My own view on this is that the Australian Senate experience provides some very good experience in terms of an election format.
To my mind, the American model does not provide a very good model, first of all because of its very faithful adherence to equal representation per state. I don't think that works in Canada. And second, because the Americans only have one senator being elected at one time, you don't have the opportunity to be more creative in terms of the electoral process.
So I think the Australian example is pretty compelling to me in terms of how to make an electoral process work and produce a Senate that is vibrant but doesn't sap the strength of the national government.
The qualification there--and it's an important qualification--is that the states have a much lower profile in Australian life than the provinces do in Canada, and we have to accommodate ourselves to the reality of the Canadian situation.
So there's no perfect model out there, but there is learning we could do.