Mr. Speaker, as is often the case, the Liberals missed much of the point of my bill. They were talking about a triple E Senate. I was talking about one of the Es of a triple E Senate, the elected part. That is the part that can be done today without any constitutional change.
I was amazed at the Conservative member who said that it cannot be done without a constitutional change. It has been done. It was done with Stan Waters. It is doable. But for the Liberals, basically, it is all or nothing. We have seen the nothing part. We have seen the nothing part for basically 100 years from consecutive governments on that side of the House.
My bill addresses only the elected part. It means that senators would be elected and accountable to the people who sent them there, instead of the political party that sent them there.
It does not fix all of the problems. As the member from the NDP said, most Canadians would rather get a stick in the eye than have constitutional change. I understand that. Canadians are not ready for constitutional change. I agree with that. But this part, the elected part, could be done today.
Let us fix it in short bursts, rather than wait to do it all at once. We have seen that it was not done by the accord, and it will not be done by this government. Let us do it in bits and pieces and fix it, so we are crawling before we move. Fix it bit by bit, but at least we should have some political will in this House to attempt to fix it, rather than the rhetoric that we have been hearing from members across the floor. The bottom line is, they do nothing.
I believe my bill is doable. It has been proven to be doable by elections already held in Alberta. I would suggest that we move forward.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would ask for unanimous consent that my bill be deemed votable.