Mr. Speaker, even though I do not agree with the hon. member for Elk Island, I think he has made an interesting contribution to the debate. It is true that one could discuss the Senate at length, and whether or not it should be elected. For our part, we suggest abolishing it.
If he is looking for equity in votes and in the way power is exercised, we think it is not necessarily attainable through the Senate, since an elected Senate will cause other kinds of problems I would like to tell him about.
There would be a certain division and overlap of powers. I am a Bloc Quebecois member from the riding of Saint-Jean and if there were a senator who was not from my party—from any party at all, if he is not with the Bloc—he would always contradict me in some way: me, the elected member. He could neutralize some of my authority. Things are no better if you create constant dissension between the elected senator and the elected member for the riding.
If I were in his place, I would be working instead for proportional representation in the House of Commons. It is true that under our system the person with the most votes is elected. We have seen some situations, for example, such as in 1997 when the Progressive Conservative Party received more than 20% of the votes, but only had two members in the House of Commons. That is a problem.
I fully agree that people should be free to discuss the ways a vote coming from British Columbia could be equivalent to a vote coming from Ontario. It might be possible to do this with proportional representation, or in combination with another model; it could also follow the current model. The Canadian people could elect someone based on the proportion of votes received. There are many ways to do it. It is a debate that is going on in Quebec at present.
Still, to go from there to saying we could now elect the Senate, which would compete with the elected members of the House of Commons, I have a problem with that, although I am always ready to discuss it with my hon. colleague when the occasion arises.