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Decentralized Democracy

Senate Volume 153, Issue 14

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 17, 2021 10:00AM
  • Dec/17/21 10:00:00 a.m.

Senator Gold: I will add that to my list of questions to ask the government. Thank you.

[English]

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  • Dec/17/21 10:00:00 a.m.

Senator Quinn: I will ask Senator Tannas.

I want to start by thanking my honourable colleague Senator Yussuff for his eloquent speech. It was well put. I am honoured to have been appointed to the Senate and sworn in on the same day as Senator Yussuff.

During my call with the Prime Minister about becoming a senator, he said to me:

You’re not always going to agree with the policies put forward by my government. Your job is to add value to them. At the end of the discussion, you still may not agree with what my government is putting forward, but that’s doing your job. I want you to do your job.

Yesterday evening, in Senator Housakos’s eloquent speech, he said we shouldn’t be a rubber-stamping type of process. I certainly didn’t enter this chamber with the idea that I would be part of a rubber-stamping process. My first three weeks in the Senate has taught me some early lessons that maybe, in fact, we are going down that road. For those who have been here much longer than I, it sounds like this has been a challenge for some time.

I agree with all of the comments made by various senators about ensuring that the reputation of this institution is paramount — not only for ourselves, but for the parliamentary and legislative processes and, above all, for the people of Canada.

Senator Tannas, would you not agree that it’s important that we heed the advice I was given by our Prime Minister and which was repeated by the Honourable Leader of the Opposition here in the Senate?

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