Senator Housakos: Yes.

Senator Housakos: Yes, absolutely.

Senator Housakos: Absolutely. I’m not used to you asking me. I am used to you answering me.

Senator Housakos: Will Senator Deacon take a question?

Senator C. Deacon: Absolutely.

Senator Housakos: First of all, as long as we need to be sitting in this place and doing our job, I will commit to being available to do our job as an opposition party. It has been the tradition in this place that committees serve at the pleasure — again, I’ve had these debates with other colleagues, especially some who have arrived here recently — of the Committee of the Whole. That is how Parliament has always operated, and we’re not going to change the whole Westminster parliamentary system to accommodate a process that doesn’t fit into the tradition in this place.

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. Tomorrow, April 1, Canadians across several provinces will pay more for the Prime Minister of Canada’s carbon tax. Canadians will also pay more through the alcohol escalator tax. As I have mentioned many times in this place, this is on top of taxes that were already raised on the first of January, including the Canada Pension Plan payroll tax. The Employment Insurance maximum insurable earnings also increased on January 1, meaning workers and employers pay more right across this country.

The NDP-Liberal government has been given opportunities lately to make life easier for Canadians, but they choose not to. For example, the opposition in the other place asked to suspend the GST on fuel or to suspend the carbon tax. Government leader, it’s becoming excessively harder for middle class and poor Canadians to pay for groceries, shelter, fuel for their cars to drive their kids to and from school and pay for medication.

The question is very simple: How much more do you think the Canadian public can pay for the NDP-Liberal coalition, and how much more will they be asked to pay in next week’s budget because of that coalition?

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is to the Government Representative in the Senate. It’s in reference to Minister Joly, who, before a committee in the other place, was responding to questions in regard to the government’s work in fighting back misinformation and propaganda. I quote what the minister said before that committee:

We’ve banned Russia Today and Sputnik on the broadcasting side. We’ve pushed digital platforms to also ban them, but we need to do more. . . .

Our mandate, and my mandate as foreign minister, is really to counter propaganda online. . . . They need to make sure that they recognize that states have jurisdiction over them, that they are not technological platforms but they’re content producers. It is our way, collectively, to make sure that we can really be able to have strong democracies in the future.

Government leader, in the letter to Minister Joly from Prime Minister Trudeau, where does it give her the mandate to push back on online propaganda in this country?

Senator Housakos: Government leader, there is absolutely no direct reference in Minister Joly’s letter from the Prime Minister that her mandate is to counter propaganda online. As I said in my speech on Bill S-237 the other day, the first job of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada is to defend the national interest and values we hold as Canadians, which include free speech. The answer to combatting foreign interference isn’t to censor our own citizens — not at all.

Leader, seeing as how Minister Joly thinks her mandate is to counter propaganda online, could you tell us this: How exactly does the minister in your government define propaganda? Does anyone in the NDP-Liberal government even know how Minister Joly defines it herself? How will we have assurances that there won’t be a line crossed here?

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, the NDP-Liberal government is committed to more taxes, more inflation and higher cost of living. That’s what this government is committed to.

Government leader, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, just in the Montreal area alone, home prices have gone up over 20% in the last year and by almost 60% since 2019. Housing inflation is even worse in other parts of the country, yet I don’t get the sense that your government truly understands the housing affordability crisis that Canada is facing. After all, the NDP-Liberal government plans to make energy audits mandatory before Canadians can sell their homes. Last month, the Ontario Real Estate Association said:

. . . quite frankly, a crazy thing to do in the middle of a historic housing-affordability crisis. . . . We have historic lows in inventory listings on the market currently. Another piece of red tape on a home seller will depress listings even more, making it even more costly to go find a home.

Will Canadians looking for a home see more actions like this from the NDP-Liberal government next week in their budget? Is this going to be the strategy of fighting inflation and making middle class and poor Canadians poorer?

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-16, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.

This bill provides for funding what we call interim supply, which gives the government the authority to spend before the Main Estimates are approved.

[English]

The publication House of Commons Procedure and Practice by Marleau and Montpetit explains it this way:

Since the fiscal year begins on April 1 and the normal Supply cycle only provides for the House to decide on Main Estimates in June, the government would appear to be without funds for the interim three months. For this reason, the House authorizes an advance on the funds requested in the Main Estimates to cover the needs of the public service from the start of the new fiscal year to the date on which the Appropriation Act based on the Main Estimates of that year is passed.

