Senator Plett: I would not want to repeat what Senator Dalphond said. Somebody might again suggest it’s unparliamentary language. But Senator Dalphond alluded to something like “if it quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”

As I said earlier, we plan fully — so I will put everybody here on notice — on asking that Senator Gold be restyled as the “Leader of the Government in the Senate.” That’s what he professed to be today. Yes, I agree, Senator Lankin. We finally got it. That is what the Speaker said today.

Senator Gold, you’re going to have a hard time next week saying you are not the government leader.

Again, we’re not opposed to time allocation. Shortening debate on something that has gotten six hours of debate is not necessary.

This bill got into the Senate — well, there was a deal signed in the spring when we agreed to committee meetings in September. Now, the committee didn’t meet. It became evident in November that more meetings were needed, including for Indigenous witnesses, who had been overlooked, as Senator Klyne pointed out, at that point at committee — something the government did over there. They again neglected to consult with the Indigenous people, so now they had to slow things down.

They broke their word. You say I broke my word on a signed deal. You somehow only get certain facts there. You know why that deal was broken. I told you why that deal was broken. It was because the Government of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada — Justin Trudeau and his cronies — broke the deal in the other place.

How long did it take the House? Message was sent on February 2. Amendments were known since December 14. The House adopted the message on March 30 — three and a half months after, Senator Gold, the amendments were known. Debate on them started on April 18, and Senator Gold put an end to that on April 20. And somewhere this is the opposition’s fault.

When the opposition does their job — as one of the great Liberal prime ministers of this country Jean Chrétien said, the job of the opposition is to oppose. We do our job, and members there say that we’re filibustering, or we’re doing something wrong. We’re doing our job.

I was sent to this place to do something. Senator Gold, you were sent here. You clearly feel that you have received a mandate. You have received direction from the Prime Minister, and you’re doing your job. I respect that part of what you’re doing.

But why, colleagues, can you not accept and respect what the opposition is doing?

We don’t dislike individuals in this chamber. Here’s one thing about Senator Mercer and I: When I attacked Senator Mercer in the chamber, he never took that personally. He never thought, “Don doesn’t like me.” This was a political exchange, and when the Senate debate was over, we went out and had a beer. We travelled together, and we were on parliamentary associations together. For almost all of my time that matched Senator Mercer’s time, we were on the same committees, and we dealt together on those committees — on the Agriculture Committee and on the Transport Committee. We did great work on those committees.

I don’t know how often I have heard today that the Prime Minister has made this a more non-partisan chamber. This chamber has never been as partisan as it is today, colleagues.

Senator Plett: Shame on you.

Senator Plett: You would speak on my behalf. And you will put —

Your Honour, I ask that Senator Lankin refrain from interrupting me while I am speaking. I think this is a serious issue. She may not.

Your Honour, I have the utmost respect for you personally. I have the utmost respect for the position you have been put in and that you should not have been put in. I understand why you are in this position, Your Honour. I understand the pressures that you have been put under. You and I will leave this chamber tonight as friends, respecting each other. I will be your friend when you retire, and I will wish you all the best. But today, Your Honour, I find it necessary that, pursuant to Rule 2-5(3), I do wish to appeal your ruling.

Senator Plett: Nevertheless, Your Honour, I have the utmost respect for you personally. I said I would try to respect your ruling. I will. However, at this point I will also exercise my right, Your Honour, and with the highest deference to your position, I find it sad that just weeks before your retirement, you have been put into a position that I personally don’t believe — would you like to speak, Senator Lankin? I will sit down and give you the floor.

Senator Lankin: To speak on your behalf? Absolutely.

Senator Plett: It has not — and I don’t say that as a shot at any senator here, but I cannot make an argument here without senators taking offence and saying, “Don Plett is attacking me.” I’m sorry, but that’s not what I’m doing.

I’m attacking the Liberal Party of Canada because I believe they are the worst thing for this country; I believe that. I respect your beliefs — respect mine. I believe this Prime Minister is the very worst prime minister that this country has ever had, and that includes his dad — and he and I didn’t get along. But at least when Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the Prime Minister, I felt that we had an adult in charge of our country.

I say that here, and that is somehow unparliamentary, and we’re being bad people because we express our opinions — because we’re political.

Senator Gold wants to have the power to do this, but he didn’t have the power before. Now, our Speaker has rewritten the Rules to give him the power to cut off debate. Again, it doesn’t matter how you feel about it. Two hours ago, you did not have the right to do what you can now because of the Rules — one individual rewrote the Rules, whether you like that or not. You can shake your head all you want; that is simply the fact of the matter.

The Rules are clear. When it says “recognized parties,” Senator Gold, it doesn’t matter; that’s not a big word to change — recognized parties, or recognized groups.

