Senator Downe: Yes.

Senator Downe: Thank you, Senator Batters. There are a couple of things. First, we got a very different bill from the House of Commons than our committee studied. Senator Tannas covered that in detail, so I won’t repeat it.

The second is, and I say this with the greatest respect for Senator Gold, whom I like very much personally, but he’s not a member of the cabinet. If he was a member of the cabinet, his words would carry more weight than they do as Government Representative in the Senate, and it is a division of authority and responsibility that has to be considered as well.

Senator Downe: Yes.

Senator Downe: Yes. I don’t want to delay the procedure, but yes, if people agree.

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Honourable senators, I want to thank Senator White for introducing this important amendment, which provides greater certainty in preventing the harassment that intends to — as the bill describes — provoke a state of fear in health care professionals and, by extension, their families. These people are working so hard and sacrificing so much on our behalf during this never-ending pandemic.

We had an example of this appalling conduct last week in Prince Edward Island when the private residence of our Chief Public Health Officer was the target of demonstrators. Dr. Heather Morrison is a P.E.I. native and Rhodes Scholar, and we are fortunate to have her professional expertise when dealing with COVID. Because of the work she has led and the efforts of many other Islanders, Prince Edward Island is the only province yet to suffer a single death due to COVID-19.

Dr. Morrison and her staff have taken advantage of our geography to test everyone entering P.E.I. — with a follow-up test four days later. To be approved for entry, you have to apply in advance for a PEI Pass showing your vaccination status. As might be expected, many of these measures have greatly annoyed the usual suspects. The anti-vaxxers are upset that no one is listening to them when in fact the reverse is true. Our medical professionals have heard them loud and clear and have rejected their advice based on sound medical and scientific judgment.

To have protestors show up at the private family home of Dr. Morrison is beyond the pale, and that is why I strongly support the amendment to Bill C-3 proposed by Senator White. It would impose a serious penalty on anyone trying this stunt again.

Senators, I want to speak briefly about the fine line between denying legislation and rushing to pass legislation. By now, even the newest of senators have experienced the desire of the government to have government bills passed quickly. Although it is understandable for them to want their bills passed, it does not remove the Senate’s right and responsibility to examine these bills and check them for mistakes, unintended impacts or the need for amendments — like Senator White’s amendment that will improve this bill.

Over the years, senators have been urged, pleaded with and otherwise encouraged by members of successive governments to pass legislation as quickly as possible. Again, this is understandable. However, I believe we should take the time we need both as a matter of principle and because, as we discovered in 2007, of what can happen when we fail to do so.

The 2019 report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer about changes to disabled veterans’ benefits under the New Veterans Charter serves as a good lesson on how rushing legislation can have a long-term negative impact. The Government of Canada, with the full cooperation of all the opposition parties in the House of Commons, decided to pass the New Veterans Charter legislation as quickly as possible. In that respect, they succeeded. From the time it was first spoken to in the House of Commons to the bill receiving Royal Assent, three days passed. The amount of actual debate in chamber and committee was less than five hours. Only two minutes of that five-hour debate was in the House of Commons. The balance was in the Senate.

To be clear, everyone acted with the best of intentions, but we all know what road is paved with good intentions. We did a lot of paving in the Senate leading to the passing of the New Veterans Charter. Put simply, colleagues, the Senate failed in its duty. We did not study the legislation carefully. We did not correct the mistakes in the legislation. We were rushing to do our job. Sometimes — many times — it is precisely our job not to rush.

We can’t say we weren’t warned. At a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, where the Senate sent the bill — because we were in a rush, rather than sending it to the Veterans Affairs Committee or National Defence Committee, we sent it to the Finance Committee — Sean Bruyea, a retired Canadian Forces captain and long-time veteran advocate, testified before the committee. He stated:

We all know that the government wants to be seen as honouring veterans, but that does not necessarily mean that their veterans charter is free of errors. . . . We believe disabled veterans and the CF would rather have it right than have a flawed and unjust charter right now.

Unfortunately, we did not heed his advice.

The 2019 report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer indicates this failure of the Senate has cost disabled veterans and their families millions of dollars in lost benefits. Think of that, senators. We tried to assist veterans; we tried to assist their families. These people were injured serving Canada, disabled and in need of assistance, and we allowed a bill to go through that cost them millions of dollars. One of the significant changes in the New Veterans Charter was a replacement of the long-time monthly pension benefit with a lump sum. That change, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer indicated, cost veterans and their families. That is our fault. That is the Senate’s fault.

The House of Commons was unanimous in passing this bill. We heard discussion today where people said, “Oh, well, if it’s unanimous in the House of Commons, our hands are tied.” This is another example of where the House of Commons passed it in two minutes. As I said, we don’t want to question their motives. They thought they were doing something important and proper, but they missed the errors in the legislation. The Senate compounded the problem in our rush to do what we thought was the right thing. That’s why the Senate needs to take its time.

Honourable senators, over the years, there are lots of examples of ministers rushing the Senate. I’ll give you a minor example. In 2016, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade had in Minister Freeland, then Minister of International Trade, to talk about ratifying the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement that Canada had signed but not yet ratified. The minister stated how embarrassing it would be if Canada didn’t ratify it, because it would come into force when 110 World Trade Organization, or WTO, members ratified it. When the minister appeared, 96 countries had. The minister said it was important for Canada to be seen as an effective and energetic participant in the multilateral trade community and requested, “Let’s get it done.”

