Hon. Denise Batters: Your Honour, I rise to speak in support of Senator Plett’s point of order.

As has been mentioned, the employment of the Senate rule in question, rule 7-2, requires two triggers: One, the Leader of the Government must consult with the representatives of the recognized parties; and, two, the “representatives of the recognized parties” must have failed to come to an agreement to allocate time to conclude a debate.

In the case of Senator Gold’s motion of time allocation without agreement, neither of these criteria were fulfilled. “Recognized parties” is not a synonym for “recognized groups.” The Rules of the Senate define “recognized parties,” as we have already heard a couple of times before, as:

. . . 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.

Clearly, of the five parliamentary groups currently in the Senate, only the opposition Conservative Party of Canada caucus qualifies as a recognized party under that definition.

As Senator Plett has stated, Senator Gold did not consult the Conservative opposition seeking agreement on a timeline for the conclusion of the debate on the Bill C-11 message. Therefore, the first criterion was not met.

Whether Senator Gold approached other parliamentary groups seeking consent would be immaterial. If he did not seek agreement with our Senate Conservative caucus leader, Senator Gold did not fulfill the clearly prescribed dictates of that Senate rule.

Furthermore, since he did not consult with Senator Plett — the representative of the only “recognized party” in the Senate — Senator Gold cannot correctly state that there is “no agreement on time allocation,” as per rule 7-2(2), and he cannot then, in turn, properly move a motion to allocate time.

Although Speakers in the past have declined to rule on the nature, the quality or quantity of consultations between parties on time allocation, certainly there must still be some sort of an approach to seek agreement before the government leader can announce that the recognized parties have failed to agree, thereby engaging the rule. Otherwise, the rule is completely meaningless. The government could just impose time allocation whenever it wants, without the need for rules governing the process.

In parliamentary terms, time allocation is about as serious as it gets. It drops the guillotine on debate, the most precious of our democratic freedoms in this place. It would be absurd if the rules regarding its usage were meaningless. Clearly, this is not what was intended.

In 2014, in the shadow of the Senate expenses scandal, the then third party Liberal leader Justin Trudeau chose to sever the Senate Liberal caucus’s ties to the Liberal Party of Canada for his political expediency. During the 2015 election, Trudeau proposed his new independent Senate model.

When the Liberals became government after that election, he put that plan into action, with Peter Harder as his transition team head. Since then, the Trudeau government has gone to great lengths to make it clear that Prime Minister Trudeau’s new Senate appointments are not affiliated in any way with the Liberal Party. They are to be “independent” and “non-partisan.”

They frequently claim that the Senate government leader is distanced from any partisan ties. The Government Representative Office, or GRO, now only has a caucus of three.

Given this, I contend that the members of the Government Representative Office, including the Government Representative himself, would also not qualify as “representatives of the recognized parties” and, therefore, that he would be precluded from moving time allocation at all.

It is important to closely consider the wording of rule 7-2(2). The Cambridge Dictionary defines “agreement” as “a decision or arrangement, often formal and written, between two or more groups or people.”

Therefore, it is not possible to have an agreement of one representative alone — in this case, Senator Plett. Nor is the term “recognized party” in Senate rule 7-2(2) indicative of an entity who is party to a contractual legal arrangement.

In the political institution of the Senate, “recognized party” states affiliation with a political party, as specifically identified in the Appendix of the Rules of the Senate.

Time and again, the Government’s Representative in the Senate has assured us of the GRO’s lack of partisan attachments. The three members of the GRO caucus identify their political affiliation as “non-affiliated,” including on the Senate website, in the Senate Chamber and committee broadcasts as well as on the Government Representative Office’s web page.

There, among the “Frequently Asked Questions,” a heading asks, “Why are the members of the GRO listed as non-affiliated rather than as members of a party?”

The answer states:

The governing party’s caucus in the House of Commons does not caucus with Senators, a decision that was made to reduce partisanship and increase independence in the Senate.