Colleagues, as someone who came to this place with a fairly extensive background in the private sector, I can assure you that this process raises flags for me and it should for all of you.

We are being asked to provide approval for the government to spend about one quarter of its voted expenditure plan prior to a detailed examination of those expenditures and prior to the approval of the Main Estimates, which won’t happen until sometime in June.

Furthermore, it is important to realize that, regardless of what Parliament decides about the Main Estimates in June, any spending approval which is granted through this interim supply bill cannot be withdrawn later.

As stated in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

. . . during the examination of the main estimates, neither the House nor its committees can reduce a vote to an amount less than the amount already granted in interim supply.

This applies to the Senate as well. Even though the Senate’s National Finance Committee has not yet cracked open a single page of the Main Estimates, this chamber is required to approve $75 billion of interim spending and there is no recourse to withdraw any of that spending approval once it has been granted.

If the business of supply were operating properly, this would be an acceptable process. Checks and balances would be in place to ensure that adequate accountability and oversight was in place. But this is not the case. When it comes to the business of supply, parliamentarians are receiving inadequate information, receiving it late and are not being provided with a plan to see this rectified.

We always complain about it, but it is the same, ugly cycle. I want to be clear, colleagues. This is not a new problem. It has occurred many, many times. We rip our shirts in indignation when it occurs.

[Translation]

The Parliamentary Budget Officer brought up this problem in the report he released in November entitled Considerations for Parliament in Reforming the Business of Supply. He noted that there was, and I quote, “increasing unease among many legislators regarding their ability to provide informed consent of the government’s proposed financial plans.”

He goes on to say the following, and I quote:

This wariness is most palpable in the number of parliamentary standing committee reports issued since the mid-1990s offering recommendations to improve legislative scrutiny of the Business of Supply.

The mid-1990s, esteemed colleagues. That was 30 years ago, and this is still going on.

[English]

Colleagues, I think I can safely speak for most of us when I say that when the Main Estimates arrive, you open them up to take a look and almost immediately feel overwhelmed and exhausted, as stated by many of our colleagues. No doubt there are a couple of exceptions to this, perhaps Senator Marshall and Senator Loffreda, but I’m sure that for a great many of us perusing the Main Estimates can be like drinking from a fire hose. There is simply no way we can be expected to adequately review and digest that amount of financial information in the time frame that’s expected.

In the end, I wonder how many of us slap the estimates shut and are more thankful than ever for Senators Marshall and Loffreda, and others who more readily consume all that information and are able to drill down on it, because, colleagues, it represents an awful lot of money that is going out the door in an awfully quick fashion.

But the truth is no parliamentarian has the ability to properly scrutinize the government’s expenditure plan and Main Estimates because the information necessary to do so is not made readily available. And my raising the red flag on this isn’t just partisan rhetoric; this is a widely acknowledged problem which has been left unaddressed for a long time.

In his 2016 report — six years ago — the Parliamentary Budget Officer noted that there were three core problems with the business of supply: one, the budget presents new policy initiatives but the estimates present functional adjustments to the allotments. Why does this even matter? Well, because, as stated in the PBO report:

Parliament does not have control over new policy initiatives, allowing money to be transferred between policy initiatives without parliamentary approval.

The second problem is that the Main Estimates do not include new budget measures:

Parliament spends its time scrutinizing a spending plan in the main estimates that does not reflect the current reality presented in the budget.

Third, the budget and Main Estimates have a different scope and basis of accounting. As noted by the PBO, this means that:

Parliament is asked to vote on a spending plan in the main estimates that cannot be easily reconciled with overall spending.

[Translation]

Colleagues, I mention these three points to emphasize that the problems that affect parliamentarians’ ability to provide effective oversight of public spending are well known. There is no mystery there.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s 2016 report summarized the findings of a House of Commons committee report published in 2012 entitled Strengthening Parliamentary Scrutiny of Estimates and Supply.

That report, which was supported by all parties, not only identified some of the problems at the time, but also proposed practical and meaningful measures to address them.

That was 10 years ago, and parliamentarians are still waiting for the proposed solutions to be implemented.

[English]

To its credit, this government did not simply ignore the proposals. It admitted the system is broken and that it needed to be fixed.

In November 2016 — again, six years ago — the government published a document entitled Empowering parliamentarians through better information, the government’s vision for estimates reform. The very first paragraph in the document, which is available online, reads as follows:

The inability of Parliament to play a meaningful role in reviewing the Government’s spending plans is a frequent source of frustration. It stems from an incoherent Estimates process, where Budget items are not included in the Main Estimates, spending plans are difficult to understand and reconcile, and departmental reports are neither meaningful nor informative.

