Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his comments but point out that this is the second time I have been up in less than half an hour. It is not true that we are not participating in the debate.
I thank him for raising the good point that three bills have started in the Senate. In a bicameral system every bill must go through both houses. If all bills started in the Senate the House of Commons would sit around for a week with nothing to do until something was passed, and vice versa if they all started here.
I thank the hon. member for congratulating those who brought forward the improvement of splitting bills so that both houses could work on them. If the Senate could remove some of the fine details in its extensive committee consultations we would not have to worry about them and would have an even better bill when we got it.