I think Senator Dalphond somehow interpreted recognized groups having the same power and the same rights as recognized parties because the leaders of the recognized groups received a raise in pay. And Senator Gold receives $92,000 for being the Leader of the Government. I don’t know where that plays into it, but the fact of the matter is that the other recognized groups do not have the same power that the opposition has or the same power that the government has. That was intentional.

Senator Harder was very much instrumental in opening up that Parliament of Canada Act, and when Minister LeBlanc was here today, many of us had conversations with the minister at that point. He made commitments to me; I won’t share them here, but he made commitments to me. He said, “This is what we want. This is as far as we want the chamber to go.” They recognized four groups. They didn’t want to go beyond that; they made it clear. Senator Saint-Germain will attest to that, as will Senator Tannas, I’m sure, and Senator Cordy. They will attest to this being what Minister LeBlanc said: “We don’t want to go beyond that.”

If they wanted you to have the power that you have now gotten through the back door — you couldn’t get through the front door — they would have given it to you. They would have dealt with it.

Today, Senator Lankin said, “Why send it to the Rules Committee? That’s where things go to die” — and we can’t have a committee that works on consensus. Why? We had committees that worked on consensus when we had the two most partisan parties in Canada, and they were the only parties here. We dealt on consensus. Everything that we did at the Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration — Senator Housakos, you were there, and Senator Furey was there — was done by consensus. That was with two political parties. Now, all of a sudden, when we have a non-partisan chamber, we can’t deal on consensus anymore.

Colleagues, think about that for a while when you say that you are making this chamber less partisan — because you’re not.

I’m admitting to what I am: I’m a Conservative. I’m proud to be a Conservative. I’m proud to have conservative values. If you are proud to have liberal values, then stand up and say that. Don’t tell us that you are independent and you will vote your own way, and then you vote — 96% of the time — in favour of the government.

Senator Gold said that we had a deal, or at least he indicated a deal. In my previous life, I did a lot of negotiating. I negotiated on behalf of municipalities, and I negotiated on behalf of different organizations. When there was a negotiation, there were two sides, at least, talking.

The fact of the matter is, colleagues, that Senator Gold did say, without question on last Monday, that he would have liked to have had this bill passed by last Thursday. There’s no question — no denial there.

Typically, Senator Gold asks Senator Saint-Germain first regarding what she’s planning to put up for speakers. He then asks me. He then typically goes to either Senator Tannas or Senator Cordy and asks for their opinions — he did that. I will not share their opinions; I will only share mine. I said, “Senator Gold, we don’t have a motion for this. You’re asking me to tell you how many speakers we’re going to have, and I don’t have a motion. I would like that, and then I’ll be prepared to debate this and discuss it.” I don’t think anyone can deny that’s the conversation. He didn’t know why.

One of the senators said, “It will be a two-line motion. It doesn’t take a long time.” And I said, “You’re right. How long would it take you to write that?” It would take my staff about 10 minutes. This government has had two weeks, and they haven’t written this two-line motion. Why?

Then, I have to raise my suspicions a bit: Why aren’t they giving us a motion? It is a very simple thing. So I said, “Tomorrow, when we see that motion” — because I was told we would have it before midnight. I didn’t have it before midnight. My chief of staff did, but I was in bed when he got it. God love him, he didn’t wake me; he waited until the next day to give me the motion.

That day, we debated that motion. Senator Tannas offered an amendment. The next day, the government accepted that amendment. Talks were going on. Senator Gold called me about that amendment and whether or not we would support it. I suggested to him to at least wait until tomorrow — and we probably will, but I would like to wait until tomorrow because I would like to contemplate because I haven’t talked to my caucus. I’m not wanting to put words in your mouth, Senator Gold. He said, “Okay, let me think about that.” Then he called back and he said, “No, we’re planning on going ahead today.” I said, “Okay, Senator Gold, but we can’t support that today, so we will take the adjournment and we will likely pass it the next day,” which we did. We passed it the next day. We didn’t have a vote; we agreed to it. Senator Gold said, “Don, I think you and I should talk further this week.”

Honourable senators, I say this honestly. I did not believe that he was still thinking he was getting a bill on Thursday. I said, “Yes, we should. I would be happy to talk.” I said maybe we would talk before our leaders’ meeting next Monday. He said, “Well, I think we should talk earlier. I said, “Okay, maybe we can talk Thursday.” But, I said, “Senator Gold, I hope you understand that we’re not ready to call question on this on Thursday.” I’ll be the first one to admit that.

There’s no negotiation there, colleagues. We haven’t even started debate. We have not even started debate in this chamber, and he wants, in one day, for me to agree to something that has taken two-and-a-half or three years’ time? How on earth the Speaker could make a decision today on that is beyond me because Senator Gold gave us less than 30 hours to deal with a bill that had been around for three years? Is this how rulings are supposed to be done?

