Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what more I could add. First, let us say that we have a consensus that the existing Senate is not supported by many people in this country. The survey which the hon. member took indicated that there was about 30% support in his riding. The Angus Reid poll indicated that around 5% of the people of this country support the existing Senate. Pollara did a poll which indicated that it was a bit higher than that. By the way, just in terms of the record, the Angus Reid poll indicated that 41% of the people wanted to abolish the Senate and 43% wanted to reform the Senate. Pollara did a poll which indicated that 36% of the people wanted to abolish the Senate and 35% wanted to reform the Senate.
I submit to the hon. member that his constituents probably think in a similar way to people right across the country. If he had a question worded as to whether his constituents wanted to reform the Senate, abolish the Senate or maintain the status quo, I am sure in his riding the opinion would be overwhelmingly to not have the status quo, but would be divided on whether we should abolish or reform it.
We should unite in terms of getting rid of the status quo. Let us listen to that 90% or 95% of the Canadian people. Liberal members feel the same way, if we could get rid of these crazy handcuffs of confidence votes on estimates.
I am sure that if Conservative members were to reflect the interests of their constituents and forget about their friends in the Senate they too would vote in favour of reducing Senate estimates. If we could unite on that point, that the status quo is not good enough and it has to go, then we could have a real debate after the next federal election to come up with a formula either to elect it or abolish it. I would like to see that be the real debate. At that time I will obviously be continuing my support for abolition. One reason for that, and I want to throw this at my friends in the Reform Party, especially my friend from St. Albert who is so concerned about money, is that if we have an elected house it is not going to cost $60 million. We could probably double or triple that because it will have legitimacy. We will then have an awful lot of money being spent in terms of its elections, its staff, its travel and its facilities.
If it is elected, it is legitimate. If it is elected, it is just as legitimate as we are and we invite gridlock and deadlock between the two legitimately elected houses. It creates a bigger bureaucracy, more red tape and a greater slowness in terms of governing. It seems to me that is something the Reform Party has always stood against.