The government members of the Senate have intentionally not aligned themselves with the Liberal government’s registered party. They can’t turn around and piggyback on it now for the purpose of shutting down debate on the most controversial legislation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau established the new Senate appointment system this way intentionally, in an attempt to distance the Liberal Party and his Liberal government from the Senate expenses scandal. When he first appointed senators under this new system, the Prime Minister proclaimed it in his 2016 press release:

The Senate appointments I have announced today will help advance the important objective to transform the Senate into a less partisan and more independent institution . . . by removing the element of partisanship, and ensuring that the interests of Canadians are placed before political allegiances.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s then-government leader in the House of Commons, Dominic LeBlanc, said when announcing the changes to the Senate appointment system in December 2015 — and please forgive the rough translation:

As the Minister noted, the appointment of the first non‑partisan senators will revitalize the Senate and help change the tone in early 2016. More independent senators will join their ranks later in the next year. The government is pleased to facilitate this change by appointing its representative to the Senate from the ranks of new non-partisan recruits.

Minister LeBlanc continued in English:

The government looks forward to leading this change by appointing one of the new independent Senators to be appointed, as my colleague said, hopefully very early in the New Year to be the government representative in the Senate.

When he appeared with the then Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef at the Senate Rules Committee in February 2016, House leader LeBlanc reiterated:

We will be appointing a government representative from amongst these first five independent senators appointed under this new process. This senator will act as the government representative in your chamber . . . . However, unlike perhaps a traditional government leader function, this individual will not be bound by party or political ties, as has been the case in the past.

The Trudeau government’s clear intent was that new appointees, including even the individual chosen to fill the role of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, would be divorced from their official Liberal Party of Canada affiliation.

In fact, the very first of the assessment criteria listed on the Trudeau government’s website for Senate appointees under “Merit-based criteria established by the Government” is entitled “Non-partisanship.” It explains:

Individuals must demonstrate to the Advisory Board that they have the ability to bring a perspective and contribution to the work of the Senate that is independent and non-partisan. . . .

Right from the start, and consistently throughout, the Trudeau government has trumpeted non-partisanship as fundamental to its new Senate appointment process.

The first self-styled “Government Representative,” Senator Peter Harder, spoke often of his distance from Liberal partisan ties. When he appeared before the Senate Modernization Committee in September 2016, Senator Harder testified:

I believe that my task is not to be affiliated with a particular party or caucus or partisan identification . . . .

He also said:

. . . I would compliment Prime Minister Trudeau for the initiative that he has taken both . . . in providing an arms‑length independent nomination process . . . and to have removed his party caucus from the national caucus, by underscoring the institutional independence of our chamber versus the other chamber, by appointing a representative, not a leader, who is independent in origin, not partisan . . . .

In his maiden speech in the Senate in April 2016, Senator Harder stated:

Unlike any . . . past Leader of the Government in the Senate, I sit as an independent. I do not belong to any political caucus. . . .

To fulfill my duties, I do not need to be a member of a political party and will not be a member of a national caucus or any political caucus.

When he appeared before the Senate’s Internal Economy Committee in April 2016 to request funding for the Government Representative Office, I asked Senator Harder if he intended to ask the new Trudeau-appointed senators to form a government caucus. This was his answer:

Absolutely not. It’s not my job to form a caucus or to direct independent senators in a particular organized fashion.

Senator Harder further asserted the government’s break with its partisanship in his April 2018 discussion paper.

He wrote:

The current Government’s approach to the Senate seeks, through the removal of a party-affiliated government caucus and the appointment of independent senators who have no personal stake in the election of a political party, to foster the conditions that will allow the Senate to leverage its unique qualities and demonstrate to Canadians its value as a complementary body of sober second thought.

In 2019, the Government Representative Office released a progress report on the new Trudeau Senate. It noted:

A crucial difference between the new and the old system is underscored by the absence of party discipline directed to independent Senators on voting and other legislative matters. Previously, Senators largely accepted direction on how to vote from party leadership. This is still the case with Conservative Senators. In contrast, independent Senators (whether they are unaffiliated, members of the Independent Senators Group or the Independent Senate Liberals) are not directed how to vote and do not coordinate partisan strategy with Members of Parliament. . . .

The Government Representative Office also stated:

Of the three Senate groups — the ISG, the Independent Senate Liberals and the Conservatives — only the 29 Conservative Senators continue to sit as members of a national political caucus, devoted to the election of their House of Commons colleagues. . . .

It is obvious that the Trudeau government regards the Conservative senators as the only recognized party in the chamber. This did not change once the independent senate liberals morphed into the Progressive Senate Group, or PSG, nor with the birth of the Canadian Senators Group, or CSG, comprised of senators who had come from the Conservative and what used to be the Liberal caucus. As we know, they have since been joined by some Trudeau-appointed independent senators as well, but the CSG proudly proclaims freedom from party affiliation.