Again, it doesn’t matter, honourable senators, what side of the political spectrum we’re on. We have an obligation to Canadians. The Conservative Party of Canada speaks for 7 million-plus Canadians. We won the popular vote in the last two elections. We have a duty — an honour-bound duty — to speak on behalf of those 7 million Canadians, and there will be more in the next election. We have a duty, and for us to be considered as people who are filibustering and as people who are not cooperating in the Senate because we are defending Conservative values, I really find that disconcerting.

I’ve been asked lately — and I know that many of you would encourage that I take the advice of some people and say, “Don, why are you beating yourself over the head? Why don’t you retire from the Senate?” I know there are probably those who would be happy to give me a going away present if I did that, but I say there are still more good days than bad. I still have hope. I said that to a couple that was in my office today. I still believe that I am speaking on behalf of many Canadians, and I want to continue to support those Canadians. I want to speak on behalf of those Canadians.

Again, this is not about whether or not we support time allocation. I have never said, Senator Gold, that we don’t. I fully expected, Senator Gold, that if we did not move this bill forward in the next week or two — and you and I have had those discussions, Senator Gold. You and I had those discussions just a few months ago when you offered. You said, “Don, if you need some help, I can probably help you.” There was no question that we were anticipating that we’ll have a limited amount of time to debate this bill in this chamber before you would at least try time allocation.

Would we have done the same thing we are doing today? Yes, we probably would have because I still believe you don’t have the right. By the rules, you don’t have the right on a number of issues, which I pointed out earlier. We would have still made that argument. But you, Senator Gold, would have given us an opportunity — you would have given Canadians an opportunity that you are taking away from them, not the opposition. We are here ready to debate this.

Yes, I presented an amendment the other day. I presented a very reasonable amendment, and that amendment was to simply go back to the government one time and say that we expect you to accept our amendment. That was the amendment. There was nothing untoward about that amendment. The fact of the matter is we all know procedures, and we needed to make sure that we wouldn’t be — Senator Lankin and I go back to a private member’s bill a few years ago where she got the better of me. Full marks. I hold no grudges.

Do we have to make sure that won’t happen? Yes. Is that in any way an intention to filibuster this for three months? No. We knew full well, Senator Gold, that there would come a time when you would probably — unless we allowed this to go forward — do what you did tonight, and we would have hoped that we would have gotten what we believe was the right ruling. You obviously believe you got the right ruling, and that’s fine. We’ll do another battle on another day.

However, for you to do this after six hours of debate — six hours, not on the very first day of debate — to refuse to talk to the Leader of the Opposition, refuse to come to the Leader of the Opposition. When this happens — I talk to the House leader in the other place all the time. When Mark Holland plans on doing time allocation, he lets Andrew Scheer know, as well as the other House leaders. What do you do? I come across the floor on Thursday, right in front of your desk and I said to you, “Senator Gold, should we have a meeting?” Now is not the time. Half an hour later, your notice of motion comes forward, and you suggest that we aren’t to be trusted? That we aren’t the honourable people? I consider that very questionable.

I asked you at that time if we should meet. Whether that bill passed on Thursday or whether that bill passes today, this Thursday, next Tuesday or even next Thursday, what difference does that make? Unless the Prime Minister is running scared and he wants to get out of Ottawa for a while, and he says, “Senator Gold, Senator Furey, you had better help me out here. We can’t be in Ottawa.” You’re shaking your head. We’ll see whether there is any relevance to that at all because other than that, Senator Gold, what difference on a bill that’s been here for three years does another week make? I can’t understand that.

You could have come to me, Senator Gold, at any point and said, “Don, if you don’t give me this bill by this time, I’m going to invoke time allocation.” That would have been the professional and honourable thing to do. I would have accepted that. I would have stood here and I probably would have torn my shirt like I am now and say that you don’t have the right to do that, but at least that would have been the proper way to do that instead of backdooring. That doesn’t go away.

You suggest I broke a deal. No, the government broke a deal. You know very well — and I won’t raise it — about the deal that you broke to me one time, Senator Gold. I would be very careful how often you tell me I broke a deal before I start talking about that one because that one was a whole lot more personal than this one. You don’t want that brought up on the Senate floor, Senator Gold. I would be careful in how often you tell me that I have broken a deal. I broke no deal. The government broke a deal. The government did not do their consultations. So I said, Senator Gold, the government did not own up, did not do what they were supposed to do and did not do what they said they had done, so we can’t go forward with this. It had nothing to do with Pierre Poilievre’s videos or Senator Housakos’s videos. It had to do with standing up for Canadians.

This is censorship gold on a censorship bill.

