Madam Chair, Ms. Romanado, thank you for the question and you're right. You were one of my colleagues in caucus who in conversations we had recognized the importance of Quebec not losing a seat and maintaining its 78 seats. You're a member of Parliament from Quebec and I thought your voice was important, and it certainly was important as we drafted this legislation.
I didn't know you were going to ask questions about constitutional amendments. I thought you were going to ask about some effort in a previous Parliament to change the electoral system. I seem to remember that after 2015 we had a happy outing in that regard. That certainly doesn't feel like it's on the agenda either, and to be blunt with you, Ms. Romanado, neither would be opening the Constitution.
Successive governments, including Mr. Harper's and Mr. Chrétien's governments.... Opening the Constitution for something like changing the representational formula that exists now, or changing Senate seat allocations is certainly not a priority for this government. I'm partial to the school that says, even if we had consensus on, for example, an issue as seemingly surgical as that, when one gathers first ministers at a constitutional conference table, they arrive with their own lists and the lists are long and the results are complicated and it sucks a great deal of energy away from issues that we think are important to Canadians and that we should work on with our partners in the federation in a very collaborative way.
We're focused on working with provincial and territorial governments in a way that doesn't require constitutional amendments but that better serves Canadians, and that's the work I'm happy to try to do every day for our government.