Mr. Speaker, I want to resume the discussion of this bill, in particular the subject of Senate reform.
Since I spoke this morning two interesting things have happened in the House. The first was that we saw a Bloc member run out of the House carrying his chair. I have not witnessed this before. During the election I had a speech, actually, on “To whom does this seat belong?” One of my lines was that some members think it belongs to them, but I never expected to see it taken quite that literally.
The second incident was that the member for Wentworth—Burlington made a statement in an S. O. 31 knocking my earlier comments on Senate reform. I just want to say that I understand the member for Wentworth—Burlington is upset today. One of the newspapers mistakenly confused him with a senator from New Brunswick of the same name. In some countries a member of the lower house would be pleased to be confused and mistaken as a senator, but this member went to great lengths to distance himself from that connection. This is yet another argument in support of Senate reform.
When we broke for question period I was in the process of reading into the record the Reform draft constitutional amendment to reform the Senate of Canada, dated May 17, 1988. I can continue to read this into the record, however, I would like to again seek the consent of the House to dispense with actually reading it and to have it recorded in Hansard as read if there is unanimous consent for doing that just to save time.