Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to speak on this issue. It is an issue that I have thought long and hard about during the 10 years that I have been elected.
To put the remarks I want to make tonight in context, I am reminded of a poster that a friend of mine has on the wall of his office. It says for every complex problem there is a simple answer and it is wrong.
That is the problem I have with this bill. Reform of the Senate is a very important issue. It is one that members on this side of the House have been wrestling with for decades. It is one that the Senate has wrestled with.
I really find it very difficult when I see Senators depicted in the way the Reform Party chooses to depict them. I am not certain what cause is advanced by slandering honest, hardworking Canadians who choose to serve their country. I do not understand how that furthers the cause of democracy.
There are a lot of very talented Canadians who work in the other place. They do good work on behalf of the country and they want reform. When hon. members read the joint Senate reports of 1984, 1987, 1992, Senators were calling for reform of the Senate, calling for election.
What is a little confusing in the Reform's approach to this is that the very election cited, the appointment of Stan Waters to the Senate by former Prime Minister Mulroney, was done out of respect for section 4 of the Meech Lake accord which called for a process of appointment upon the recommendation of the province.
This is the example the Reform Party would put forward of how this should work. It was an example that was part of Meech Lake and yet, as I recall, it was the Reform Party that campaigned against Meech Lake and fought for its demise.