‘SHE IS HIGHLY RESPECTED ACROSS THE COUNTRY’
Time doesn’t pass as fast as it seemed to when she was careening down a French mountainside to Olympic gold and silver, but it’s still running out on Nancy Greene Raine in the Senate.
Currently the oldest member of Parliament’s upper chamber, Greene Raine will reach the mandatory retirement age of 75 on May 11, ending a tenure of slightly more than nine years since she thenprime minister Stephen Harper appointed her.
She promises to remain engaged by watching Senate proceedings on CPAC, "and, if I feel like I want my two cents to be heard, it’s pretty easy with the media of today to get involved in the conversation. I’m not going to promise that I’m going to be active 100 per cent, but I’m certainly going to be following the issues that are going through our Parliament with great interest. It has been a real privilege to be a senator. It has been a fascinating experience. I’ve really enjoyed it.
“It’s too bad everybody can’t do it, because it is an opportunity to understand how we are governed and how our government works.”
Greene Raine’s pet legislative project as her Senate career winds down is the Child Health Protection Act. Passed by the Senate in September and currently at second reading in the House of Commons, it proposes changing the Food and Drug Act to prohibit advertising of unhealthy food and drinks targeting children under age 17.
In December, though, Manitoba Liberal MP Doug Eyolfson, who had sponsored the bill in the Commons, said the restriction should be limited to children under 13, a change also called for by Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor. Greene Raine said she accepted that amendment.
Eyolfson’s office said this week he was working to try to have a second hour of debate in the House of Commons rescheduled for Feb. 12, though a date for the vote that would be the final stage of second reading remained uncertain. If approved then, the legislation would be directed to the Standing Committee on Health, which would have 45 sitting days to review it.
“I’ll certainly be called before the committee when it goes to committee, and that will be the chance for me to say something,” said Greene Raine, the 1960s World Cup and Olympic ski champion who herself once had an endorsement deal for Mars candy bars.
“But I am a bit concerned, because there are some business interests that are lobbying very hard against the bill, and, unfortunately, some of them are sports organizations who are afraid that they will lose their sponsorships.
“But my feeling is that, in terms of sports, sponsors will be found, other sponsors. And do you really want our top athletes being used by people who are producing unhealthy products to target children to pester their parents to buy them junk food? I don’t think any athlete would want that, but, when millions of dollars are waved in front of you to put a logo on your headgear, it’s hard to resist and that, you know, is reality.”
Greene Raine said her initiative began three years ago following a study on rising rates of obesity by the Senate committee on social science and technology that she sits on, including a frank assessment about the difficulty of changing after an individual became obese.
“It’s really hard,” she said. “It’s a life sentence, in a way, so it behooves us to act on it.”
Asked what she expected to miss from the Senate, she paused before referring to her counterparts as colleagues and friends she wouldn’t have otherwise met.
“As for the experience that I have had, I really do appreciate why it is not a bad idea for the prime minister to appoint senators,” she said. “The prime minister taking responsibility for good appointments and using his ability to appoint people gives the Senate a variety of people that come from all walks of life and (lets it) be balanced as a good-thinking body for the betterment of the country.”
As prime minister herself, the 1968 Olympic heroine said, she would concentrate Senate appointments on those who have made their mark by the work they have done in their lives, so it would tend to be an older group.
“It should almost be a like a chamber of elders, people who have proven through their life’s work they have talents to give and, if they’re willing to do that at the end of their life or at the end of their working career, I think that’s a great service to the country,” she said.
“In other words, it’s not bad if the Senators that are appointed are 60-plus.
“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, you should be appointing more young people, but, under our constitution, that means they would stay there for a long time. I think 10-15 years is plenty.”