Hon. Clément Gignac: Colleagues, today, I would like to speak to Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act.

I want to begin by making it clear that I do not intend to make any amendments to this bill and by saying that I will keep my remarks brief, because I am in favour the initiatives set out in the bill. You are therefore no doubt wondering why I am rising. The reason is that I want to speak out in this chamber, loud and clear, against the very little time that was allocated to studying this bill.

It’s nothing personal against the Government Representative in the Senate or the chair of the National Finance Committee, the Honourable Senator Mockler. On the contrary, as a member of the steering committee, Senator Mockler informed me on Monday at noon that we would have a hard time analyzing and passing this bill before we rise for the holidays, unless we were to take exceptional measures, such as holding a meeting in Committee of the Whole. According to my research, this was the first time in 10 years that the Senate has resolved into Committee of the Whole to debate an economic bill.

Honourable senators, I must admit that I was not familiar with that exceptional procedure. Like my two colleagues from the Canadian Senators Group, I was left wanting more, since each of us were allotted only three and a half minutes to ask questions of the two ministers with responsibilities in the economic sector.

Allow me to publicly thank the leader of the Canadian Senators Group for insisting earlier this week that the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance hold a special session immediately after the Committee of the Whole to hear a few witnesses on this bill.

Hats off to our clerk, Mireille Aubé, and her two analysts, who, with less than 24 hours’ notice, managed to secure the attendance of four witnesses at our committee yesterday afternoon.

Honourable senators, this bill passed first reading in the other place on September 21 and was received here in the Senate on Monday evening of this week. Allow me to point out that the finance committee of the other place was able to devote over eight hours of its time to this bill and heard from nine witnesses. At first glance, you will probably find that reassuring.

However, you should know that the Canadian Bar Association wasn’t able to testify, but it did submit a brief, which I have here. It is 30 pages long and contains 19 recommendations.

Moreover, during the clause-by-clause consideration in the other place’s committee, four amendments were presented and adopted. To me, that’s clear proof that this bill, the first reform of the Competition Act in 35 years, undoubtedly deserved a much more sober second look here.

Honourable Senators, you can no doubt sense a little anger, or at least a little intellectual frustration, in this speech I’m giving as a senator and member of this upper chamber, which is known as the place of sober second thought.

This week, I didn’t feel as though we were part of a bicameral system of Parliament with two chambers. Instead, I felt like I was sitting in the basement of the lower chamber, being treated like a second-class parliamentarian. It’s as if someone had forgotten that we are senators, no doubt of different political persuasions, but all with one common denominator: the desire to do the right thing in a transparent way for the good of Canadians.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the steering committee of National Finance, who agreed to raise the tone a little in the commentary presented last night. Usually, at National Finance, we use gentle, polite and courteous words. This time, we raised our voices a little, pointing out that we found it contemptuous that the committee had so little time to analyze the bill.

Honourable senators, I will close with that. Unfortunately, I think I’ve caught Senator Carignan’s nasty sore throat, so I will end here and probably won’t be able to answer your questions. Thank you.