thing we need. We need to restore trust in our public institutions. We need to take the time necessary to do so. Otherwise, we are merely pouring fuel on the fires of disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Senator Dasko spoke for many of us when she said:

. . . We also need assurances that the committee will have the time it needs to do its work. When I hear about the urgent need to pass a bill, I can’t help but wonder whether we will really have the time to review a bill. If we keep hearing about the urgent need, it most certainly raises questions about whether we will be given the time.

It raises questions, indeed, colleagues. On the one hand, we are supposedly not being rushed, but on the other hand, the motion calls for the committees to be able to sit while the Senate is sitting and even when it is adjourned. It is urgent, but take your time. But don’t take too long because it is a priority.

There is no clear rationale for these pre-studies, and we need to deny these motions.

Colleagues, the Senate provides an important role by providing sober second thought. This means that after the other place has sent us the legislation, we take a second, unhurried look at it. We need to be cautious of using pre-studies and only approve them if there is a clear legitimate reason to do so.

Again, in 2017, Senator Day said:

I am generally cautious about pre-study. I know it’s in the Rules. I know it can be a useful tool from time to time. But in my view, it takes us away from being a chamber of sober second thought. It puts us into a concurrent role with the House of Commons, and that has always caused me concern. . . .

Pre-studies of legislation distract from the role we traditionally have of providing sober second thought.

This is why, as Senator Harder put it, pre-studies should be occasional. In May of 2018, Senator Harder said:

. . . the use of pre-study in this chamber is occasional where the appropriate circumstances present themselves. Obviously, that has been more regularly on budget matters.

Senator Raynell Andreychuk noted the same fact in 2011 — when we were in government, I might add — saying “. . . a pre-study is not the normal course of conduct of committees.”

Rather than enabling us to do better work, pre-studies — which have no legitimate basis — hobble us in our work. They do not allow us to do a proper examination of legislation and inhibit our responsibility to provide sober second thought.

Colleagues, I am having a great deal of difficulty seeing the rationale in the motions before us. By the time a pre-study on any of these bills could be started, we would only have two to three weeks left before our summer recess. I’m not sure what to make of this. Does the government expect us to complete a pre-study of highly contentious bills in two to three weeks? Committees typically get one time slot a week.

What if they manage to get the bills over to us before July? Do they expect us to deal with them prior to the summer recess? If so, are they planning on bringing the House back in the summer in order to deal with our amendments? Not likely. Colleagues, we all know they would do no such thing. They would be quite happy for us to rush it through this chamber and even sit in July, but there is no way on this earth that they would deal with any of our amendments until the end of September at the very earliest. The only thing a pre-study would do is serve as an incentive for us to rush through our work instead of taking the time necessary to do it right.

At this point, I can’t help but find myself agreeing with the words of my friend Senator Jane Cordy that she made in April 2014 when she said:

Honourable senators, if I believed a pre-study would make a difference, I would be the first in line to promote it; but I do not believe that it would make a difference. If I believed that the voices of Canadians would be listened to in a pre-study, I would be first in line to promote the pre-study; but I don’t believe that a pre-study would do this. If I believed that the committee doing the pre-study would use the time to travel to the regions of Canada to let Canadians talk to them, I would promote the pre-study; but . . . I do not believe that this will happen.

Colleagues, a pre-study is a tool for urgent matters, yet none of these bills are urgent. The government waited for years to table them and did not care when they delayed it further by proroguing Parliament and then calling an unnecessary election that not one Canadian wanted.

Senator Gold is trying to defend the indefensible. We should defeat these motions, colleagues, and get back to doing the good, important work of the Senate.

Thank you.

Senator Plett: Since you are asking me the question, I will, in the words of your answers occasionally — not usually — answer with one word: no.

Senator Plett: Well, Senator Gold, no, I cannot, because it’s a long time ago. You haven’t done the investigation on that, clearly, as you just said, and I haven’t either. I believe we were in a minority Parliament for those, and so that clearly would be one.

The NDP-Liberal government is not in a minority over there. They can get us their bills any time they want, and so I would say no, it is not the same.

I did allude to some bills going to the National Security and Defence Committee, that we had supported the pre-studies. There are occasions when we need them, and in this case, Senator Gold, when we are at the sunset of our session, you are bringing us bills for a pre-study that we will not even have time to properly get into.

Let’s take Bill C-11, and I spoke more on Bill C-13 — or my debate was on Bill C-13 — but it applies to both. The Transport and Communications Committee typically meets on a Wednesday, so this is probably too late for them to meet tomorrow. As a matter of fact, the Energy Committee has taken their spot to deal with another one of the government bills, and so they won’t meet tomorrow. The earliest they can have their meeting and get organized is Wednesday of next week. Likely the earliest they would have witnesses is the following week.

Senator Gold, I have asked you the question: When do you expect us to leave here? If you’re expecting us to stay here until the end of August, then tell us that, and then we’ll adjust our calendar. If we’re supposed to be here until the end of June — the House of Commons is rising on June 21 — and you are asking us to do something that is in no way reasonably possible for us even to get into, to rush something through that has no reason, when this government themselves prorogued Parliament and called an election when they were promising these bills.

Now they have them over there — they are stalled over there — and you are the only one who seems to see an urgency here. They don’t seem to think there is an urgency. You seem to think there is an urgency, but you tell us to take as much time as we want. Well, if we can take as much time as we want, then what is the urgency? Why would we have a pre-study? If your answer will be that with the pre-study we will have more committee slots, we won’t. The committee slots aren’t there. If we did what we have asked for this chamber and this government to do, which is to get back to normal Senate hours and sittings, we wouldn’t have a lot of these problems.