Let me end off on this, Senator Gold, and you can turn around and say the same to me: You will reap what you sow. In the next election, you will reap what you sow. This Senate will again become a chamber of sober second thought where people will respect each other, and that will happen after the next election, whether you like it or not. People will again respect each other here, whether they are on one side of the government or the other. We will have respect, even if we get angry like this over the course of the evening. I will fly Friday morning with a couple of my Manitoba colleagues, and we will rub shoulders and tell each other how much we love each other on the weekend, and then on Monday or Tuesday we’ll come back here and do what we’re doing here today because that, colleagues, is the way this chamber should work. Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Senator Plett: Minister, the terms of reference also state that the rapporteur is authorized “to receive written submissions on these issues from interested persons.” I would hope that “interested persons” include whistleblowers, candidates who were targeted by Beijing’s interference or Canadians who have been harassed and intimidated here in our own country by the Chinese Communist Party. However, minister, it’s impossible to find a mailing address or an email address where those submissions can be sent.

Minister, do you know how “interested persons” can get in touch with the Prime Minister’s Special Rapporteur?

He has reached out to me, and I have had an active discussion with him. On the one hand, we can’t say he has an independent role and have the government prescribe from whom and how he would receive information, but the ability for Canadians, including those identified by Senator Plett, to have access to the Right Honourable David Johnston and provide him advice and information is important, so I will ask the Privy Council Office that very good question of how people can offer advice publicly or submit evidence to him. That’s an important part of his work. I’ll also make sure that senators have that information.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Welcome, Minister LeBlanc.

Minister, the Prime Minister’s made-up Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference has been silent since being named to this post on March 15.

This is, of course, just what the Prime Minister wanted by naming an old family friend, neighbour and Trudeau Foundation member to the position. The terms of reference for the made-up Special Rapporteur say that he is “to provide reports on a rolling basis.” Minister, think about all the serious revelations about Beijing’s interference in our country that have been reported in the last six weeks. It is obvious that a public inquiry is required, yet we have heard nothing from the Special Rapporteur.

Minister, what communication has taken place between the Special Rapporteur and your government since March 15? Have any reports or recommendations been brought forward? Has he interviewed any ministers or their staff?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, a few minutes ago, you committed to sharing the contact information for the Special Rapporteur as per the terms of reference that I suggested. You agreed to share that contact information with us in the Senate.

The terms of reference say “interested persons.” I’m hoping, minister, that this information will be shared with the Canadian public. I would like your commitment that it will be, in fact, shared with the Canadian public as per the reference letter because, if it isn’t, minister, would you not agree that it will, again, look like another cover-up?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Your Honour, I rise on a point of order. Thank you.

Your Honour, my point of order pertains to the notice of motion given by the Leader of the Government in the Senate on April 20, when he notified the Senate that he would be moving time allocation on Bill C-11. At the time, Senator Gold said the following:

Honourable senators, I wish to advise the Senate that I have been unable to reach an agreement with the representatives of the recognized parties to allocate time to the motion, as amended, to respond to the message from the House of Commons concerning the Senate’s amendments to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Therefore, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, pursuant to rule 7-2, not more than a further six hours of debate be allocated for the consideration of the motion, as amended, to respond to the message from the House of Commons concerning the Senate’s amendments to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Your Honour, although it is no secret that this government wishes to ram this bill through as quickly as it can in order to avoid — I’m happy that Senator Lankin finds some humour in this — the continued embarrassment over its unpopularity, Senator Gold’s notice of motion does not correctly apply the Rules of the Senate and, in fact, violates them.

In this regard, there are three things, Your Honour, that I would like to bring to your attention.

First is that Senator Gold’s notice of motion did not follow the prescribed format. As I mentioned, when Senator Gold gave notice of the motion, he stated:

. . . I wish to advise the Senate that I have been unable to reach an agreement with the representatives of the recognized parties to allocate time to the motion . . . .

Yet, section 7-2(1) of the Rules states clearly:

At any time during a sitting, the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Government may state that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree . . . .

Your Honour, the prescribed format for the notice of motion under rule 7-2(1) is quite clear. Because the notice of motion by Senator Gold does not respect the required form, it is invalid. As everyone knows, there are precise ways to give a notice of motion, and the table, of course, can provide that script for all of us. Senator Gold deliberately chose not to follow the script — not to follow the language provided for in the Rules. I would then argue that since proper notice was not given, Senator Gold cannot move the motion today.

My second point, Your Honour, is that in addition to not following the form prescribed by the Rules of the Senate, Senator Gold’s motion did not meet the necessary prerequisites. As I already noted, section 7-2(1) of the Rules states:

At any time during a sitting, the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Government may state that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree to allocate time to conclude an adjourned debate . . . .

Your Honour, I do not wish to use unparliamentary language here. We have people who are quick to jump to that and call points of order on that. Allow me just to say that in making this statement, Senator Gold misled the Senate. Senator Gold never offered, privately or publicly, formally or informally, to meet to discuss a timeline for debate on this motion.

