Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the question but he misunderstood me just slightly. I find no fault with the fact that the government has introduced this bill in the Senate first where it has been examined and has come back because the Senate has had a chance to examine the bill in detail. It is still a government bill. The government is elected by the people and the government is initiating the bill. Whether it is initiated in this place or that place does not matter; it is still accountable to the people because it is the government.
What I am very strongly opposed to is senators introducing their own private members' bills in the Senate and those bills coming to this place as private members' legislation. Senators are not answerable to the public. The difficulty is that they can introduce controversial bills.
I remember one senator once proposing something about making it against the law to spank a child. All kinds of controversy was endured by Liberal members of parliament because it was a Liberal senator that introduced this idea. This is not a proper reflection of either the Senate's role or the way this place should be working in my view.
With Bill S-17, I think probably the best way to have expedited this very important legislation was to have done exactly what the government did and that was to introduce it in the Senate first. We have a full chance to examine it here.