Honourable senators, those were the government’s own words in 2016. That statement was made in a document published by the President of the Treasury Board at the time, none other than the Honourable Scott Brison.

Now, on the one hand, perhaps we can take some comfort in the fact that the government has acknowledged there is a problem and that it needs to be addressed. But on the other hand, that acknowledgment was made five and a half years ago and nothing has substantively changed since then; absolutely nothing.

[Translation]

In this year’s report on the Main Estimates, the Parliamentary Budget Officer again sounded the alarm. He wrote the following, and I quote:

As noted by the PBO in previous reports, while there is a fixed tabling date for the Main Estimates (no later than March 1st), no such guarantee exists for the other supporting information (notably the Departmental Plans and the Departmental Results Reports). While this discretion provides greater flexibility to the Government, it does create the risk of misalignment between the money parliamentarians are asked to approve and when details of the planned (and actual) spending are available. This undermines the ability of parliamentarians to meaningfully scrutinize proposed spending.

[English]

There was more. The PBO went on to say:

While the Government refers to the Main Estimates as the “Government’s Expenditure Plan”, they generally fail to include any measures in the corresponding Budget, nor do the Departmental Plans, and therefore present an incomplete picture of government spending. Tabling the Main Estimates prior to the release of the budget has allowed for more detailed Treasury Board scrutiny of budget measures prior to their consideration by Parliament in the Supplementary Estimates. However, this results in asking parliamentarians to approve funding through the Main Estimates that were incomplete as they do not represent an accurate picture of the Government’s planned spending.

The PBO goes on:

As previously admitted by the Government, this lack of cohesion between two of the Government’s primary fiscal documents engenders confusion. As such, it hinders the ability of parliamentarians and Canadians to understand the overall federal spending strategy, track new policy measures announced in the Budget, or identify the expected results of new Budget measures.

The PBO then repeats the three all-party recommendations made ten years earlier by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates:

Parliament should establish a fixed tabling date for the budget;

This tabling date should be early enough to ensure that Budget measures can be incorporated in the Main Estimates; and

The Departmental Plans should be tabled at the same time as the Main Estimates.

In addition, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, repeated two recommendations he made earlier this year:

. . . Move the publication date of the Public Accounts to no later than September 30th; and

Require the Departmental Results Reports to be published at the same time.

According to the PBO, these five changes “ . . . would create a cohesive, intuitive and (critically) transparent financial decision‑making process for legislators.”

Honourable senators, the truth of the matter is that not only are the problems well known, but the solutions are equally well known. The government’s clear acknowledgment that these problems exist needs to be addressed. You would think this equates to a clear and simple path forward.

Yet, not only has nothing been done, but this lack of information and accountability has also progressively been getting worse over the tenure of this government. Consider the fact that in 2020 we never even received a budget. Then, in 2021, the budget didn’t arrive until the third week of April. Of course, the government blamed the lost budget in 2020 and the late budget in 2021 on COVID. Yet, even this year, the budget will not be tabled in Parliament until April 7.

The Financial Administration Act requires that the public accounts are tabled in Parliament before December 31 of each year, but by convention, they are usually tabled in October. Last year, they were not tabled until November 30. The year before that, they were tabled December 12. This year, the public accounts were not tabled until December 14, 2021, which, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer pointed out, was the latest publication date since 1993-94.

[Translation]

In his January report entitled Economic and Fiscal Update 2021: Issues for Parliamentarians, the Parliamentary Budget Officer stated, and I quote:

Comparatively, Canada was among the last of the G7 countries to publish their financial accounts for the 2020‑21 fiscal year.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer added the following:

The federal public accounts are published later than most provincial and territorial public accounts, with nearly half of the provinces and territories publishing their respective public accounts within six months.

The government’s tardy publication of the Departmental Results Reports is further evidence of its inability to provide information in a timely fashion.

[English]

These reports outline the government’s actual performance by department for the most recent fiscal year and enable parliamentarians to review what was actually accomplished through all that money being spent. Yet, this year, these reports were not published until February 2022, which was 10 months after the end of the fiscal year. This is no small thing.

As noted by the PBO:

The lack of timely, comprehensive results data makes scrutinizing proposed spending more difficult. It is important that parliamentarians can understand the results organizations expect to achieve, how they will be measured and how these compare to previous years in order to make informed decisions.

