Good. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you again, very much, for your time today. At some point I hope we get to you.
I don't have a lot to say on the qualifications side. I mean, the paper speaks for itself. The only thing that struck me was that when you were going through your regular day-to-day background, you said you really thought you needed a Ph.D. and then you went out and got it, like you buy a shovel over at Canadian Tire. That's impressive. For me, somebody with a grade 9 education, that looms large in terms of your qualifications.
Competency takes us into some other areas. Let me just say, though, Chair, before I get into the area of competency questions, that the little skirmish we just saw between you and Mr. Reid, to me, right from the get-go, is a perfect example of the absolute impossibility of jamming the square peg of appointments into the round hole of democracy. No matter what part of this process we dissect, it's never going to add up because it doesn't work. It doesn't fit in a democracy.
Having said that, and being left with no alternative—and it's a shame, because we could use some real common sense on this whole issue—I want to ask about your thinking, madame, the criteria you use.
You, through the appointment of the Prime Minister, replace what Canadians do during an election, which is to make a merit-based evaluation, usually on the doorstep or on the phone or through an email exchange. We repeat it thousands and thousands of times, trying to convince people that we would meet their merit qualifications as they see them. The cumulative effect of that is that we have an election, and as tough as it is, it's usually very clear. Canadians decided who was merit-based and who wasn't. The beauty of the system is that if they get it wrong, if the Canadian people in a riding feel they got it wrong, then they get a chance in the next election to do something about it.
We don't have that. Once you're a senator and you're appointed, you're there till you're 75, and that's it. I'm wondering what process, what talent, what experience, and what training you are looking for that, in your view, would give Canadians the ideal lawmaker. This isn't just about having a gilded life on the red carpet; it's also a fact that senators make laws. In fact, their vote is worth more than our vote, because there are fewer of them.
What qualifications are you looking for when you're trying to replace the process that Canadians go through on the doorstep? What are you looking for when you're trying to choose a person Canadians would consider to be their ideal lawmaker?