Yes, the Social Credit Party. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, I have a lot of things going through my mind.
If you had that many different parties and you were required to get your majority from that many different parties, the point we try to make is that that would be something very significant in the minds of not only people in one province, but in two or three provinces, and all the different political stripes. Included in there would be independents, because any time you hold an election, you have to let people run as independent as well.
I know I'm very excited about the Elton override, because I've read a lot of other things that are very complicated, but I really do believe this is the answer to maintaining the supremacy of the House of Commons and at the same time giving extreme influence to the Senate with the powers it now has.
Let me just close that statement by saying this much: I don't see the Senate vetoing a lot of bills, period. I see them amending some. I see them talking to the MPs of the day in the cafeteria and the hallways, which I think they do now, to say, “We're finding a lot of resistance across the board on this particular bill; why don't you amend it before we have to amend it?” Or whatever.
If you remember the GST, it was the first time I ever saw the Senate exercise real power. When it was introduced at 11%, there was a big outcry against...I think Mulroney was the Prime Minister at the time. All the MPs who were in power were called and threatened by their own constituents, “If you do this 11% stuff, we're going to vote against you in the next election.”
He dropped it to 9%, reintroduced it, and told his members of Parliament to sit down and shut up, and he went forward with it. The people of Canada went to the senators, started phoning them, calling them, faxing them, and did everything they could to oppose the GST at 9%. The Senate held the first filibuster that I have ever heard of. They were blowing kazoos in the Senate chamber, and one guy was reading recipes. This is all in the Hansard; you can find it if you have a mind to.
Then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed eight extraordinary senators for the first time in the history of that clause in the Constitution. It allows two extraordinary senators per region so that a Senate that is trying to be obstructionist can be overcome by a majority of that party. He exercised that privilege, and he passed it at 7%—but he had lowered it another 2%.