Colleagues, there is no lack of clear action that the government could be taking in order to correct the problems that plague our ability to provide proper oversight and accountability to the expenditures of public funds, which is our fundamental role in this place. Instead of doing so, they continue to make things worse instead of better. A perfect example of this is found in the interim supply bill before us today. As I mentioned earlier, interim supply is supposed to provide an advanced appropriation of money needed for three months: April, May, and June.

Yet, under this government, the amount of money included in the interim supply bill has sharply increased since they took power from 29% to more than 40% of total voted appropriations in the Main Estimates. How high do they plan on allowing that number to go? It’s like they are stuffing as much spending as they can into an interim estimate just to diminish accountability even further — 29% to 40%. It’s unacceptable.

Colleagues, we desperately need this government to get its act together and to do the right thing, but all the indicators are pointing in the wrong direction. Spending is going up, while accountability is going down. Disregard for the role of Parliament has become what we all know it to be. Even those that deny it sense it and see it.

Take note that this interim supply bill is for $75.5 billion. That is almost as much as the entire voted supply in the 2015-16 Main Estimates when this government took power. That year, total voted appropriations in the Main Estimates came to $88 billion. This year, that number is $190 billion. That is a 116% increase in only seven years.

In 2015-16, interim supply was $29 billion. This year, it is 193% higher at $75.5 billion. This government has almost doubled their voted spending requirements in only seven years.

[Translation]

Colleagues, don’t forget that the Main Estimates do not take into account any of the new spending the government will announce in its budget or any of the spending promises it had to make to buy the NDP’s support to save the government.

This government will not hesitate to open the floodgates of public spending and print as much money as necessary so it can keep sprinkling it all over the place.

[English]

They don’t care that our debt is ballooning. They don’t care that the inflation rate has exploded. They don’t care that last year’s fiscal sustainability report warned that current fiscal policy in Canada is not sustainable over the long term and they don’t care that they have no plan to balance the budget.

The truth is, colleagues, they have no fiscal anchor. They are irresponsible. They are short-sighted and dangerously negligent in their stewardship of public finances, and they can’t be bothered to make the fundamental changes necessary to ensure proper oversight by Parliament. It is our obligation to make sure they do.

At the end of the day, I want to remind colleagues that the way this democracy is supposed to work is not the way it’s working. It’s not the Prime Minister at the top with his cabinet under him, and his MPs under him and his senators under him. It is supposed to be the other way around. It’s supposed to be Parliament at the top. Under Parliament, it should be ministers, and under the ministers, at the bottom of the totem pole, it should be the Prime Minister. That’s where the word “prime minister” comes from, servant of the people. That’s where the word “ministers” comes from. The word means servants of the people. Somewhere along the line, we have lost track of that reality. We think that our Parliament, our bureaucracy and our ministers are all accountable to the Prime Minister’s office.

It has to stop at some point if we want to defend fiscal responsibility and we want to defend democracy in the true spirit that we’re supposed to be practising it in. This government has no interest in doing what is right and no qualms about heaping all the obligations to pay for their profligate spending habits on future generations. Clearly, we are seeing a debt right now that generations will be saddled with for decades to come. This government has been reckless and unapologetically incompetent.

Honourable senators, today, I suspect in all likelihood this Senate will pass this bill. We the opposition, the Conservative Party, will continue to call for transparency, for accountability and for fiscal responsibility in our governance. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that after the next general election Canadians will once again have a responsible and competent government that works to ensure the future rather than the present and that takes into consideration that decisions we make today will have a huge impact on future generations of Canadians. Thank you.

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to the motion before us on hybrid sittings.

It will come as no surprise to you that I’m not a fan of hybrid sittings. It is my view and my experience that the weighty responsibilities that have been placed upon senators require us to actually assemble in this chamber and be present in the Parliamentary Precinct.

Being a parliamentarian is not a remote job. If it is being taken seriously, it requires networking, building relationships, fostering collegiality, developing trust and, of course, meeting stakeholders. It requires connecting with fellow parliamentarians, with staff and the public in both formal and informal settings.

I recognize that there are many jobs and occupations that can, perhaps, be done remotely, but I remain convinced that being a parliamentarian is not one of them. It’s not a role that can be properly carried out from one’s living room or home study.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge that these have been exceptional times that have, at times, required exceptional measures. But as more and more jurisdictions continue to lift the various measures put in place to deal with the pandemic, it is time for the Senate of Canada to follow suit.