Senator Gold, who would later go on to be the second Government Representative, said of partisanship in 2017 that:

. . . it has taken on a particular importance because of the arrival of a new group of senators, of which I am one, who are not affiliated with any political party, who are not members of a political caucus and who define ourselves as non-partisan.

Just last fall, Senator Gold reflected on his distance from partisan ties in the role as the second Government Representative in the Senate. He said during a meeting of our Senate Rules Committee in October 2022 that:

My ability to have unlimited speaking time has been an important tool that I’ve had to use, and my predecessor as well . . . . It’s rather important, even more important than it was, maybe, because I don’t have a caucus to control.

At a November 2022 Senate Rules Committee meeting, Senator Gold reiterated his freedom from political ties to the government. He said:

 . . . this government, which I have the privilege of representing, made a decision and a choice to disconnect the Senate from the control of the government at the time and, in that regard, to seek to establish more independence and less partisanship. Yes, the consequence of that is that I don’t have a caucus and I don’t control votes. That is a decision of this government . . .

The Trudeau government first proposed changing the Parliament of Canada Act to reflect this new non-partisan reality in the Senate via their Bill S-4. In May 2021, when I questioned the Trudeau government house leader Dominic LeBlanc at the Committee of the Whole on why the government neglected to define the new roles in this legislation, he replied:

. . . the Senate is perfectly capable itself to define those roles in their own rules and for the people who are ultimately appointed to those functions to decide in collaboration with different groups in the Senate and their colleagues in a particular group, for example, the kind of roles that they want to undertake and the work that they want to do. We didn’t think it would be particularly prescriptive to have job descriptions or lists of particular functions. . . .

Bill S-4 and its successor, Bill S-2, also aimed to change the Emergencies Act provision regarding the composition of the parliamentary review committee. Under the existing Emergencies Act provisions at the time, the committee was to be comprised of at least one member from each recognized party in the House of Commons and:

 . . . at least one senator from each party in the Senate that is represented on the committee by a member of the House of Commons.

Only the Senate Conservative caucus qualified for a seat on the committee according to this party-affiliated definition. As a result, there is no representation from the Government Representative Office on this committee currently sitting. The Senate leaders had to strike a deal to allow for the inclusion of representation from the Independent Senators Group — ISG — PSG, and CSG when the review committee began its work in March 2022, as these groups were not affiliated with the party leader.

The provision of the Emergencies Act governing review committee membership did not officially change to allow these non-partisan Senate groups until it was passed in the Budget Implementation Act — Bill C-19 — at the end of June 2022. Similarly, the only recognized party in the existing Rules of the Senate is also the Conservative opposition caucus, representing the Conservative Party of Canada, the party of the official opposition in the House of Commons.

Last fall, at Rules Committee in the Senate, Senators carefully considered the rules triggering time allocation. Many of the leaders of the parliamentary groups were present at those meetings, including Government Representative Marc Gold. Some participants pushed hard to change the Rules to also include parliamentary groups in the required agreement for time allocation. However, no consensus on the matter was reached and therefore the existing Senate rule stands, requiring only an agreement of recognized parties.

We can also look to the rules governing time allocation in the House of Commons for further clarification. Standing Order 78(1) is the rule governing a motion for time allocation after reaching agreement with “. . . representatives of all parties. . . .”

Notably, Beauchesne’s Parliamentary Rules and Forms notes at page 162 that, “[t]he wording ’representatives of the parties’ in Standing Order 78 does not include independent Members.” Further, the House can also give us guidance on the requirement for consultation before the government invokes time allocation. I refer to the same House of Commons Procedure and Practice quote that Senator Plett referred to regarding bringing the parties together to negotiate. There would be no “bringing the parties together to negotiate” if the government were not required to consult the other party members first.

In closing, Your Honour, I urge you to find Senator Gold’s motion invoking time allocation on the Bill C-11 message out of order. He did not approach our Conservative Senate leader, the representative of the Senate’s only recognized party, seeking agreement for ending debate, and Senator Gold therefore could not have failed to reach agreement for time allocation as he indicated to the Senate in his motion.