Please allow me to provide some details and context on the discussion I had with Senator Gold on his motion in reply to the House message on Bill C-11.

Your Honour, on Monday, April 17, I had a meeting with Senator Gold along with the leaders of the other recognized groups. He asked us what our plans were on this motion. I made it clear to all present, I think, that I could not give a definitive answer until we had seen the motion. We had just come off a two-week break. The government had lots of time to draft their motion. On Monday night, the motion had not been drafted, and we were told that. We were told that we would have it by midnight.

What Senator Gold was asking us to do was commit how and when we would vote on a motion that we had not seen. I finally received the motion on Tuesday morning. It was sent out the night before to my chief of staff. I think he received it around ten o’clock at night; I’m not sure of the time. I got it in the morning.

Later that day, Senator Gold called about that and other matters and suggested that we should meet sometime to discuss this matter. My first suggestion was that we have a meeting on Monday — yesterday — to discuss this. Senator Gold suggested that was a little late for his preferred time and that he would like to meet earlier. I replied that I could make myself available on Thursday if he wanted to meet, and he indicated that he would get back to me. He never did.

Hearing one of the bells on Thursday afternoon — late afternoon — I went across to see Senator Gold in this chamber. His deputy leader was there with him. I asked him if he thought we should have a short meeting. His response — and I don’t want to say this as verbatim — was along the lines of “now is not the time.”

You will also recall, Your Honour, that it was the deputy leader of the de facto government group in the Senate that moved a motion last Thursday to adjourn the debate on Senator MacDonald’s subamendment. It was not the Conservatives. You will further recall that the Conservatives originally opposed the adjournment. We were happy to have the question called on Senator MacDonald’s subamendment. However, it was adjourned, so we could not do that.

Immediately after the adjournment, Senator Gold rose in this place and moved his notice of motion. After only six hours of debate on a bill where we had had 140 witnesses appear at committee and over 70 hours of testimony and without any formal or informal attempt to reach an agreement on the timeline for the debate, Senator Gold rose in this chamber and stated that he could not reach an agreement with me — or recognized parties, of which I am the only one.

Your Honour, on every controversial bill that has come through this place since approximately 2017, I have been at the negotiating table and helped negotiate with the Leader of the Government and to come to mutually acceptable arrangements, and this includes negotiating second reading on Bill C-11, along with the timelines at committee and, indeed, Your Honour, at third reading. This regularly happened as well with Senator Gold’s predecessor, Senator Harder.

However, when the message comes back from the House of Commons on the same bill, Senator Gold does not have the decency to pick up the phone and call me. Instead, he misrepresents the facts to this chamber in an astonishing and self‑serving way.

Senator Gold says we have failed to agree, but I would note that there has been no failure to agree because there have been no discussions on the need to allocate time on the motion in question. Consequently, there has been no opportunity, Your Honour, to either agree or disagree. Although we are becoming quite accustomed to the fact that this government does not take seriously the need to consult, I do not think that diminishes the requirement of this rule for the government to do so.

The Rules do not permit the government to impose time allocation simply because the recognized parties do not adhere to the government’s preferred schedule. The language in the Rules is clear. The government can only use rule 7-2(1) when there is no agreement, Your Honour. In order for agreement not to be reached, there must at least be a discussion that includes a proposed timeline.

On this point, Your Honour, I would like to draw your attention to a number of citations, practices and authorities, although I am certain you have reviewed all of these. If not, I’m sure you will review these yourself. Regardless, I believe it is important to place them on the record.

In commenting on time allocation, the Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada quotes the following from page 660 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

While it has become the most frequently used mechanism for curtailing debate, time allocation remains a means of bringing the parties together to negotiate an acceptable distribution of the time of the House.

Although referencing procedure in the House of Commons, it is quite clear by its inclusion in the Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada that the same expectation applies to this chamber, Your Honour.

Time allocation is a means of bringing the parties together to negotiate. Your Honour, I regret that no such bringing together of such parties happened, nor were there any negotiations. Instead, we have a unilateral decision by the Government Representative in the Senate to curtail debate on a motion that is of significant interest to many senators of all groups as well as to all Canadians.

This is not only inappropriate, it is against the Rules. Since Senator Gold never proposed nor discussed any timeline for debate on his motion on Bill C-11, he cannot use the provisions of rule 7-2. I suspect, Your Honour, that the government leader in the Senate will object to this argument by suggesting he did not need to make a proposal or have a discussion, but that he merely needed to observe that there is no agreement. That is incorrect, Your Honour.

First of all, it is incorrect in principle — and, again, I draw your attention to page 171 of the Companion to the Rules of the Senate, which quotes Erskine May Parliamentary Practice, 24th Edition, on page 469, which notes the following:

In addition, the impact of allocation of time or programme orders is to some extent mitigated either by consultations between the party representatives informally or in the Business Committee or the Programming Committee in order to establish the greatest possible measure of agreement as to the most satisfactory disposal of the time available.

