Madam Speaker, had the hon. member for Brandon—Souris had his ears open, he would have heard me speaking at some length on the details of the bill. I am sure the hon. parliamentary secretary will confirm that.
There is a direct relevance and connection between the use of the Senate as a vehicle for transmitting bills to the House and the bill which was actually transmitted. To me this is a fairly logical connection.
This is a matter of grave importance to the people of Canada. Nothing is more important at the end of the day than the way in which we are governed. All of the other decisions that are made hang on that particular aspect of our lives. If we do not have a good framework for government we cannot have good government. That is fairly simple.
I would reiterate that I never again want to see important legislation coming to the House from that other place and, in effect, taking over the powers of the House of Commons. This is not right. It is not done to my knowledge in the mother of parliaments on which we base our procedures here. It is high time that we brought ourselves into the 20th century and have in the Government of Canada an elected, effective and, hopefully one day, equal Senate.