Furthermore, the Senate government leader cannot be the Schrödinger’s cat of the Senate, tied to the governing Liberal Party for the purposes of representing a recognized party under Senate rules while simultaneously claiming independence from all political affiliation. For seven and a half years, the Liberal government and both Senate Government Representatives have been adamant that there is no partisan tie. Therefore, I submit that it is out of order for Senator Gold to bring a motion of time allocation at all.

Thank you.

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on the government’s motion to invoke time allocation on the Senate’s debate on the message from the House of Commons on Bill C-11. As you have heard throughout this debate, the Senate’s amendments on Bill C-11 were the product of an intensive committee study process. The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications heard nearly 70 hours of testimony from 140 witnesses, with 67 additional written submissions on this topic. The committee studied this issue tirelessly.

Since we received the message, the product of that committee study, back from the House of Commons, we’ve debated for only six hours before Senator Gold gave notice of the government’s intent to invoke time allocation. The Senate government leaders, first Senator Harder and now Senator Gold, have boasted for years about this government’s disdain for invoking time allocation and the lack of necessity for them to ever employ it. So why is the government choosing to invoke time allocation now?

After almost eight years of governing, it is appalling that the Trudeau government is choosing to impose time allocation in the Senate for the first time on Bill C-11, of all bills. With this move, the Trudeau government is censoring debate on a censorship bill.

The irony is not lost on Canadians, honourable senators. Canadians have lost a lot of trust in this Trudeau government as this legislation has worked its way through Parliament. The backlash from Canadians has been fast and furious, as citizens, and especially young people, resent the government’s attempt to interfere with the content Canadians can access and produce online.

Honourable senators, I know your email inboxes and telephone voice mail are just like mine: overflowing with emails and phone calls from Canadians opposed to Bill C-11. It is sometimes overwhelming, but it is indicative of the fact that many Canadians understand that their freedom of access to information and their freedom of expression are at risk with this legislation. People, especially young people, routinely stop me to register their opposition on this bill, not only Conservative-leaning people but also lots of people who have previously voted for the Trudeau government, as well as those who haven’t ever been engaged in politics before.

Canada’s domestic online content producers — musicians, artists and influencers — are largely united against this bill because of the negative implications this bill has in limiting their reach online and, in turn, curtailing their livelihoods.

Time allocation is one of the most political parliamentary procedures. Many senators in this chamber assert themselves as independent and devoid of partisan affiliation, but they will ultimately turn and vote for the use of the legislative guillotine on Bill C-11 simply to support this Trudeau government.

Honourable senators, don’t be fooled. Time allocation is just the government’s very blunt tool to cut short debate and force their agenda through Parliament.

In this place, one of our roles as senators is to safeguard and preserve the rights and interests of minorities that may be overrun in a House of Commons elected by representation by population. How is invoking time allocation in accordance with that aspiration, honourable senators? I submit that it runs roughshod over the very minority interests senators are sworn to protect.

Why is the Trudeau government pushing so hard to see that Bill C-11 passes both houses of Parliament as soon as possible? The timing is perhaps curious, but not difficult to understand. Canada is in the midst of a national affordability crisis, where Canadians are finding it difficult to secure the very necessities of life, like a roof over their heads and food on their tables. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government has increased the cost of bureaucracy by 50%, yet finds itself embroiled in the biggest public service strike in Canada’s history, something that could only be accomplished by the most incompetent money managers in the Trudeau government.

Once Bill C-11 is passed, I suspect the Trudeau government will move to prorogue Parliament soon in an attempt to lower the heat and distract from its many scandals — and they’re really dodging quite a few scandals, honourable senators.

First and foremost, of course, is the alleged Beijing election interference scandal that continues to dog Prime Minister Trudeau, following him like a bad stench. Tied into that is the mess that his family’s Trudeau Foundation has devolved into. We’re told one day that the Prime Minister hasn’t been involved with the Trudeau Foundation for ten years, even though his brother signed the agreement for a questionable donation that points right back to the Chinese Communist government. In fact, you might even be tempted to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, until you open the newspaper and discover his office hosted a meeting of the Trudeau Foundation and senior government officials right within the confines of his Prime Minister’s Office.

