Mr. Speaker, I want to register the fact that the NDP caucus shares the concern of the Reform Party on this. In the past we have expressed our concern about bills being introduced in the Senate.
The government House leader says that no royal recommendation has been required in this case. One asks oneself whether no royal recommendation was attached in order to avoid having the bill properly characterized as a money bill. It is certainly arguable that it is in fact a money bill given its similarity to other bills that have been so understood.
I would like to make a further point which I have made before. In the current political context it is more and more inappropriate for bills to be introduced in the Senate no matter what they are. The NDP members have always felt this way. There have never been New Democrats in the Senate. Now with the addition of the Reform Party and the Bloc, we have three parties out of five that are not sitting in the Senate.
The undemocratic nature of the Senate and the unrepresentative nature of the Senate therefore becomes much more an issue than it was in some previous era where there were Liberals and Conservatives in this House and Liberals and Conservatives in the other house. I say that from the point of view of New Democrats who have always felt that and we have more company in our discomfort now than we may have had in the past.
This point needs to be made over and over again. There are two things. The government, if not for technical procedural reasons, should for good political process and democratic reasons desist from introducing bills in the Senate and make sure that they go through the elected House first where all parties are represented and where the broad spectrum of Canadian public opinion is represented. Second, the government should give heed to the various calls for Senate reform and take some action on reforming the other place or getting rid of it altogether depending on what we come up with.