I am wondering too. The member for Ontario, who is also very vigourous and represents around 250,000 people, must feel very frustrated these days knowing that he will have to face the electorate and justify his policies and the fact that the promise to abolish the GST has not been fulfilled; he might have a hard time.
There are people roughly his age in the other place, they are there until they turn 75, without being held accountable to anyone. It is incredible. There is something wrong somewhere. We all will have to go home. In your riding of Stormont-Dundas, maybe it will not be so difficult, Mr. Speaker, but in Bellechasse it might be harder, we will see.
In any case, we will return, we will all take the plunge without any guarantee whatsoever to see what seat will be occupied. The 206 members who were replaced in this House all know what it means to have no job security.
I went to the other House earlier. What a nice sunset I saw. It was the darkness in that room that struck me the most; sometimes the darkness is in the minds. They speak about a House of sober second thought, but it looked more like a dormitory.
We will be sitting until ten this evening. Over there, they are not sitting at all. Evening debates are rare enough because the number of days are limited.
Section 31 of the British North America Act of 1867 states that a senator loses his seat do you know when? When he or she is absent from sittings during two consecutive sessions. That means a senator who was a member of the Senate in 1993, at the beginning of the 35th Parliament, and who has not yet been present in that House, still has two more years to attend at least one sitting in order to keep his seat.
If we did that here, if we were absent from this House, our constituents would quickly boot us out. We would be subject to procedures much harsher than impeachment, the newspapers would demand our resignation, would require that we either sit or quit and return our salaries. In the other place they can do that, but not here. It is time to abolish that institution.