The Fredericton Daily Gleaner on July 10, 1998
Charlottetown Guardian on July 13, 1998
Montreal Gazette on July 20, 1998
The Ottawa Citizen on August 6, 1998
By Senator Colin Kenny
Some of the journalistic potshots that have been fired at the Senate lately sound like they have been written from docks at cottages – places that tend to be short on research facilities and long on gin and tonic.
The hot number a couple of weeks ago was an allegedly huge pay hike that Senators voted themselves. Never mind that it didn't really happen. What seems to matter for journalists who can't spare the time for research is the Senate is always a cheap and easy target.
Here's the headline in the Ottawa Citizen, June 19: Senators vote for $43,000 pay hike. The story is by Jack Aubry, a veteran reporter who has distinguished himself over the years with his coverage of aboriginal affairs. Unfortunately the depth and fairness he displays on that beat are occasionally lacking elsewhere, most notably in his coverage of the Senate.
For some reason Mr. Aubry decided to take a new and badly-needed housing allowance of up to $9,000 a year for senators journeying to Ottawa (compared to a $12,000 housing allowance for members of the Commons), add it to a relatively modest 2 per cent increase in salaries and benefits, multiply it by four, and call the whole ball of wax "a $43,000 raise."
Why multiply the figure by four? If your boss gave you a $1,000-a-year pay raise, would you describe it as a $4,000 raise? Why would anybody arbitrarily do that, unless they had an axe to grind? What happened to accurate, factual reporting?
Why include the new housing allowance in the "pay hike?" I live in Ottawa, so I don't need, nor will I receive, a housing allowance. But I have some sympathy for my fellow Senators. Until this was voted in, Senators were forced to pay for their own accommodation while attending sittings in Ottawa.
Why expect Senators to pay for their out-of-town accommodation? Why discourage attendance? Would you expect journalists on assignment or other people doing company business in other towns to pay for theirs? Would you travel for business if these expenses came out of your own pocket? Remember, Senators are required to retain residence in the provinces they represent.
Should there be a double standard because Senators are perceived as fat cats? Well, I know some Senators who are quite well off, but many aren't. Surely we don't want a Senate just for the rich.
The basic Senate salary – which will become $65,388 a year – is certainly more than a lot of Canadians make. But it is just as certainly less that many other Canadians. There are police sergeants and copy editors and high school principals and army majors and 22-year-old computer programmers who bring home the same kind of money, and more. I can't imagine many of them saying, "Sure, I'll go up to Ottawa fifteen or twenty times a year as part of my job, and I'll put myself up at my own expense while I'm there – no problem."
Yes, Senators get a $10,300 expense allowance (less than half provided in the Commons), but there are also myriad miscellaneous expenses involved in serving in Parliament that no one should be expected to pay out of his or her own pocket.
Why then the repeated potshots? The Senate can’t be such a target because it is expensive. The last time I looked the entire institution cost Canadians $1.42 each a year. Because it's appointed? So are judges. So are police chiefs. So are high school principals. Democratic elections are wonderful, but it doesn't hurt to have some members of parliament around to tackle unpopular issues and take stands that may not be particularly popular with the electorate, or in the interests of the Prime Minister of the day.
And don't tell me it's because the Senate doesn't do anything. I would rank the intelligence, commitment and work ethic of the vast majority of Senators on an equal footing with other categories of Canadians, and certainly with journalists.
Senators take on causes that members of the Commons can't be bothered with, either because they are too controversial, or aren't huge vote-getters. Even Senators representing the government of the day take on causes that may not be popular. Personally, I have been hammering the government – my government - on its insipid approach to tobacco education. That's one of the main reasons we have a Senate – to encourage thoughtful and independent parliamentary stances, which are often difficult for members to take in the Commons.
I have Senate colleagues who have devoted incredible amounts of energy to issues such as literacy, child poverty and prison reform – all crucial issues that don't receive nearly enough attention in the Commons. You don't hear much about the dedication, hard work and effectiveness of these Senators, because the Senate is continually being trivialized with attendance stories that judge Senators on their attendance on days the chamber is sitting, and nothing else. In fact the chamber is a worthwhile talk shop, but the most valuable Senate work is usually done in committee and Senators’ offices.
This brings me to another source of misinformation: Senate attendance records. Mr. Aubry persists in distorting the picture by taking Senate attendance charts and basing stories solely on whether a Senator made an appearance in the chamber on a sitting day, even if another column on the chart clearly shows that the Senator was tied up in a Senate committee the same day, or taking part in a delegation working outside of Ottawa. Why distort the facts? To make Senators look lazy enough to justify a story, of course.
It takes me six months of work to get a bill up and going in Parliament, and I get 45 minutes to talk about it on the Senate floor. Is my presence in the Senate that day a measure of my work? Is an investigative reporter's one story in the newspaper in a month a legitimate measure of the hundreds of hours that went into producing that piece? The Senate isn't a lazy place.
You want lazy? On Tuesday, June 23, Globe and Mail columnist Gordon Gibson wrote a column in the Globe attacking the Senate. All Mr. Gibson's references were lifted from the skewed material in Mr. Aubry's story, including the nonsensical four-year multiplier that inflated the alleged "pay hike" to $43,000.
You want really lazy? On Monday, June 29, Hartley Steward, former publisher of the Ottawa Sun, weighed in with a column quoting the ever-so-original "homework" Gordon Gibson had done on this story: "the measure will allow any senator who cares to show up on the job to collect an extra $43,000 – as a housing allowance – over the next four years.'"
Well, that isn't quite accurate, is it? And it copies the bogus four-year blowup device used in the first two mindless stories. But who cares? This is what passes for research with these people: Aubry does a shallow, misleading job on the first story, Gibson copies Aubry, Steward copies Gibson.
Who appointed these guys? Who told them half-truths and laziness were enough to get by? There is an ex-senator named Andrew Thompson whom we expelled because he wasn't doing the work the taxpayers were paying him to do. These guys make Thompson look like the Energizer bunny.