The Croll Committee on Poverty, the Davey Committee on the Mass Media, Neiman Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide are only a few of the many committees in which dedicated and hard working Senators have, with the assistance of staff and consultants, produced ground breaking reports. The Aboriginal Peoples Committee brought new and important insight to a number of issues in its study of the First Nations Land Management Act in the last session. My concern is not so much about the legitimacy of the Senate as an institution but rather I am asking whether this committee, in its handling of this particular mandate, has been able to work to the standard set by the committees just mentioned and many others. They really did advertise in newspapers across the country and send advance staff out to solicit presentations. Parliamentary committees from both the Senate and the Commons face challenges which do not come up for other kinds of public inquiries.
Parliamentary rules prevent the committees from sitting between sessions.
During sessions it is important for the more serious senators to put in an appearance in the Chamber, to follow legislation and to attend other committee hearings. In addition, many take constituency work quite seriously. From this point of view it is not unreasonable to expect that a Senate or a Commons committee might need longer to do a special study than was taken by a royal commission. It would certainly be no fault of the Committee if it could not do in one year the work done by RCAP in five years. What will reflect badly on the Committee is if it were to attempt to do such a major task while it lacked the resources, the energy, or dynamism evidenced by other public inquiries as well as by other Senate committees.