It is very appropriate and, I would argue, incumbent upon us to lay out a plan for moving forward without the constraints the pandemic has placed upon us. This includes the need to discontinue hybrid sittings as quickly as possible.

The motion calls for the provisions of the order of November 25, 2021, concerning hybrid sittings of the Senate and committees, and other matters, to be extended to the end of the day on April 30, 2022.

I believe this is a compromise; however, I do question whether it is supported by science and the reality of the facts as we know them today.

As I have stated, health officials across the country, including at the federal level, have started approving the removal of COVID mandates for some time already. In response, provinces have started lifting vaccination mandates, mask mandates, social‑distancing rules and COVID safety plans, including COVID passports, which are no longer required in most jurisdictions.

As of April 1, Canadians will be able to travel without having to provide tests. Mandates are being retained for our vulnerable populations, such as long-term care homes, retirement homes, shelters and so on but, other than that, they have been falling across the country.

Except, of course, right here in the Parliamentary Precinct. Here the rules are different. Apparently, compared to the Parliamentary Precinct, the COVID virus is less of a risk in privately or provincially owned buildings; but it is still a risk in federally owned buildings, such as the Senate of Canada. It seems that COVID is the most rampant and most dangerous in the Senate of Canada. For those working in a privately owned building where the Senate occupies accommodation, including 40 Elgin Street, 90 Sparks Street, 56 Sparks Street and 60 Queen Street, masks are now optional, and they are not required in common areas such as elevators, lobbies and parking garages.

However, this does not apply to Crown-owned accommodations, including East Block, the Victoria Building, the National Press Building, 1 Wellington Street and the Senate of Canada Building. For these buildings, health and safety guidance within Senate workplaces remain in effect, and masks are still required. Here in the Senate Chamber, we are required to wear our masks except when we speak, and yet up to 21,000 maskless fans were permitted to attend the game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre just this past weekend. I guess COVID doesn’t circulate well at a hockey game, thank God. In this country we play a lot of hockey.

The changes to public health rules in the provinces and municipalities appear to be driven by the best available science.

What is driving our policies and procedures here in the Senate? Why do they differ so significantly? Are we thinking that the Senate needs to mirror the guidelines of long-term care homes? If so, I don’t think that this is the image we want to portray to Canadians.

I am pleased that the motion includes a commitment to the:

 . . . consideration of a transition back to in-person sittings as soon as practicable in light of relevant factors, including public health guidelines, and the safety and well-being of all parliamentary personnel . . . .

However, I am puzzled why we are not already making decisions in light of these relevant factors.

We know, for example, that our translators have suffered greatly as a result of the hybrid sittings. Just last week this issue was raised in the chamber with Senator Marwah by Senator Patterson.

In addition, the hybrid format has severely limited the ability of committees to meet and work. Whereas we previously had two meetings a week, now we have one. That was addressed by Senator Patterson very effectively in his comments.

You have situations like that faced by the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance just last week. We were conducting an in camera review of their report on Supplementary Estimates (C). The committee needed more time than was allotted but was unable to continue their meeting because other committees required the resources. The only option was to place the final decisions in the hands of the steering committee because it was next to impossible to schedule an additional meeting.

That is negligence on our part when it comes to dealing with the estimates in this Parliament.

Under normal circumstances, the committee would have considered the option of just putting in some overtime and getting the job done, but this was not an option. The hybrid sitting format imposed a hard stop because of the limit of resources. This is a very inefficient way to conduct business on behalf of the people of Canada.

Colleagues, when hybrid sittings were first introduced, they were understood to be a temporary measure to address the public health crisis. As Senator Harder said on July 27, 2020, “The hybrid solution is the only solution that will meet the public health requirements of both chambers.” For that reason, we agreed to go forward with the hybrid sittings.

At this point, however, those public health requirements appear to no longer exist, and yet we seem to be clinging onto those hybrid sitting requirements, and I can’t figure out why for the life of me.

There is no question that COVID negatively impacted the ability of the Senate to conduct its business over the last two years and that hybrid sittings were a compromise for mitigating those limitations. But at this point, it is not COVID that is limiting our ability to do our work, but hybrid sittings. I see no solid rationale for failing to immediately lift the provisions allowing hybrid sittings, but I am prepared to compromise because this place functions on compromise.

The final paragraph of this motion notes that:

 . . . any further extension of this order be taken only after consultation with the leaders and facilitators of all recognized parties and parliamentary groups.

