Mr. Speaker, my distinguished colleague from Témiscamingue should know that the percentage of success in these tests is very low. If I could, I would ask my colleague from Témiscamingue to give me the name of his Senate division and the name of his senator. I would be willing to bet $10 that he does not know.
In response to his first question, I can tell the hon. member that the senator who represents the division of Kennebec is Guy Charbonneau, who, until recently, was Speaker of the Senate. If he visited the riding of Frontenac, he did it very quietly since we never heard about such a visit. I have never seen the name of our senator mentioned in the newspapers, yet I read them from cover to cover. Even worse, at a press conference held six months ago, I did the test with reporters from the asbestos region and none of them could name the senator who represents us. Yet they all knew the names of the Speaker of the House of Commons and his three assistants. That was good, at least.
The second question is this: Has the senator for our senatorial designation ever tried to do anything about important issues in his designation? To my knowledge, we have never had the slightest assistance from our senator, never.
This afternoon, we were visited by a group of Belgian senators. In Belgium, the senators are elected. In the United States, they are as well.
When we were trying to bring about a major constitutional reform, which was blocked by a few people-I can still remember the feather-we wanted to have a Triple E Senate, which meant equal, among other things. In Quebec we have 24 for a population of seven million, whereas in Prince Edward Island they have three for a population smaller than that of Sherbrooke; four MPs, four senators, they are overrepresented or we are underrepresented. In any event, looking at the results, there is no big difference. But, if senators were elected, I would be in favour.
I remember very clearly a senator saying to me on the way out of the parliamentary restaurant last spring: "As far as I am concerned, the day we are required to campaign to get elected is the day I quit the Senate". That might be a good way to weed out some of them, and it would get results.
My colleague from Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup was again telling us just now in his speech about the television news clip that showed four senators sleeping soundly. Is that not shocking? I remember when television was introduced in the British Parliament and the camera panned the House and showed one MP with his eyes shut; he lost his seat.