These problems exist because of your government, Senator Gold, not because of us. You’re taking time away from the Senate, and now you’re asking us to rush something through. And the words you always use are “This is the government’s priority.” If this is their priority, where are the bills?

Senator Plett: As I mentioned earlier, I oppose this motion for the same reasons that I opposed the previous one. I find it strange that people who one day say we should not do this or we should only do it under certain circumstances, and then when it comes time to show that they really mean that, they stand and vote completely contrary to what they have said previously.

But for the record, allow me to recap very briefly. As I said earlier, colleagues, pre-studies are a legitimate tool available for the Senate to use when utilized for the right reasons. We didn’t vote on whether or not we support Bill C-13 just now. We voted on whether or not we should waste the Senate’s valuable time doing something that will have no bearing on us passing the bill, none.

I debated with a few during the break, and it was clear that people were thinking they were voting in favour of Bill C-13 by voting against a pre-study. In no way is that the case. As I said, pre-studies are a legitimate tool available for the Senate to use when utilized for the right reasons. But this motion for a pre‑study on Bill C-11 does not meet that bar for three reasons:

The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to seek our advice on amendments; their mind is made up. The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to draw from a specific expertise in the Senate; they believe that they are the only house that has this expertise. The government is not requesting a pre-study in order to meet a court-imposed deadline or other urgent situation. This bill meets none of these conditions.

Colleagues, we have a responsibility to the Senate to vote based on criteria. We didn’t do that five minutes ago. This bill meets none of these conditions, which have been the convention when requesting pre-studies. Instead, both the government in the other place and the Government Representative right here seem intent on bypassing sober second thought in order to rush bills through unnecessarily. We hear over and over again from this government leader, right here, “These are the government’s priorities, and we need to rush these through.” Then he says, “Let’s do a pre-study, but let’s take our time. But let’s get it done by this date.”

Colleagues, I must say that I find Senator Gold’s message a bit confusing on this matter. On the one hand, he tells us that the pre-studies have nothing to do with rushing the bills, and the Senate can take all the time it wants. Then he adds:

To be clear, the Senate ultimately decides how many days and weeks it chooses to spend on second reading, on committee stage and on third reading of a government bill.

Here we are, one day away from June 1. We have at best 30‑days left in one month, and we are not going to be here all of those 30 days because we are only here a maximum of 4 days a week, so we have 28 days left.

But then in the next breath, Senator Gold tells us:

. . . it is important to understand that, should Bill C-11 be delayed, hundreds of millions of dollars targeted for allocation to Canadian content and Canadian creators of content would be lost.

That is a misrepresentation of facts. That would not be lost. It may not be there right now.

A delay would perpetuate the void in the Broadcasting Act for minority and marginalized communities.

And then:

For those who may argue that there is no urgency in passing Bill C-11 and that it is not time-sensitive, again, I would respectfully disagree. In my view, depriving Canadian artists of deserved, earned income and tacitly permitting the absence of Canadian content in our broadcasting is an urgent, time-sensitive issue, and it is also a priority of this government.

Along with 100 other priorities that they have.

This is exactly why we are suspicious, colleagues, of the government. Is this bill urgent or not? How can they say, “Oh, take all the time you want, but remember, people are starving while you nitpick at the bill?”

Colleagues, I agreed with Senator Dasko when she made the following statement, and we saw how Senator Dasko voted just a few minutes ago:

My concern with Bill C-11 is that I fear we will be doomed to this inadequate process and its shortcomings and that we will not conduct the proper investigation we need on Bill C-11, and we have no assurances that a regular committee study would follow from our pre-study. With Bill C-11, the ideal process, in my view, would be for us to take into account all the learnings from the House of Commons committee, their proceedings and their report, and build from there.

Colleagues, that is exactly what we should be doing. As I stated earlier, we should have defeated the pre-study on Bill C-13. We should defeat this motion and get back to doing the important work of the Senate. Thank you.

Senator Plett: My question won’t take a minute. Senator Wallin, after Senator Tannas spoke, and unfortunately I was a little late getting back here, Senator LaBoucane-Benson asked a question, and I’m going to read the question:

The government is asking us to study — without a time frame and without constraints around anything other than asking us to do a study. Can we do that . . .?

I’m assuming it’s not the government representatives, it’s the government. It’s the people over there that are asking us to just simply study something without any constraints at all.

What would your comment be to that type of request from the Senate?

Senator Plett: Thank you, Senator Dean.

Let me start with a quote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Senator Dean, I would hope that you would do the same thing, and in your preamble, you chose, rather, to drive wedges again in saying or intimating that when people don’t agree with you, they somehow don’t have the right to their beliefs.

This is a political chamber. I take no issue with somebody scrapping with me in this chamber and then going and having a drink with that individual after the chamber rises. This is a chamber of debate where different opinions are expressed.

Senator Dean, first of all, I do not disagree with probably 85% of your speech, which said, “Let’s roll up our sleeves; let’s get to work.” I agree with all of that. I don’t think any one of us here, any one of us that voted against the pre-study of Bill C-13, can be accused of not wanting to do their job or do their work. We happen to have a disagreement with you on what is important and how we should do things. That is why we have a vote. That is why we have bells. That is why we get together, and when the vote is done, it is over. I have accepted fully the results of the vote we had a few hours ago.

And then you feel the need to come in here and chastise us because of our beliefs. Senator Dean, my question to you is: Do you believe in the democratic system? Do you believe that I have the right? Would you defend to the death my right to my opinion?

The Hon. the Speaker: I am sorry, Senator Plett, but Senator Dean’s time has expired.

Senator Dean, are you asking for more time?