‘Editor’s eye’ sees legislation in Senate

Canadians watching the Senate spending affair may be forgiven for wondering what the upper chamber does aside from claiming expenses. In an occasional series, Postmedia News provides snapshots of some other members of the Senate. Today: Joan Fraser. ANDR

As a young reporter, Liberal Sen. Joan Fraser never imagined she would one day collect a government salary.

She was adamant that she was “non-political, nonaligned and would never have been a member of a political party.” But when she was offered a Senate post in 1998 a couple years after leaving the world of journalism and the Montreal Gazette, where she had worked as a reporter and editor-in-chief, she considered the opportunity with an open mind.

“I thought, ‘You know what? That will be really interesting,’ ” she recalls. “And it is.”

At a time when senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, and Mac Harb are making headlines for their involvement in well-publicized expense scandals and politicians from all parties are calling for reform or abolition of the red chamber, some senators — including Fraser — are trying to make the most of their appointments and give taxpayers bang for their bucks.

As a member of the internal economy committee, Fraser is among those reviewing the improper spending of her colleagues. It’s not always pleasant work and the more damning evidence the committee turns up, the worse the situation becomes for the “vast majority” of senators who are claiming expenses appropriately. “It’s really hard on us and it’s hard on families to see this endless drumbeat of sometimes really vicious slurs that are levelled at us all collectively,” Fraser said. “There is, in some cases, an assumption that we all must be terrible people or we wouldn’t be here. That’s nonsense.”

When not wading through Wallin’s audit, Fraser contributes to a handful of other committees, including the rules, procedures and the rights of Parliament committee, which she used to chair. In that capacity, she looked at the convoluted Senate rules through an “editor’s eye” and helped prepare a set of revised rules, which were tabled last fall.

“You have no idea how much work that was,” Fraser said. “The rules of the Senate have been built up with changes hither and yon and, in some cases, since Confederation. Certainly the last time they got a major rewrite was 20 years ago and that was done, I think, in some haste.”

Fraser said the rules were not changed — just rewritten “to be more user-friendly and intelligible” — but at least one person feels differently. Wallin, whose expenses were audited using the revised rules, has argued the audit was unfair because the 2012 rules were applied retroactively when they should not have been. Fraser describes her work on Senate rules as “inside baseball” and said the more interesting part of the job involves matters “that will actually have an impact on real people’s lives.”

For example, she is an advocate for women’s rights and served as president of the women’s coordinating committee on the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which brings together parliamentarians from around the world to discuss trends and ways to advance international cooperation. There, she travelled to Saudi Arabia, where she spoke to people about the political involvement of women who — at the time — were not allowed to vote. It was a disappointing reality for Fraser and her desire to advance the role of women in politics got her involved in the successful campaign to change the Inter-Parliamentary Union rules to ensure women were included in the delegations member countries sent to the organization.