Should Canadians be taking attendance?

As I posted on Friday, the Senate was about to vote on the 900 page omnibus Bill C-9 which is essentially the budget from March and a whole bunch of other goodies thrown in for good measure. On Friday, Stephen Harper appointed his 34th Senator which gave the Conservatives 52 seats in the 105 seat House, just shy of a numerical majority.

Late Monday night, the Senate voted on the Bill and passed it 48 to 44. When you add those two numbers up, you'll see that the Senate was short a few warm bodies, in fact, 13 Senators were absent from this all important vote.

According to the Globe and Mail, several of the Liberal Senators who are suffering from health issues actually showed up to vote on Bill C-9. However, seven Liberal Senators were absent including Tommy Banks, Sharon Carstairs, Pierre De Bane, Francis Fox, Serge Joyal, David Smith and Nick Sibbeston. Senator Fox had paired his vote with Conservative Senator Claude Carignan so he's given a pass. Senators Banks, Carstairs, De Bane and Joyal were out of the country and Mr. Smith's excuse is not known. Five of 52 Conservative Senators were absent from the vote with explanations ranging from illness to a death in the family.

Here's the voting record showing who voted against sending the Bill with amendments (splitting off sections) back to the House:

...and who voted for:

It is possible that at least 5 of the AWOL Liberal Senators had paired their votes with missing Conservative Senators but that is unknown at this stage. Had the Liberals had full attendance, they, in combination with the three independent Senators that voted their way, could have defeated the Conservatives and Bill C-9 would have been split as was their preference.

Having looked at the attendance record for the House of Commons during voting on this Bill and finding that between 30 and 75 MPs were missing for many of the votes is dismaying. In fact, for the final vote on the Third Reading, 30 Liberal MPs were AWOL. Now we see the same thing in the Senate. Yes, five of the Liberal Senators are out of the country but that's not the point. With Bill C-9 still on the docket, their jobs were not over. The primary responsibility of the Senate is to provide oversight on the business of the House; in this case, some Senators did not meet the requirements of their job.

Here's a quote during the debate last night from Romeo Dallaire:

Senator Dallaire: In that sense, honourable senators, I think that we have a role. Yes, it is part of our exercise and, yes, it is July 12. So what? How many people have a lot of time in the summer to be on leave? I think my place of duty is here. This is the job we are supposed to be doing.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Senator Dallaire: They are not paying us by the hour, or double time and overtime. We are quite prepared to serve. That is the aim of the exercise.

Oh that those Senators missing in action last night took their $132,300 a year (plus perquisites) duties as seriously. I'm starting to wonder if Canadian taxpayers shouldn't have a right to recall Senators and MPs if they habitually miss voting in the House and the Senate. Canadian corporations now reveal attendance records for their Board members; why shouldn't those we pay to govern us be forced to do the same?

By the way, the Senate is on summer holidays until they next meet on Tuesday, September 28th, 2010. A nice, long, well-deserved vacation.

Lumping Legislation

Yesterday in the Globe and Mail and in the National Post there were a couple of brief items about the passage of Bill C-9 through the Senate. It appears that this bill is coming up against some rough waters as it goes through "sober second thought" in the red chamber on the Hill.

For those of you who care, Bill C-9 is available here. It is essentially the Act that will implement the 2010 Federal Budget that was introduced on March 4th, 2010. It consists of 900 pages and 2200 sections of admittedly mind-numbingly boring legalese but buried in the Bill, are a very, very wide range of goodies for all.

I'll outline a few of the wide ranging subjects:

1.) Declaring how much additional fiscal equalization payments certain provinces can expect after April 1, 2010.

2.) Outlining the management structure for the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse Act.

3.) Allowing that the members of the Energy Supplies Allocation Board are entitled to be paid reasonable travel and living expenses incurred in the course of their duties.

4.) Stating that the Surveyor General is the Canadian member of the International Boundary Commission Act.

5.) Also stating that each member of the Standards Council of Canada shall hold office for a term not exceeding four years.

6.) Mentioning that despite sections 41 and 42 of the Old Age Security Act, the Agreement on Social Security between Canada and the Republic of Poland, signed on April 2, 2008, is deemed to have come into force in Canada on October 1, 2009.

7.) Noting that environmental assessments are not required for some federally funded infrastructure projects.

This omnibus Bill seems to cover everything from soup to nuts. Now, after 3 full months, the Opposition is complaining publicly that the Bill covers a range of items that are so disparate as to make the Bill abusive. Apparently, because the Opposition is so ill-prepared for an impending election, they gave a pass to the Bill just to avoid making the government fall as you'll see later.

Apparently, one of the big sticking points is the section of the budget that would allow the sale of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited without Parliamentary approval which kind of got stuck in the back pages of the document when everyone's eyes were heavy with sleep.

Here's part of the voting record on the Bill. Notice that out of 309 MPs, well less than 250 showed up for most votes:

As well, in 3 additional earlier votes, only 239, 208 and 263 MPs voted.

For the third reading of the Bill on June 8th, 2010, there were 138 yeas, 126 nays and 6 paired votes (abstentions) for a total of 270 votes out of a possible 309 MPs who should have been present in the House for this important vote. If you want to see which Liberals were there and which were not, see this page. Note that only 47 of 77 Liberals were present in the House and Canadians call that representation?

Liberal MP Bob Rae has stated that he's hoping that the Senate might be in a better position to divide Bill C-9 into smaller components so that each one can be passed on its own merit. In response, the Prime Minister's campaign chief Senator Doug Finley threatened that his Party was prepared to go to an election over the matter. He also let it be known that "the planes, buses and war rooms are ready" if the Liberal Senators do not restore the budget to the state in which it left the House. Heaven help us, we have to rely on the Senate to look after us!

There is a solution to this problem. Why don't our wise elected officials pass legislation that would prevent omnibus bills from being created in the first place. In the particular case of Bill C-9, it would prevent the passage of legislation that is completely unrelated to the 2010 Federal Budget. As it stands in the House at this point in time, the Conservatives can use a budget document to further their Party's agenda on matters that have no fiscal bearing on Canada and that just strikes me as morally questionable at best.

The root of the problem in this case is different than would normally be found in the House. Under normal circumstances, in a minority situation the Opposition, who holds the balance of power, would be only to willing to vote against the government on this Bill and force an election. Unfortunately for the Liberals, polls show that with their current leader, they cannot hope to win even a minority government and, in fact, if trends continue, they may even be relegated to a third place finish.

However, that said, it is their problem and it should not be ours. We didn't elect Liberal MPs (and for that matter, Bloc and NDP MPs as well) to sit on their behinds in Opposition and wait until their support levels reached reasonable heights before they take action against the Conservative government. They were elected to represent their constituents and provide meaningful opposition when the government's actions require it. As Canadians, we should not be forced to put up with the passage of faulty omnibus bills just because the Liberals are trying to wait for the day when public opinion swings their way. We could certainly be waiting a long time for the Liberals to act and that is definitely not what we are paying them the big bucks. It's not our fault that we have a lame duck Opposition but Canadians seem to be the ones suffering for it. And another thing, you're not getting paid $157,731 a year (at a minimum) to stay out of the House when it comes time to vote on a Bill that you don't like. That's not democracy.

It could be an interesting political summer after all. And who would have thought that any excitement would involve the Senate?