We see in the paragraph preceding this quote that the spirit of the rule permitting the government to move time allocation is couched in the need to balance the claims of business with the rights of debate. That balance is critical in maintaining societal respect for the role of Parliament, and obligates the government to engage in actual consultations prior to invoking the rule.

I would note, Your Honour, that this principle has been reaffirmed numerous times in practice in this chamber. I would like to draw your attention to two of those. The first one is a reference on page 171 of the Companion to the Rules of the Senate.

On September 20, 2000, Speaker Molgat made the following ruling on a point of order regarding a notice of motion to allocate time. Note that, at that time, rule 7-2 was known as rule 39(1).

In his ruling, Senator Molgat said the following:

Insofar as the point raised by the Honourable Senator Kinsella is concerned, I refer specifically to rule 39(1), which simply states that if “the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, from his or her place in the Senate, may state that the representatives of the parties have failed to agree to allocate a specified number of days or hours,” that allows the deputy leader to give notice.

Honourable senators, the deputy leader has stated that an agreement has not been reached. I have no means of knowing whether an agreement will be reached. All I have before me is a motion stating that if they have reached no agreement at this point, the rule has been followed and the terms have been set out. Therefore, I rule that the point of order is not valid.

I raise this citation, Your Honour, because a cursory reading of it seems to indicate that there is no need for the government to engage in consultations, but rather that it must only state that an agreement has not been reached. This, however, is incorrect.

Speaker Molgat was simply noting that he had no way of knowing whether an agreement had been reached, and he did so in the context of knowing full well that the parties had engaged in consultation. This was first acknowledged by the Deputy Leader of the Government earlier in the day on September 20, 2000, when he stated:

. . . my counterpart, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and I have been in discussion pursuant to my attempt to reach an agreement on the time to be given for third reading consideration of Bill C-37. We have been unable to reach such an agreement, but we will continue our discussions.

Senator Kinsella, who was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition at the time, went on to affirm this fact when he said:

The rule envisages some serious discussions to decide on the timeline for proceeding with a piece of government legislation.

Your Honour, in this case, we see that there was no disagreement between the government and the opposition over the fact that an attempt to reach an agreement through discussion and negotiation was first necessary before a notice of motion could be made for time allocation. The only issue at hand during that point of order was whether a notice could be made before such discussions were finished.

In that context, Speaker Molgat’s ruling made perfect sense, as noted by Senator Hays:

To interpret rule 39 as one that is only applicable when the relationship on a particular item of discussion is totally intractable would not be consistent with the spirit of the rules, or rule 39, or the spirit of doing business in this chamber.

He then went on to say:

Honourable senators, I simply say that discussions have taken place and they have not produced a conclusion on this side. In representing the government side, I feel that is adequate.

Your Honour, I would agree that Senator Hays is correct: If discussions had taken place and they had not produced a conclusion, then the conditions of rule 7-2 have been met. But, as I pointed out, that is not what happened with the notice of motion I am addressing today. Senator Gold made little or no attempt to discuss a timeline with me. Consequently, he has not met the prerequisites to invoke rule 7-2.

The second speaker’s ruling that I would like to draw your attention to — since I believe it is germane to this issue, Your Honour — took place on February 19, 2004. In that instance, Speaker Hays was also considering a point of order on a notice of motion for time allocation. Once again, the question at hand was not whether discussions had taken place but whether the discussions were adequate. At the time, the rule — rule 39(1) — read:

. . . the representatives of the parties have failed to agree to allocate a specified number of days or hours for consideration . . . .

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Senator Kinsella, was arguing that specific criterion had not been met.

But once again, the question was never whether consultations had taken place but whether they were adequate. In his response, Speaker Hays said the following:

Senator Kinsella’s point underlines the importance of precision in terms of reference to the rules. The presiding officer finds himself in an awkward position of who to believe, which is not an area I want to enter.

I will accept the notice of motion, but I will do it with this caution: Having listened to the exchange between the house leaders, I admonish them and other senators to pay close attention to the rules and to observe their requirements.

Speaker Hays accepted the notice of motion because both parties acknowledged that discussions had taken place. In doing so, he underscored that when referencing the Rules, precision is important.

Your Honour, I am asking that the same close attention be paid to the Rules in this case because, as I have noted, Senator Gold has failed to do this by not consulting, and his Notice of Motion is not in order with the Rules.

I have one final point to make, Your Honour, under our Rules. It is a disagreement between the recognized parties that triggered the use of time allocation. Rule 7-2(1) states:

At any time during a sitting, the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Government may state that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree . . . .

The term “recognized party” is defined in “Appendix I: Terminology of the Rules” as follows:

A recognized party in the Senate is composed of at least nine senators who are members of the same political party, which is registered under the Canada Elections Act, or has been registered under the Act within the past 15 years.

