I hope that Quebec will indeed become sovereign before that.
I am telling you, in my riding, the best known senator is Thérèse Lavoie-Roux, and the senator who has just resigned has also become quite famous, Jean-Louis Roux. But of course he is not responsible for the fame he has acquired, because it is our good old Prime Minister who did not deign to consult, as is the tradition, his counterpart in Quebec in order to arrive at an agreement on an appointment.
I see here, for example, Marie-P. Poulin, who was appointed until the year 2020. This is terrible.
Of course, while our fellow citizens have to tighten their belts, while both spouses often have to work, while everybody in a household has to work, in Quebec, an education-employer sectoral round table was set up to ask employers not to work students too hard, because it has a negative impact on their studies. In many households, 14, 15 or 16-year olds must work to help their parents. But here, in the House of Commons, we appoint senators who profit from the system.
Only this week, I read about a poll done in Great Britain. According to this poll, 52 per cent of the respondents said they were in favour of the abolition of the monarchy; 52 per cent of British respondents said that, while here, in Canada, we have a very British system with a representative of the same Queen who is also costing us a fortune. And all provinces, even the smallest ones, must have a lieutenant governor who is the Queen's representative.
So do you not think that the time has come to put an end to this scandalous waste of public funds? While we are unable to find, at Treasury Board, $3 or $4 million to help save 2,000 jobs in the asbestos mines, we will spend-and I do say spend-needlessly, without getting anything in return, $65 million this year to sustain the Senate. It is a shame. It is outrageous.