Madam Chair, my colleague made some really interesting observations about the possibility of Senate reform, an interest I share with my colleague. I know it is the official position of my party to abolish the Senate, but that is not my position. I hope that some day my party might see fit to pass a resolution that we would in fact support a Senate but an elected and equal Senate.
The member and I do share that interest. We also share an interest in the Charlottetown accord. I took part in the five “ordinary Canadian” meetings that took place across the country. I simply answered a letter in the Globe and Mail and said I was an interested Canadian. I was a carpenter by trade at that time. That was a fascinating introduction and education along these lines.
I am interested in one thing, which I wonder if my colleague could expand on, and that is the way the United States came to have an elected Senate. This is news to me. It is something I am learning about tonight; that in fact it began as a reform movement in one state and then spread throughout the whole country. Could my colleague expand on the importance of an elected Senate for progress as he sees it and how it came about in the United States so that we might be able to use it as a model for Canada?