It is my hope that such consultations will be brief, and barring any unexpected future wave of COVID infections, we will unanimously concur that no extensions are necessary but that we all need to get back to work.

Honourable senators, at the end of the day, our Parliament has an obligation to show leadership. Over the last two years, Canada has faced the most severe existential crisis of our time, COVID. More than 33,000 Canadians have lost their lives. We had to take drastic steps, but it’s in those moments of leadership and those moments of crisis that this institution had to stand up and probably work harder than ever before and represent Canadians’ concerns more than ever before.

However, the truth of the matter is we didn’t do what firefighters have been doing. We haven’t been doing what nurses and doctors and health care providers have been doing for the last two years. We haven’t been doing what truck drivers in this country, Uber drivers and taxi drivers have been doing, grocery store workers or people who stack shelves in pharmacies. You know what they’ve been doing during this existential crisis? Many of them have been showing up to work, and they don’t show up to work Tuesday through Thursday. Shockingly, most of them show up to work Monday through Friday. Most of them put in overtime, especially some of these professions, because there was an existential need to step up during this time of crisis.

Do you know what the leaders of this country did in the Parliament of Canada? We shut down. We went hybrid. We went virtual. The truth of the matter is that the biggest crisis facing our country, economically, over the last number of years, even before COVID, is our productivity. And yet, during this existential crisis, the upper chamber of Parliament and the other place of Parliament met less than ever before. We did output of legislation, motions and worked less than ever before. We rubber stamped hundreds of billions of dollars more than ever before with less scrutiny than ever before. And you know what I say? I say we lost an opportunity, as an institution, to show Canadians in a valid way what leadership is all about.

This place is always questioned because of a lack of accountability, transparency and the fact that we’re not an elected institution. Yet, in the words of Serge Joyal, we missed in this moment of crisis an opportunity to show that the Senate is more relevant in terms of oversight, governance and leadership than ever before, and we dropped the ball.

The truth of the matter is that we are privileged. We are the most privileged Canadians. We are in the most exclusive club in this country, and we have an obligation to show Canadians that we take that privilege seriously. What Canadians have seen, though, is a lack of equality. They see their Prime Minister climbing a plane ladder a few days ago in Ottawa leaving the country and coming down in the same plane over in Europe at a summit without a mask.

So a mask climbing the stairs going into his plane in Ottawa was necessary, but coming down and going to a summit over in Europe, the mask was left on the plane. I can go on, colleagues. When Canadians are looking at the work of our parliamentarians at the House of Commons and they’re all masked up, yet they follow committee work and the masks are off, or a camera flies quickly by an open door at a government caucus meeting where there are 160 parliamentarians and none of them have a mask on, it’s that level of hypocrisy and inconsistency that drives Canadians nuts.

I went a couple of weeks ago to a place called Jack Victor in Montreal. They make clothing and have 800 employees. None of them have taken a day off, none of them had the option to virtually, none of them had the option to go to Finance and order a comfortable chair and a comfortable desk and do their work from home, from their living room.

They show up every day, and these are the people who fill the Treasury Board with taxes so we can have the privilege to come here and do work on their behalf. That’s who I feel I represent, to be honest. Even though I’m not an elected parliamentarian, when I walk through a factory and I meet those 800 employees, I take the time to listen to their concerns. Let me tell you, they have a lot of them, and they don’t think COVID is the biggest concern.

This motion believes that the biggest crisis that Canada and the Senate are facing is COVID and we need to extend our virtual sittings until the end of June. Of course we want to extend them until the end of June. Who wouldn’t want to work from the comforts of their home? We have that privilege and opportunity to do so, but I think we also have a privilege to show Canadians leadership, that we’re willing to do what they’re asked to do.

Why are we not willing to do the things we ask these individuals to do? That’s the question they asked themselves. I’m telling you, colleagues — I have said it before in this place and I conclude — COVID is just the first step of a bigger crisis around the corner. Go to your grocery stores. Try to speak to citizens and listen to them about paying their rent, about single mothers trying to feed their children, trying to pay four times what it costs to buy a roast today than it did a month ago or two months ago. There is a crisis brewing in the country. There is unrest and discomfort amongst middle-class and poor Canadians, and this institution has to start speaking for them, has to start looking out for them. That’s why I believe more than ever before — we’re all double and triple vaccinated, the science indicated that if we get double and triple vaccinated that we can return back to some normalcy.

