Mr. Speaker, in sitting hear listening to the debate tonight, there is such a contrast in opinions about the Senate in this House that I think the average person is wondering what is going on here.
It is absolutely amazing that members of the separatist party are in this House talking about the future of the Parliament of Canada and the Senate when on a daily basis they talk about leaving the country. I fail to see what their interest is in the future of how this institution is set up. It is a conflict in philosophy.
At the same time, the Liberals on the other side defend the Senate institution which everyone in Canada knows is unaccountable, ineffective and unelected. It is basically a rubber stamp for the government of the day, if it happens to be the majority in the Senate. The Liberals of course seized that opportunity as vacancies became available and appointed their people to Senate positions. I was going to call it a wonderland, and perhaps it is, but it is probably one of the plushest patronage appointments the Liberals and Tories could ever dream up in this institution.
It is very timely that the Reform Party is sitting in this Parliament. Down at the other end of the hall we have an institution that basically serves little or no purpose in this country except to rubber stamp the government's bills.
The Reformers came to this Parliament, beginning with the member for Beaver River, and began talking about a triple E Senate: equal, elected and effective. That rings a fairly common sense idea to most Canadians. Why should someone represent the people who is not elected by the people, they ask? Why should someone be in a position of senator without really having much to do, being basically ineffective? Why is the Senate so unaccountable? It comes to Parliament and asks for $40 million to run its operations. We ask what it is for and the Senate says that we do not really need to know, that it would just like the $40 million.