Mr. Speaker, I nearly fainted when I heard my colleague from Vancouver—Quadra candidly suggest the conclusions of the Pepin-Robarts report.
I was thinking that it was a long time ago the government opposite shelved this report, not wanting to give it any credibility or relevance.
We must realize that if this institution had really been intended to play the role of defender of Canada's regions, it would not have been created as it was, and even now we would not maintain it in its present form by simply having the senators there elected. These people would, if I could put it this way, challenge the legitimacy of this House in which we sit.
In addition, for the benefit of our colleague, I would like to mention two examples of upper houses around the world, which might originally have provided an example, had they existed, to Canada's Senate, in the spirit that its creators wanted to give it.
There is the German Bundesrat, which represents each of the assemblies of German Landers, or provinces. Accordingly, no legislation is passed by the German parliament, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, without the support of the Landers' legislatures.
There is another example. The Russian federation council, which is the upper chamber, the equivalent of our Senate, has two representatives for what they call there the subjects of the federation, the equivalent of our provinces. Generally it is the governor of the province and the president of the legislative assembly, therefore one representative of the executive body and one representative of the legislative body of each of the subjects in the federation, who sit on the council.
In this case, once again, it is very clear that no legislation may be passed by the Russian parliament without the subjects of the federation, that is the Russian provinces, giving their approval.
Therefore, as it exists the Senate is totally incapable of meeting the initial objective set for it, that is of defending the interests of the regions.