Every day seems to bring more bad news for this Prime Minister, and we know that answering for his behaviour is not high on the list of his list of priorities. Prorogation has the advantage of keeping the Prime Minister well away from a pesky and intrusive opposition and media questions on Parliament Hill. Instead, he can hide away out of view, waiting until his Special Rapporteur magically reveals, just before the May long weekend, that — surprise — there is no need for a public inquiry into Beijing election interference, leaving the Prime Minister free to go to as many $9,000-a-night luxury beach villas as he wants. Surf’s up.

Meanwhile, with Bill C-11 rammed through Parliament, the long arm of the Trudeau government will have the ability to manipulate and influence the information Canadians see and produce online, just in time for another election. How fortuitous.

Honourable senators, you don’t have to provide Prime Minister Trudeau with political cover by passing this legislation. Our Senate produced 26 very solid and reasonable amendments to Bill C-11 after weeks of careful study, research and witness testimony. What did the Liberal-NDP majority in the House of Commons do with them? Sure, they accepted 20 of the 26 amendments, which sounds like a win, until you look closer and discover that they rejected some of the most substantive amendments. That included the most important amendment on exempting user-generated content, proposed by two Trudeau-appointed senators, Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Simons, from the largest group in the Senate.

The Trudeau government passed the amended bill back to the Senate, and now it is once again our choice to make. The government still refuses to protect user-generated content in the actual legislation, instead insisting that appending such a promise in the wording of the motion will suffice. The motion reads:

That the Senate take note of the Government of Canada’s public assurance that Bill C-11 will not apply to user-generated digital content and its commitment to issue policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission accordingly . . .

Honourable senators, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal promises come and go. Do you remember electoral reform, 2 billion trees, clean drinking water on all reserves and a carbon tax capped at $50 per tonne? It’s funny how those promises just vaporized into the ether. This one will too.

The Trudeau government wants senators and, by extension, Canadians to just trust them, kind of like how the Senate government leader consulted with our leader before declaring a failed agreement and moving time allocation — that kind of trust? There is no reason to think that this Liberal promise will hold up any better than any of the many other broken Liberal promises.

The Liberals forced this message through the House of Commons side and now they are forcing it through the Senate with this imposition of time allocation. Honourable senators, here is your chance to prove your independence. We have the opportunity and the obligation to push back for the benefit of all Canadians who value freedom of thought and expression. If those of you who were appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau vote with the government to shut down debate, consider that to be the last vestige of the independent Trudeau Senate. You hold the majority here, so you decide. Here is hoping you choose wisely. Thank you.

[Translation]

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on the government’s motion to invoke time allocation on the Senate’s debate on the message from the House of Commons on Bill C-11. As you have heard throughout this debate, the Senate’s amendments on Bill C-11 were the product of an intensive committee study process. The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications heard nearly 70 hours of testimony from 140 witnesses, with 67 additional written submissions on this topic. The committee studied this issue tirelessly.

Since we received the message, the product of that committee study, back from the House of Commons, we’ve debated for only six hours before Senator Gold gave notice of the government’s intent to invoke time allocation. The Senate government leaders, first Senator Harder and now Senator Gold, have boasted for years about this government’s disdain for invoking time allocation and the lack of necessity for them to ever employ it. So why is the government choosing to invoke time allocation now?

After almost eight years of governing, it is appalling that the Trudeau government is choosing to impose time allocation in the Senate for the first time on Bill C-11, of all bills. With this move, the Trudeau government is censoring debate on a censorship bill.

The irony is not lost on Canadians, honourable senators. Canadians have lost a lot of trust in this Trudeau government as this legislation has worked its way through Parliament. The backlash from Canadians has been fast and furious, as citizens, and especially young people, resent the government’s attempt to interfere with the content Canadians can access and produce online.

Honourable senators, I know your email inboxes and telephone voice mail are just like mine: overflowing with emails and phone calls from Canadians opposed to Bill C-11. It is sometimes overwhelming, but it is indicative of the fact that many Canadians understand that their freedom of access to information and their freedom of expression are at risk with this legislation. People, especially young people, routinely stop me to register their opposition on this bill, not only Conservative-leaning people but also lots of people who have previously voted for the Trudeau government, as well as those who haven’t ever been engaged in politics before.

Canada’s domestic online content producers — musicians, artists and influencers — are largely united against this bill because of the negative implications this bill has in limiting their reach online and, in turn, curtailing their livelihoods.

Time allocation is one of the most political parliamentary procedures. Many senators in this chamber assert themselves as independent and devoid of partisan affiliation, but they will ultimately turn and vote for the use of the legislative guillotine on Bill C-11 simply to support this Trudeau government.

