Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to present a petition from the riding of Champlain, consisting of 9,000 signatures covering 450 pages. This petition seeks the abolition of the Senate.
The text of the petition reads as follows: "The undersigned residents of Canada call upon the House to note the following: whereas the Senate consists of non-elected individuals who are not accountable for their actions; the Senate has an annual operating budget of $43 million; the Senate refuses to account for its votes to the committees of the House of Commons; the Senate does not fulfil its mandate for regional representation; the Senate duplicates the work done by members in the House of Commons; and considering the need for modern parliamentarian institutions and the motion to abolish the Senate now being debated in the House of
Commons; therefore your petitioners call upon Parliament to take steps to abolish the Senate".