Let’s lead the way. Let’s make a commitment that we’re not going to go past April 30, government leader. Let’s make a commitment that this institution is going to start meeting as long as we need to meet, work as many days a week as we need to work in order to make sure that we give the best governance to citizens. Let me say something else. We have spent the last couple of days — and I’ll conclude — talking about how we need to change the rules and we have to go to the Rules Committee and study about making the rules more flexible so we can get more work done.

How about finding the political will to just show up here more often, work longer than ever before, sit longer than ever before, and deal with all the motions, a lot of the private members’ bills that are here before this place, that are here and asked to be heard by stakeholders in this country that want to be heard. That’s what we need to do.

So I hope, colleagues, we will all accept this compromise but as of April 30 accept that it’s time we step up and be the best that we can possibly be.

Senator Housakos: Thank you for the question, Senator Carignan.

My opinion on this issue does not matter, but the opinion of the Canadian public does, and I have a perfect example. When I talk with workers back home in Montreal about the government’s actions, they ask me why the Prime Minister wears a mask when he boards his plane to go to a summit in Europe, but takes the mask off when he gets there.

It was not just a meeting with the Queen. Afterward, he went to different restaurants to meet socially with other parliamentarians and international leaders, all without wearing a mask.

People wonder what is happening. Is this a situation where there is one set of rules for the elite and another set for everyone else?

That is why we are seeing this frustration in society today, because of the behaviour of our Prime Minister and parliamentary leaders in general.

Senator Housakos: Senator Forest, there are all kinds of ways to make the Senate more efficient. Bells are a perfectly reasonable tradition that give senators the opportunity to participate in a vote. We often have a 15-minute bell, a 30‑minute bell, or even a 60-minute bell.

The real problem, senator, and I think you will agree with me, is the fact that we sit very little. Few parliaments around the world sit for the same number of days as the Senate of Canada.

If we were to tell Canadians that we’re not particularly interested in doing our work, so we sit for 90 to 100 days a year, they would laugh at us.

Again, if we look at the past two years, despite the fact that we have been able to work in hybrid mode and virtually, the Senate has set a record for the fewest sitting days. We also beat another record over the past two years: This government has passed fewer bills than any other.

There are many ways to improve the Senate’s productivity. The first would be to come to Ottawa and work here in Parliament.

Senator Housakos: I agree completely.

You’re worried about the length of the bell, but when senators are here, they often work in committee, meet with stakeholders in their offices and have many diplomatic meetings.

Once again, the main problem is not the 60- or 30-minute bell that gives all senators the opportunity to come and vote. The biggest problem right now is that we have a government that doesn’t want to sit longer. It always wants to sit less, and that’s the first thing that needs to be fixed.

[English]

Senator Housakos: Absolutely.

Senator Housakos: Where I do disagree with you, senator, is your claim that there’s evidence that people that are older in age have a higher propensity of catching COVID. That I disagree with. There is a case that the dangers increase with people of a certain age. That I totally agree with.

Having said that, we have seen now that with people who are fully vaccinated, it has completely mitigated the risk factor of getting sick to a huge extent. We see it in our hospitals.

Furthermore, you can take a bunch of steps that we have taken in this institution to protect individuals as they do in every other place of work.

All I’m simply saying is that there is an inherent danger with COVID. Every single profession faces it — police officers; ambulance workers; doctors, on a daily basis; respiratory therapists, of which my wife is one. So if these people have been taking the steps in their professions to mitigate the risks but still show up to work, I think it’s incumbent on us to do the same thing, to take the mitigating steps to make sure that we can do our job in an effective fashion.

But it’s inexcusable that our committees are operating at a third of the output that they’re supposed to be operating at. It’s inexcusable that we’re sitting fewer days over the last two years as this country faces a huge crisis. And what we’ve done is, during that crisis — some legitimate, some illegitimate — is set world record spending with the least amount of oversight. So, yes, there has to be a balance.

But currently, the general view is — and this is my view — we have completely put all the emphasis on making sure we’re safe and not enough of an emphasis on making sure that we can do our jobs while being safe.

Senator Housakos: As you know, government leader, those requests often have been accepted in extenuating circumstances.

First of all, to answer your question, you won’t solve much, because if you allow committees to meet while we’re not sitting, most senators won’t be here. That would be a breach of their privilege. The easiest way to have those committees sit is to call the Senate back during the weeks we’re not sitting to do their work. That’s the way to resolve the issue. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing, in those non-sitting weeks, to call the Senate back to allow us to do the extra work required? Nobody can stop committees from meeting if we’re sitting in this place.

