Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the speakers. This is not my normal committee, but I'm very interested to be here, and I appreciate the fact that you brought your learning to us.
Mr. Watts, as a student of history, I was interested to learn about John A. Macdonald and the fact that in 1864 he came to the belief that elected senators weren't a good idea and that an appointed chamber would be better.
Coming from Atlantic Canada as I do—Nova Scotia—the Senate has played an important role for Atlantic Canada. As members know, when Confederation happened there were 24 members from Upper Canada, 24 members from Lower Canada, 24 members from the two provinces of maritime Canada, which entered Confederation then. I think when Prince Edward Island joined in 1873—the 1870s—they fit into the 24 from the Maritimes. So that regional component has been important to maritime Canada.
Looking at it in Nova Scotia, it's not quite like Quebec in that you have the distinct 24 regions, but, for example, we've always had an Acadian senator from Nova Scotia. We had African Nova Scotian senators before we had African Nova Scotian members of Parliament. We had some very great champions in the whole area of society in Nova Scotia, cultural society. We had poverty advocate Sister Peggy Butts, appointed by former Prime Minister Chrétien in the 1990s. In my view, they've all brought some great honour to the Senate and to the parliamentary process in Canada.
A number of people have expressed to me a concern about the Senate. Is it worthwhile? I'm going to say that having been here for a few years now, I've seen the work you referred to, from Senator Segal to Senator MacDonald, to the work that Senator Kirby did on a couple of major commissions. I know a lot of good work is done in the Senate. Today I introduced a private member's bill from the Senate into the House, which has passed the Senate and come to the House of Commons. I must tell Canadians that quite a bit of work is done by the Senate.
Even as a Nova Scotian I would say the fact that we have more senators than British Columbia or Alberta doesn't make sense to me. We need to make some changes in the Senate. I think anybody would accept the fact that we need to make changes. Each of the four founding provinces of Canada, if I can use that term, the original four--Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—have objected to this legislation, and we've talked a lot about the process here.
My only question to you is simply, would there not be a better way? Would this not have been something better started? You've referred to it as a political bill, and in essence everything that comes to the House of Commons is political, but this certainly seems to be more politically based than policy based. Is there not a better method of consultation, perhaps a first ministers' conference, to start the ball rolling, to decide on what kind of reform should be done with the Senate?
I'll ask anybody who wants to answer that.