Senator Housakos: Minister, we all know there have been huge overrun costs when it comes to managing this project. That’s number one. We do know, as parliamentarians, that in itself raises red flags.

We also know that when the RCMP opens an investigation, at bare minimum, there is a suspicion of wrongdoing.

Again, what steps have you taken, as a minister who has just gotten into the ministry, to make sure you get to the bottom of this before we wait for an RCMP report or an Auditor General’s report? What pre-emptive steps have you taken to look into this case and give us assurances that this will never reoccur?

Senator Housakos: Thank you, senator. Of course, I understand that. We can easily start micromanaging all the various imperfections of the system. No system is perfect.

I want to highlight, colleagues, that in the Western democratic world — and if I’m not mistaken in my statistics, I think in the comparison of all democratic chambers in the world — the Senate is the most diverse. If I’m not mistaken, we’ve equalled other chambers in terms of gender parity. We are very representative in terms of various visible, ethnic and linguistic minorities. Again, I challenge comparison with any other parliamentary body in the world.

In terms of composition of committees, are we where we need to be and in the perfect range with everything? I look at the Aboriginal Peoples Committee. I’ll give you my opinion. I think there are not enough non-Indigenous people on that committee. In the ongoing process of national reconciliation, people like me have to learn a heck of a lot more about our history and this issue. Quite honestly, I look at the composition and say to myself that it’s pretty stereotypical; the only people who are interested or want to talk about Aboriginal issues are Aboriginal people. That was my reflex.

I look at the Committee on Official Languages. The only people who are interested are French Canadians? English Canadians don’t care about official languages? That struck me.

These are just a couple of examples. I’m sure that if we dissect further, we will find other examples. It is incumbent upon us to go back to our groups, discuss it with our leadership, shake the cage, come back to our leadership groups and try to fix it. As I said earlier, we’re trying to be fair and representative to the best of our abilities. We understand the problems and we try to resolve them.

Canada, and this institution, are perfectly imperfect. The only way we can correct it is to recognize that this is an ongoing process and evolution. I’m sure that every other leadership group recognizes that.

We have another problem. In the process of trying to be fair to all groups, as groups become smaller and smaller, they’re not as broadly representative of the whole country and of all linguistic groups. We can talk about inequities in the process and how this institution is not perfect.

I’m from Quebec. We have 24 senators in this chamber out of 105. The Western provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba — have 24 senators. The province of Quebec has as many senators as those four provinces. Atlantic Canada is overrepresented. We can get into the debate about how the Constitution came about and how the two founding peoples came to the table. In large part, if it weren’t for that inequality in this chamber — those of us who know the history — Canada would probably never have been founded and we wouldn’t have this country to try to make even better, as we’re trying to do today.

My point, Senator Duncan, is that we’ve come a long way and we’ve done it through patience, tolerance and negotiation. That’s how Canada came about, through negotiation — not a free-for-all, not populism, not free-for-all votes here on the floor to decide every little thing. We did it through consultation, cooperation and debate, and sometimes acrimonious debate. But the Westminster model is designed such that acrimonious debate takes place behind the scenes. Senator Gold and I can have screaming matches, and he can get upset with me and I with him. We come here and work it out and get into the nitty-gritty of the substance of the debate. That’s my take on it.