Your Honour, the Rules also contain a definition of what a “recognized parliamentary group” is. In fact, these terms are used throughout our Rules, making a clear distinction between a recognized party and a recognized group. Herein lies our dilemma, Your Honour. There is only one recognized party in the Senate, and that, Your Honour — and there are those in this chamber who are not happy with this — is the Conservative Party of Canada. The other three organized caucuses are parliamentary groups.

There cannot be a disagreement between recognized parties if there is only one. That is simple. I argue with myself occasionally, and I win most of those arguments. That is not the case here.

Over the last years, several changes were made to the Rules of the Senate. A lot of them pertain to the new reality of having not only parties, but also groups in the Senate. Yet, no such change was made to rule 7. This, Your Honour, was not an oversight. The Senate decided, in its wisdom, not to change the provision of rule 7, and I urge you, Your Honour, to simply follow the rule — and decide that with only one recognized party in the Senate, there cannot be disagreement. Therefore, on that point, Senator Gold’s motion is out of order.

Secondly, Your Honour, even if there was some convoluted way of interpreting parliamentary groups as the equivalent of recognized parties, Senator Gold’s motion would still be out of order.

There was never a meeting of the four parties or groups to discuss the timelines for the passage of Bill C-11, so there cannot be either agreement or disagreement under this scenario at this point.

Finally, what the government is asking you to do, Your Honour, is to not only rewrite the Rules to read “groups” where the word “parties” is, but to also see the Leader of the Government as one of those parties when this is not how the rule reads.

Senator Gold is a non-affiliated senator. He is neither the leader of a recognized party, nor the leader of a recognized group. He even says that he is not the Leader of the Government — he is a non-affiliated senator.

Non-affiliated senators have no recognized role in discussions pertaining to time allocation, Your Honour. Let me repeat that for all senators here: Non-affiliated senators have no recognized role in discussions pertaining to time allocation.

As mentioned in the sixth edition of Beauchesne’s Parliamentary Rules & Forms, on page 162, and as quoted in the Companion to the Rules of the Senate of Canada, “The wording representatives of the parties . . . does not include independent Members.” As an independent member, when Senator Gold says, “I cannot reach an agreement,” it is entirely irrelevant, as he does not have the standing under rule 7 to be part of any agreement or disagreement.

You will note that the Leader of the Government is not mentioned in section 7 of the Senate Rules as a necessary participant in an agreement or disagreement to trigger time allocation. This means that his role in such a Senate with respect to rule 7 would simply be to take note that an agreement has or has not been struck, and to give the notice required.

As I said, the current majority in the Senate has been ruling since 2016, and there has never been an attempt, Your Honour, to change the language of section 7 of the Senate Rules.

Furthermore, it was only a year ago, Your Honour, that the government opened up the Parliament of Canada Act and made amendments, and yet they did not change this part. Why?

Now the government and its senators have the gall to ask you, Your Honour, to make changes to the Rules of the Senate through this Notice of Motion. However, Your Honour — with the absolute, utmost respect — your role as defined in section 2 of the Senate Rules is to rule on points of order. You have no mandate to rewrite the Rules of the Senate simply because the government of the day thinks it might be convenient to pass the buck to you, Your Honour, and ask you to do that.

Frankly, I find this attempt to ask you to rewrite all of section 7 of the Rules quite offensive. It is very unfortunate, Your Honour, that Senator Gold would put you, on the eve of your retirement, in a position where you are being asked to do something which is not within your power to do. They are asking you to do the job of the Rules Committee and, thereafter, the entire Senate. It would not surprise me, Your Honour, if you were currently under a lot of pressure from the government leader here in this Senate — Senator Gold — and the Prime Minister’s Office to follow their wishes on this matter. I urge you, and I plead with you, Your Honour, to not yield to those pressures.

As you know, Your Honour, in 2014, the Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said the following:

If the Senate serves a purpose at all, it is to act as a check on the extraordinary power of the prime minister and his office . . . .

If there is one truly independent senator in this chamber, Your Honour, that is you. You have done a tremendous job, as was stated even earlier today, in being independent, and in making rulings that were clearly thought through and that showed your independence.

You are leaving soon. I urge you, Your Honour, not to mar your excellent reputation and impartial track record by rewriting the Rules of the Senate in the eleventh hour of your tenure — rather than respecting and enforcing them.

I know, Your Honour, that you will do the right thing, and I look forward to your ruling on this matter. Thank you.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): This is truly a dark day for the Senate of Canada.

With respect, Your Honour, you said that the government leader says — or you refer to belonging to the government party. Senator Gold, of course, does not belong to the government party. By his own admission, he doesn’t belong to the government party.

