Senator Woo: Thank you, Senator Omidvar, for the question. The definition of consensus is a general agreement. It is not unanimous agreement. If it were, there wouldn’t be the word “consensus.”

Now, the way in which consensus can be reached —

Senator Woo: I would like to if colleagues agree to grant me more time.

Senator Woo: We are accountable to the oath that we took when we became senators.

With respect to the point about the House having a bearing on whether we are with the government or not, it does not. Clearly, we are here as unelected members. Those of us who are independents do not belong to the government or to a political party.

You make endless references to the Westminster system as if there is just one version of Westminster. In fact, our own chamber, through the Special Senate Committee on Senate Modernization in its study of Westminster systems, has determined that there are multiple styles of Westminster parliamentary democracy, and asserted clearly that our Senate is a unique form of Westminster parliamentary democracy, and that our upper house has the power to determine its style of Westminster parliamentary democracy. For you to somehow deny that is the case — when we have endorsed that report, we have said that to be true, we have taken decisions in this chamber that give us a different way of operating — is disrespectful to our institution.

Senator Woo: Yes.

Senator Woo: Thank you, Senator Housakos, for your questions. To the second question first — we are not elected. The will of the public is not reflected in the composition of this chamber. Therefore, your point about neglecting the will in the other house is irrelevant.

With respect to your question about appointing both — and it wasn’t quite clear how your question as constructed makes sense — insofar as you’re asking how the Government Representative Office, or GRO, can be appointed, I will leave the GRO to explain for itself. I will speak for myself and for the 80 other senators who sit as non-partisans that we are clearly not part of the government. For you and your colleagues to claim repeatedly that we’re part of the government is an insult to us because it goes against what we believe ourselves to be. We don’t need to explain further why we’re not part of the government because it says clearly in the rolls of the Senate that we sit as independents in three different groups that are non-partisan.

Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: Honourable senators, I’m pleased to lend my voice in support of Bill S-232. I want to start by reminding honourable colleagues about a public health emergency that has been with us for seven years and which shows no sign of abating. I am referring to the public health emergency on toxic drugs declared by British Columbia in 2016, a year in which there were 19,275 overdose or poisoning calls in my province.

Sadly, the declaration of a public health emergency was prescient. The number of overdose/poisoning calls went up to 23,441 in 2017, to 23,662 in 2018, to 24,166 in 2019 and, just to skip a few years, to 33,654 in 2022. There was a 5% drop in overdose/poisoning calls between 2021 and 2022, but I think you will agree that having over 30,000 such incidents in a year is shocking and unacceptable.

At the start of this year, Health Canada granted an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to the Province of B.C. from January 31, 2023, to January 31, 2026, for adults in the province to not be subject to criminal charges for the personal possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs. According to the British Columbian government, decriminalization is not associated with increased rates of substance use. It is, however, expected to help reduce the barriers and stigma that prevent people from accessing life-saving supports and services.

The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions in B.C. has said that there is no evidence suggesting decriminalization of possession of up to 2.5 grams of illicit drugs for adults 18 or older has led to an increase of the consumption of illicit drugs in public spaces.

As I mentioned earlier, this exemption came into effect at the end of January this year and will last for three years. It is this example from my province of British Columbia that persuades me to support Senator Boniface’s bill on a framework for decriminalization of certain illegal substances. But I would stress that the decriminalization of such substances cannot be undertaken in isolation. It has to be accompanied by support structures as well as a safe supply of drugs so that those who use them are not left hanging.

Much has been said about how severe this crisis is, not only in my home province of British Columbia and in the major cities of this country — particularly Vancouver and Toronto — but, as Senator Boniface has reminded us, also in small towns across the country and, indeed, all regions of Canada. I would just underscore that substance use disorder is a public health issue. It is not a criminal justice issue.

The Expert Task Force on Substance Use has unanimously recommended an end to criminal sanctions related to simple possession of controlled substances. We should build on this expert recommendation to encourage the government to further develop this framework. There is evidence — as was found in British Columbia — that decriminalization for simple possession is an effective way to reduce the public health and public safety harms associated with substance use.

There is, however, a need for alternatives to criminal sanctions, which require integrated partnerships and access to diversion measures. Diversion approaches:

. . . provide opportunities to make positive community impacts, including reducing recidivism, reducing ancillary crimes and improving health and safety outcomes for individuals who use illegal substances . . .

What I’ve just recited is the preamble to Senator Boniface’s bill, and I agree wholeheartedly with all of these propositions.

We’ve had this bill on our Order Paper since 2021. There have been four or five speakers already. It is high time that we send this to committee for detailed study.

Colleagues, there is a public health emergency in our country right now. It is not going away and will not be wished away. We need to take concrete actions that allow us to come up with new approaches to addressing this diabolical problem.

With that, Your Honour, I conclude my short speech and encourage us all to consider sending this to committee as soon as possible. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: Honourable senators, I would like to speak to the fifth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. It has been adjourned in the name of our chair, Senator Bellemare. She has kindly agreed for me to speak today, following which, I believe, she will take the adjournment and reset the clock.

