Senator Carignan: That’s not up to your—

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Senator Carignan: Yes.

Hon. Claude Carignan: I want to take up Senator Dalphond’s and Senator Cotter’s point. One of them said that if an interpretation yields an absurd conclusion, then it is the wrong conclusion. Senator Cotter talked about absurd interpretations that are illogical or incompatible with the object.

Rule 7-1 provides for two situations: with agreement or without agreement. With agreement, we sit down, we negotiate as is the custom and as often happened when I was leader of the government. The other situation is when there is no agreement. The rule that addresses the absence of agreement states the following:

I repeat, the leader may state “that the representatives of the recognized parties have failed to agree.” The interpretation being given here is that they don’t need to talk to each other, that they don’t even need to attempt a discussion before announcing their lack of agreement. That seems illogical to me. It seems to defeat the purpose of rule 7-2(1), which specifically provides that when the leader stands up, they must state that they have had a discussion, that they have made an attempt to come to an agreement — in this case with the Leader of the Opposition because that is the only recognized party — and that they haven’t been able to reach an agreement. That’s the very basis of rule 7-2.

As you know, the Rules of the Senate, we know them well, you know them well, I know them rather well having written them from start to finish in the French version — You surely remember the revision work we did to rewrite the rules. I was on the committee with Senator Joan Fraser and we reviewed the Rules section by section, ruling by ruling. In each situation, we talked about negotiating in good faith, and the Rules are there for the parties to talk to one another.

In fact, that’s why, for private bills, we must negotiate. We must negotiate to move them forward. This part of the Rules was drafted in such a way as to promote negotiation. The way it is currently being interpreted, when there was no attempt to negotiate, that is called taking the other side by surprise. Indeed, when the notice was given, no one on this side expected it because there was no attempt at negotiation or discussion, which is essential if we want to follow the letter of rule 7-2 and the spirit of the Rules, according to which senators must try to conclude agreements and talk to one another. By all accounts, that’s not what happened here.

I read the ruling by Speaker Molgat that Senator Kinsella raised, but there was at least some negotiation there. That is not the case here. This is the first day of debate and, quite frankly, when the debate was adjourned and Senator Gold gave notice, we were extremely surprised because there had been no discussion. In fact, I asked my leader if he’d been part of a discussion in that regard and he said that he hadn’t.

Senators can’t stand up and announce that there’s no agreement if there hasn’t been any discussion at all. That is essential for enforcing the Rules. Otherwise, we’re giving the leader permission to lie. I know that’s not a parliamentary word, but we’re just having a discussion here. The leader could say that there was no agreement with the recognized parties and that would trigger the guillotine or time allocation motion. That is not the spirit of the Rules and that is not the custom and practice of the Senate.

That was previously my job, and that of Marjorie LeBreton before me, and I never saw notices of time allocation without any exchanges or any discussion. I documented these discussions and ensured that I had notes about the exchanges. These are the customs and practices that have governed the leaders of the government and the other recognized parties. There must have been exchanges before making such a statement. They cannot suddenly, the first day of the debate, make that kind of statement.

I submit this respectfully, Your Honour. I apologize for being late. I had some problems on the way here that delayed my arrival. I didn’t hear all the other arguments, but I wanted to express my own this evening. Thank you.

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Hon. Claude Carignan: I agree with my colleague Senator Housakos. This chamber is an honourable place, an exemplary place in Canada where we debate respectfully. When we rise to express an opinion, present a point of view or, in this case, support a motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition, we expect our point of view to be listened to with respect. When the debate is over or the bells ring for a standing vote, we don’t expect anyone to cross the aisle, come see us, point their finger at us and argue in an intimidating manner. As Senator Housakos said, I’ve never seen anything like it in 14 years.

We must show respect for each other. We must respect each other’s opinions under the rules. We appealed your ruling. Honourable senators may not realize this, but your role is not the same as that of the Speaker of the House of Commons. Once the Speaker of the House of Commons delivers a ruling, it’s final. However, the Speaker of the Senate is a senator like any other. He has the right to his opinion and we have the right to ours. That is why senators have the right to appeal a Speaker’s ruling. The Speaker of the Senate is a senator like any other. He can even participate in debate and vote. The Speaker is a senator like any other and we have the right to express our disagreement without being threatened, intimidated or singled out. We must follow the rules. We must show respect for each other. We are an honourable chamber and we must behave in an honourable way in accordance with the rules of debate.

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Hon. Claude Carignan: I’d like to say just a few words, given the late hour, to clarify some things. The first is that much is being made of the fact that this is the first time a time allocation motion is being used since the Trudeau government came to power. I would point out that the reason is simple: It’s because the Rules don’t allow it. That’s why there hasn’t been a time allocation motion before now, simply because the Rules are quite clear on the matter. I understand that Senator Gold used some manœuvre today to move a motion, but the fact remains that the Rules are very clear.

Second, much has also been made of using time allocation for bills. We are at the response to a message from the House of commons stage, a stage that couldn’t be more final for a bill — something we rarely see in fact. It has rarely happened that a message is sent to the House of Commons with amendments, only to have it returned to the Senate, followed by a reply.

If memory serves me, I’ve never seen a time allocation motion used at the response to a message from the House of Commons stage. At times rule 7-1 has been invoked on a bill, on amendments or at various reading stages, but I’ve never seen it used on a message from the Commons.

That is rather disappointing because this debate was going fairly well, beyond the matter of whether we took too much time or too little. Senator Gold mentioned that he’d reached an agreement with the leaders and that the bill had to be passed before the 10th or 11th, but that didn’t happen.

That’s fortunate, actually, because the debate continued and amendments were proposed by the other group. I no longer know what to call it because there are many groups with different names. Sometimes I get mixed up, but they all have colours that resemble the Senate chamber. These amendments were adopted and sent to the other place, and most of them were accepted. The debate was therefore not in vain. The fact that it went beyond the initial deadline set out by the government leader made it possible to continue the debate and propose amendments that were accepted by the House of Commons.

Although I don’t agree with the fact that senators were able to propose other amendments, the debate was still conducted properly and that led to improvements to the bill. What’s more, even though I think that the bill needed more amendments, the fact remains that a consensus will be reached by a vote. I’m sad that this is happening at the very end of this process. We’re at the message stage. Everything was going well. We had some success. Not me as a Conservative, because I obviously don’t agree with everything in the bill, but at least the process was complete, it was carried out in a respectful way, and we were able to make some improvements to the bill, many of which were accepted by the House of Commons. Now we’re at the very end of the process and we’re tripping at the finish line. We stopped running. The race stops here. I think that is a disgraceful end to a process that was nevertheless done by the book.

Senator Bellemare spoke of delay tactics. I invite you to read Serge Joyal’s book on the Senate. The Senate’s power to pass a time allocation motion is an important act to ensure fulsome debate within the context of the process that takes place here in this chamber.

I find it unfortunate that we’re ending this whole process with time allocation on a bill that’s specifically related to freedom of expression, especially when we were just days away from wrapping up debate. It’s also unfortunate that the Leader of the Government is using a time allocation motion to respond to a message to the House of Commons. I find that sad, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a time allocation motion at this stage. I don’t think it was the right time to set this precedent.

Again, Your Honour, I think we have to be respectful of the rules and respectful of each other, but this is a disappointing end to what has been an exemplary process up to this point.

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