I am extremely disappointed that this ruling would have come down without it being in writing. Clearly, this was — please, senators. I respect your right to your opinion. Have respect for mine. Except for yours, possibly. I’m getting a little tired.

Your Honour, I have the utmost respect for you, even though I may struggle with respect for others, but I want to have the utmost respect for this chamber and everybody here. And just because we, as the opposition, have a role to play as the opposition, which Senator Lankin has been a part of and, when she was a member of the opposition, did what this opposition party does, and she has a very short memory.

Senator Lankin: I never said —

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I was not going to rise on this point of order. I was going to let you make a ruling. For some reason the government leader — which he is now hopefully going to be styled as forever and a day, and we will certainly be making that request to Internal Economy that everything is changed here, that he is now the government leader, because, of course, in your ruling you styled him as such — but that’s not what I’m speaking to.

Senator Gold just simply referenced my comments as somehow being relevant in this point of order. My comments that I made about Senator Gold were during my speech. He had the opportunity to debate those comments, and he did that forcefully and vigorously.

I said earlier today, Your Honour, I may not agree with Senate colleagues, but I will defend to the death your right to your opinion.

Senator Gold has an opinion of our conversation. I have a different opinion. I relayed to this chamber what my opinion was, and he relayed what his opinion was, and they were completely opposite. One of them clearly cannot be entirely correct, and the other one possibly entirely false. I’m not sure. I had an opinion of something, and he, according to what he is saying, had a different opinion.

That is not what this point of order at all, Your Honour, was related to. The exchange that Senator Gold and I had in this chamber was about a point of order that I legitimately raised on an issue that has been a long-festering issue for seven or eight years.

Senator Housakos and then Senator Carignan spoke to an issue that happened by other senators, not Senator Gold making disparaging comments possibly towards me. I take no exception to what Senator Gold said in any of his speech, and I hope he doesn’t take exception to what I said. But I hope, Your Honour, that you will entirely ignore the comments that Senator Gold just made in regard to this point of order because they were entirely irrelevant to this point of order.

[Translation]

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I’m not sure how to start this. We have a government leader who is wanting to move a bill forward, who says, “I will answer one question and then I will not answer any more questions.”

Excuse me. Did you want to continue debate? Thank you.

Senator Gold said — and Hansard will show that he said — he would refuse a second question. Now he’s saying that time ran out again. That is somewhat fudging the truth, Senator Gold. You said you would not accept a second question.

I find that very disconcerting when the government leader refuses to answer questions from members opposite, and yet he is the one who is a “defender of democracy.” Hallelujah! Thank you that Senator Gold finally came to the chamber to defend democracy because I don’t know how this chamber could possibly have operated for the last 150 plus years without Prime Minister Trudeau’s appointments — “independent appointments” who have voted 96% in favour of the government and yet sit in this chamber and say they are independent, over and over again.

We have still four, maybe five, senators left who have admitted that they would love to still be in a Liberal caucus, but because of Trudeau’s wonderful reformed Senate, they have chosen to go to their own caucuses.

We’ve had a few members leave, and they now vote, occasionally, for Liberal budgets. I don’t understand that either. I don’t understand where this Senate has improved in the last few years.

My most memorable times in this Senate were my spats with my good friend Senator Terry Mercer, who was every bit as partisan as I am. Senator Ringuette knows it. So does Senator Cordy. So does Senator Massicotte. They know how partisan Senator Mercer was, and yet we were best friends because we understood this is a political chamber and we had two political parties here that went toe to toe and debated legislation and, on occasion, brought in time allocation.

I, for the life of me, don’t understand why Senator Gold is somehow trying to frame this as we are opposed to time allocation. We are not. We have supported time allocation many times. Ask Senator Carignan. We got appointed on the same day in 2009, and Senator Seidman.

We have seen time allocation. We supported it on our side and on the other side. That is not the issue, Senator Gold. The issue is you have no right. The Constitution, the Rules of the Senate say you have no right. You sit there one day as, “I’m an unaffiliated senator, I am an independent senator, I’m not a member of the government,” yet you are carrying the water of the government, and you are here telling us you have the right.

No, you don’t. I read the Rules today. It doesn’t matter how badly we want to change those Rules. What you did today, government leader, is you forced our Speaker to rewrite the Rules. That is what you, government leader, will go down in history as. You forced our Speaker to rewrite the Rules. Because it doesn’t matter what the Speaker says of this issue; it doesn’t change what the Rules say. The Rules say “recognized parties.” You are not part of a recognized party. You can’t have it both ways. “One day I’m part of a recognized party. One day I’m a Government Representative. The next day I’m a government leader. Today I will answer your questions. Tomorrow, when you question me about CBC, I will say, ‘Well, I don’t answer for CBC.’”

Someday, Senator Gold, you’re going to have to accept what you are, admit what you are.

Senator Carignan: To be or not to be.