Don Plett of Steinbach has entered his last year as a Senator.
Plett was appointed to the Senate in 2009. Before that, he was the President of the Conservative Party of Canada for seven years. In Canada, Senators can only serve until the age of 75. Plett will reach that milestone on May 14th of next year.
"I'm, I guess in my sunset time," says Plett. "I've got a year left until I reach that golden age that I have to look for something else to do."
Plett currently serves as the Leader of the Official Opposition in the Senate. Plett says though the number of Conservative Senators has dropped, their role is still to try as much as possible to correct bad legislation.
"The role of the Senate is to be the chamber of sober second thought," notes Plett. "It is not there to kill government legislation, but it is certainly there to review it, amend it, try to improve it."
And, Plett says in the last few years there has been a lot of improving that needs to be done. For example, he says there is Bill C-69, Bill C-48, Bill C-11 and Bill C-234. There is also Bill C-21 or the firearms bill. Plett says through this bill, the Trudeau government is trying to take guns out of the hands of sport shooters and duck hunters yet leaving them in the hands of criminals.
"We find out they've spent some $40 million on a buy-back program for firearms, and they have not collected one single firearm to this day," notes Plett. "Those are things that we do fight on a regular basis."
Having said that, Plett notes that some legislation is actually crafted in the Senate. In those instances, government will start legislation in the Senate, meaning they would be the chamber of sober first thought. Either way, Plett says it is his job to steer caucus and keep members in line with the direction of their leader.
Speaking of leaders, Plett has served under six different leaders since being appointed in 2009, including Stephen Harper, Rona Ambrose, Andrew Scheer, Erin O'Toole, Candice Bergen, and now Pierre Poilievre.
To say that Plett enjoys every minute of every day being a Senator, would not be entirely accurate. For example, he says there were two days last week that the Senate met until after midnight. He notes on Thursday they were in the Senate until one o'clock Friday morning. He then got to his hotel room at 1:30 am and was on a flight to Winnipeg by 7 am.
"So, it would be a stretch to say that I enjoyed (Thursday) night and (Friday) morning," says Plett. "But overall, it's been an honour to serve Canada in the role that I have."
Plett says when Jean Chretien was Prime Minister of Canada, he said the job of the opposition is to oppose. Plett says that is exactly what the opposition is attempting to do, while at the same time, they want to provide credible alternatives. He notes it is for that reason that members of the opposition will be critical and often come across as negative.
"That is our job," he says.
Plett recalls years ago, former Manitoba PC Premier Gary Filmon says that his toughest battle was being in opposition, noting that occasionally, even the NDP government had some good ideas, and he did not want to criticize those.
"I haven't found many of those with this Trudeau government," admits Plett. "(But), it is our job not to try to find the good in government legislation, it's our job to keep the government's feet to the fire."
Meanwhile, Plett says back in 2009, he became the 995th person to be appointed to the Red Chamber. He considers it an honour to have such a responsibility. Now, as he enters the last year as a Senator, Plett says there is light at the end of the tunnel for Conservative supporting Canadians. Plett says the light at the end of the tunnel shows a Liberal government that is on its way out and a Conservative majority government that will turn some of this around.