I would like to offer some reflections on this fifth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. The report is compact, coming in at less than one page, not including appendices. Brevity, however, does not always translate into clarity, which is why I want to take a few minutes to highlight what I consider to be the most important finding of the report.

First, let me share a little context.

The object of our study was the rule changes needed for equity between recognized parties and recognized parliamentary groups. I had tabled a motion in February 2020 proposing a set of changes of the Rules for this purpose, which Senator Tannas amended slightly in June. The motion died on the Order Paper with the conclusion of the Forty-third Parliament.

The so-called Woo-Tannas motion provided a starting point for our study, since it identified a wide range of Senate Rules that do not reflect equity among groups and caucuses. For example, the Government Representative in the Senate and the Leader of the Opposition have unlimited speaking time in debate, whereas the leaders and facilitators of other groups are restricted to just 15 minutes.

On standing votes in the chamber, only the Government Representative Office, or GRO, and the opposition have a say on the duration of bells or on the possibility of a deferred vote, to the exclusion of other recognized parliamentary groups.

When it comes to committees looking to meet on days that the Senate is adjourned, including the first Monday after a break, only the government and the opposition have the power to give consent for such. How many times have we encountered a situation where committee members are ready and willing to meet, only to be thwarted by an opposition veto?

I don’t need to remind all of us here that the sum total of GRO and Conservative Party senators is less than 20% of the Senate membership, and yet their leaderships have the power to make decisions that affect us all.

The vast majority of senators in today’s upper house are non-partisan. We are dispersed among three different groups, with some sitting as non-affiliated members. We are not part of the government. Rather, we are part of what has traditionally been described by this institution as the “opposition.”

There are, however, those who would deny us the ability to fully exercise our equal rights as senators who are not part of the government. They would have us as second-class senators who are allowed, from time to time, to sit in the front of the bus, but only with their consent. The modest changes to the Rules of the Senate and to the Parliament of Canada Act to date have been offered grudgingly and with the condescension of noblesse oblige. We are constantly reminded of how grateful we should be for what we have already been granted and why we should not expect full equality.

Such is the case with the fifth report of the Rules Committee. It is, in many respects, a “non-report” because it offers no solution to the manifest inequality in the Rules of the Senate. Mind you, there was no disagreement in the committee over which rules entrench the unequal treatment of Senate groups. You can see this for yourself in Appendix 2 of the report. A majority of members would have supported changes to those rules, but the committee as a whole was unable to proceed with those changes because of one group’s insistence on maintaining its privileged position in the Senate.

To quote the report:

. . . the Opposition in the Senate considers that its role as opposition comes with certain rights in the Senate’s operating rules and procedures;

Whereas other recognized parliamentary groups consider that they should have the same rights as the Opposition in the Senate’s operating rules and procedures . . .

To paraphrase, one group of senators thinks it should have powers that other groups don’t have.

I’m, of course, referring to the Conservative caucus, which styles itself as the official opposition in the Senate, even though there is no such term in our rules or in the Parliament of Canada Act. The Speaker confirmed as much in her recent response to my point of order. Yet some Conservative senators continue to use the term — indeed, the very senators who claim to be arch‑defenders of parliamentary tradition.

There is a certain desperation in this deliberate distortion of our nomenclature, but it is made worse by the underlying premise that the way the Conservatives carry out the work of opposing in the Senate is superior to the way non-partisan senators do. And what is that allegedly superior style of opposition? Let me quote Senator Plett, who, in response to my question on a speech he made on the Income Tax Act — a speech full of internal contradictions and non sequiturs — had this to say:

I am making a speech that is contrary to what the government is doing, and I don’t need to defend that. . . .

Well, Senator Plett is correct that he doesn’t need to defend a speech that is contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, but, colleagues, that is not what is meant by “sober second thought” and that surely is not the form of opposition that should be privileged by our institution.

The Conservatives pretend to be the true opposition in the Senate, but their goal in doing so is to become the government after the next election. That is the prerogative of political partisans, but it is not reflective of today’s Senate of Canada, which consists overwhelmingly of non-partisan members. Whereas Conservative senators are opposition members for as long as their party is not in power, the rest of us will remain independent of the government — whichever party is in charge. How can we take seriously the claim that the real opposition in the Senate is the group that will ditch that title as soon as it has the opportunity?

Honourable colleagues, we can, of course, have different views on the definition of “opposition,” but I am convinced that senators who remain independent through changes of government reflect a more principled and consistent understanding of what it means to be the opposition in an unelected upper house.

To conclude, allow me to recall how we got into this situation and explain why we have to find a way out. In the discussions surrounding the so-called Woo-Tannas motion, some senators said the proposed rule changes should be first considered by the Rules Committee before coming to the chamber for a decision. Well, the Woo-Tannas motion was studied by the Rules Committee for many months and it failed to come up with a path forward — not because most senators could not agree on the changes that needed to be made, but because one group of senators representing less than 15% of members does not believe in equity among all Senate groups. That is what it boils down to, and that is what I ask all senators to reflect on as we ponder next steps for bringing about a fairer distribution of powers among Senate groups. Thank you.