Honourable senators, don’t be fooled. Time allocation is just the government’s very blunt tool to cut short debate and force their agenda through Parliament.

In this place, one of our roles as senators is to safeguard and preserve the rights and interests of minorities that may be overrun in a House of Commons elected by representation by population. How is invoking time allocation in accordance with that aspiration, honourable senators? I submit that it runs roughshod over the very minority interests senators are sworn to protect.

Why is the Trudeau government pushing so hard to see that Bill C-11 passes both houses of Parliament as soon as possible? The timing is perhaps curious, but not difficult to understand. Canada is in the midst of a national affordability crisis, where Canadians are finding it difficult to secure the very necessities of life, like a roof over their heads and food on their tables. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government has increased the cost of bureaucracy by 50%, yet finds itself embroiled in the biggest public service strike in Canada’s history, something that could only be accomplished by the most incompetent money managers in the Trudeau government.

Once Bill C-11 is passed, I suspect the Trudeau government will move to prorogue Parliament soon in an attempt to lower the heat and distract from its many scandals — and they’re really dodging quite a few scandals, honourable senators.

First and foremost, of course, is the alleged Beijing election interference scandal that continues to dog Prime Minister Trudeau, following him like a bad stench. Tied into that is the mess that his family’s Trudeau Foundation has devolved into. We’re told one day that the Prime Minister hasn’t been involved with the Trudeau Foundation for ten years, even though his brother signed the agreement for a questionable donation that points right back to the Chinese Communist government. In fact, you might even be tempted to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, until you open the newspaper and discover his office hosted a meeting of the Trudeau Foundation and senior government officials right within the confines of his Prime Minister’s Office.

Every day seems to bring more bad news for this Prime Minister, and we know that answering for his behaviour is not high on the list of his list of priorities. Prorogation has the advantage of keeping the Prime Minister well away from a pesky and intrusive opposition and media questions on Parliament Hill. Instead, he can hide away out of view, waiting until his Special Rapporteur magically reveals, just before the May long weekend, that — surprise — there is no need for a public inquiry into Beijing election interference, leaving the Prime Minister free to go to as many $9,000-a-night luxury beach villas as he wants. Surf’s up.

Meanwhile, with Bill C-11 rammed through Parliament, the long arm of the Trudeau government will have the ability to manipulate and influence the information Canadians see and produce online, just in time for another election. How fortuitous.

Honourable senators, you don’t have to provide Prime Minister Trudeau with political cover by passing this legislation. Our Senate produced 26 very solid and reasonable amendments to Bill C-11 after weeks of careful study, research and witness testimony. What did the Liberal-NDP majority in the House of Commons do with them? Sure, they accepted 20 of the 26 amendments, which sounds like a win, until you look closer and discover that they rejected some of the most substantive amendments. That included the most important amendment on exempting user-generated content, proposed by two Trudeau‑appointed senators, Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Simons, from the largest group in the Senate.

The Trudeau government passed the amended bill back to the Senate, and now it is once again our choice to make. The government still refuses to protect user-generated content in the actual legislation, instead insisting that appending such a promise in the wording of the motion will suffice. The motion reads:

That the Senate take note of the Government of Canada’s public assurance that Bill C-11 will not apply to user‑generated digital content and its commitment to issue policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission accordingly . . .

Honourable senators, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal promises come and go. Do you remember electoral reform, 2 billion trees, clean drinking water on all reserves and a carbon tax capped at $50 per tonne? It’s funny how those promises just vaporized into the ether. This one will too.

The Trudeau government wants senators and, by extension, Canadians to just trust them, kind of like how the Senate government leader consulted with our leader before declaring a failed agreement and moving time allocation — that kind of trust? There is no reason to think that this Liberal promise will hold up any better than any of the many other broken Liberal promises.

The Liberals forced this message through the House of Commons side and now they are forcing it through the Senate with this imposition of time allocation. Honourable senators, here is your chance to prove your independence. We have the opportunity and the obligation to push back for the benefit of all Canadians who value freedom of thought and expression. If those of you who were appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau vote with the government to shut down debate, consider that to be the last vestige of the independent Trudeau Senate. You hold the majority here, so you decide. Here is hoping you choose wisely. Thank you.

[Translation]