Colleagues, it bears noting that this bill, at that point, had been in the Senate for five weeks. It took 27 weeks for it to go through the House of Commons. I might add that it enjoyed the support of all the major parties in the House. The need for energetic participation was rather late coming.

At the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee, questions were asked: “Why the rush?” “Why such a tight deadline?” “If Canada ratifies after the 110, we’re still a member of the agreement. What’s the rush?”

“No,” the minister said. “We need to ratify right away because we anticipate 14 countries will ratify it in the next week.”

She was questioned about this. Her answer was “absolutely.” When other committee members expressed further doubt, she said, “Everyone has been acting on this.” In other words, colleagues, it was crunch time, and we had to act quickly. The committee set aside its concerns in light of the minister’s sense of urgency. The committee had one more meeting and reported back to the Senate on Thursday, November 24, and it was passed in the chamber two sitting days later on November 30. That’s a total of six weeks in the Senate, less than a quarter of the time it spent in the House.

When did the WTO finally get the 110 ratifications? They did so on February 22, 2017, three months to the day after the minister said she was absolutely sure it would only take a week.

The purpose of this little story isn’t to challenge the minister’s judgment or powers of prediction. She was merely doing what all ministers do, which is the utmost to get her legislation passed. Every minister wants their legislation passed. They’re convinced theirs is a good bill, perfect the way it is. Anyway, they believe we can fix the problem later after it’s passed. If our newest colleagues haven’t heard such arguments yet regarding regulations or adjustments promised but rarely delivered, I’m sure they will.

One example of how we did perform our duty is from December 2015 when Bill C-3, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2016, arrived in the Senate. Once again, the House of Commons acted with impressive speed. They did the first reading, second reading, Committee of the Whole and third reading in 17 minutes. Of course, such speed is possible when you don’t actually look at the bill. It was only when Bill C-3 came to the chamber that it was noted by Senator Day that the bill wasn’t all there. A schedule referred to in the bill was not included. Blaming administrative errors, the House of Commons forwarded the corrected version the next day. Needless to say, there was no mention in the other place that it was the Senate that spotted and corrected this error.

Colleagues, I keep hearing about the new Senate and how it is non-partisan, has merit-based appointments and is independent. But last night, the Senate acted like the old Senate with threats and pressure not to have any discussion or review of this legislation, “Let’s get it passed because it was unanimous in the House of Commons” and “Let’s go home and enjoy the holidays.” Senator Tannas and Senator White received the bulk of the pressure, but it was a group decision from the Canadian Senators Group to further a motion tabled in this chamber on at least two occasions, that we want at least five days of debate on every bill so we’re not rushed.

Colleagues, if the House of Commons realizes no bill will be passed without five days of debate, we know what will happen. We will get the bill five days earlier because they want it passed.

In conclusion, I would like to quote once again one of the founders of the Senate, Sir John A. Macdonald, when he said:

There would be no use of an Upper House, if it did not exercise, when it thought proper, the right of opposing or amending or postponing the legislation of the Lower House. It would be of no value whatever were it a mere chamber for registering the decrees of the Lower House.

Colleagues, if all we do is approve, then our approval means nothing. Let us remember that as we go forward. Thank you, honourable senators.

[Translation]

Senator Downe: Just as a clarification, Senator Tannas didn’t indicate he wasn’t voting for the amendments. Senator Tannas wants to do what the rest of us want to do, which is to improve the legislation. The short answer is: Why would we put off improving it when we can do it now?

It’s not our problem that the House of Commons has adjourned. If the House of Commons had the proper respect for the Senate, they would have suspended until we dealt with the bills, even though they have adjourned. It’s easy, particularly in a hybrid session, to call the House of Commons back for one hour to deal with the amendment. If they were to accept our amendment, we would have improved the bill. If they were to reject it, we would have to consider that, as we always do, with the wisdom of the elected members.

For the House of Commons to say, “Oh well, Parliament is over. We’re gone. The Senate’s hands are tied,” is not correct at all. The Senate can amend anything we want, and in this case it is an improvement to the bill. If the House of Commons is serious about the importance of the bill, they can be recalled within an hour, as Senator Tannas said in his remarks. In a hybrid session, it’s even more cost-effective.

Senator Downe: Thank you for that. The problem, of course, is that we’ve heard various things from various governments over the years in various bills. We’ve heard, Senator Gold, as I outlined in my speech, various promises and commitments about legislation that has come forward from the House of Commons about what the purpose was.

Let me talk briefly about the veterans charter. We were assured that that New Veterans Charter would improve the benefits for veterans and their families. Not only did all the opposition parties in the government support it 100%, but many of the then-veterans groups supported it. The opposition came from individual veterans, many of whom claimed and were suspicious that it was a cost-saving measure, and we found out they were right. Veterans were denied benefits — people who lost limbs in the service of Canada overseas. Millions of dollars were lost, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer documented, because we asked him. The government said it wasn’t a cost saving; veterans said he checked it out, and sure enough it was.

Back to your point about the bill, what is said and what the interpretation may be is not up for discussion if Senator White’s amendment goes through. It brings greater certainty to an area I’m particularly concerned about, and that is the protest at the residence of the chief health official of Prince Edward Island that happened last Saturday. Dr. Morrison, her family and her children had protesters out in front of her house. Senator White’s amendment will fix that without a doubt, and that’s why I’m supporting it.