Furthermore, if we don’t have virtual or hybrid sittings anymore, even if we grant that exception for senators and committees to meet while we don’t sit, they would still have to be here. Why wouldn’t you have senators be here while the committees meet and conduct the business of this chamber?

Senator Housakos: Thank you, Senator Deacon. That’s a very good question. I’ve had that discussion recently with my colleague Senator Seidman.

If you all remember during the early stages of COVID-19, many management consultants came to the conclusion that real‑life, on-site work environments would start seeing a decrease because law firms and companies were seeing the convenience and the time saved in terms of transporting people to and from work, as well as the reduction of overhead costs and unnecessary office space. As it turns out, two years into it, a lot of CEOs and corporate consultants, particularly in the United States, after a review, have found that productivity is starting to sink to such a degree that companies are starting to — even though they had originally planned to only bring back employees to work from their workplace in a reduced structure — come to the conclusion that it’s not cost-effective because productivity levels have shrunk drastically.

Of course, a case in point is right here in the Senate. Our productivity levels in terms of studies, committee work, output and oversight have completely diminished, but the savings have been marginal by comparison.

Senator M. Deacon: It will be interesting to monitor, in the months ahead, our various tables, particularly as they relate to — as you said — the efficiency of being in the Senate in person compared to being in the Senate virtually. Those are the pieces that we’re going to have to continue to wrangle. Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator Housakos: Absolutely. I imagine everyone takes this oath very seriously. It is our first obligation. As senators, being present is part of our rights and responsibilities. As I mentioned in my speech, the problem at the moment is that the general public thinks we are too privileged.

[English]

Parliamentary privilege is important. All of us who respect the British Westminster parliamentary system know that without parliamentary privilege we lose a fundamental right. However, parliamentary privilege and senators’ privileges are not what the public thinks they are. The public thinks that we have benefits and comforts that 85% of Canadian citizens would never dream of.

[Translation]

As soon as people perceive Parliament as a place of privilege, in other words, they think people in this chamber don’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else, we risk losing the people’s trust. Yet the public plays an important and fundamental role in a democracy.

[English]

Senator Housakos: Thank you, Senator Deacon.

I’m going to try to get you back to being focused on the motion at hand here. At a later date, we can have a discussion about the benefits of hybrid working in the private sector and public sector. I appreciate the opinion coming from a CEO of a Crown corporation, but let’s focus now on the motion at hand.

Will you not agree, Senator Deacon, that when it comes to the last two years of output, both of committee work and in the Senate, the number of dates we sat in comparison to any other two-year period in the history of the Senate — and the fact that we have actually dealt with less government legislation than ever before in those 24 months compared to any other cycle, fewer private members’ bills than during any other 24-month cycle and less output in terms of our committee work than any 24-month cycle — will you admit that there have not been many benefits of hybrid vis-à-vis productivity in the Senate?

My second question is actually not a question; I’m correcting the record. Hiring employees who can work virtually for senators has been around for eons. My first two policy advisors — one of them was working out of Vancouver and one was working out of Montreal. This is not new; COVID didn’t invent this. It has been around for decades where senators, via email, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, have been able to hire staff, so there has never been an impediment to hiring staff who can’t work out of Ottawa in order to substitute or provide the best possible support staff to senators.

However, back to my point. Show me any benefit we’ve received over the last two years in terms of productivity in the Senate because of hybrid sittings.

Senator C. Deacon: Thanks, Senator Housakos.

I would say that how we have chosen to manage this issue as an entity has more to do with that than using hybrid services.

On an incremental basis, we have chosen to extend hybrid versus embracing it. If we had embraced it, I think we would be having cost savings and productivity improvements. That’s hypothetical, but I believe that firmly.

I don’t think that, as we consider the use of hybrid, we should just look at COVID and the experience of how we have chosen to use hybrid over the last two years as the only way of looking at this issue. If we look forward, there are many benefits we could extract from this experience in terms of how to do things and in how not to do things.

The other thing I will just offer in terms of the point you made about staff is that senators’ offices are a part of the employment group of staff in this organization, but we also have an awful lot of staff scattered around the National Capital Region. Those staff are the Parliamentary Precinct. Those staff are expected to be physically present.

So there is an opportunity to reach beyond in terms of everyone who works within our organization. Thank you.