Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's concern. I appreciate your ruling about relevancy. I would say that I cannot imagine what would be more relevant to a debate about extending the sitting of the House than talking about democracy. How could that not be relevant to extending this sitting? It has to be relevant, I would think. Even a Liberal should be able to make that connection, although maybe not.
We have the situation where the government and the Prime Minister do not want to appoint senators who are democratically selected by the people of Alberta. Yet when we look at history and we look around the world to other countries, senate reform has come about because of, to use the Prime Minister's term, piecemeal progress. The United States is a classic example. In many cases it has not come about because a bunch of people got behind closed doors to come up with a grand plan on how to redraft the country's constitution. That is not how it happens.
It happens because there is support from the people to bring about meaningful change. That is why it happens. That is what Albertans have been trying to do. Albertans have been trying to lead the nation with Senate reform.
Albertans are willing to commit their own dollars to try and bring about meaningful Senate reform, and yet to no avail. I am not an Albertan, although I certainly have a fondness for Alberta. Two of my children have migrated to Calgary, as so many have. I have the opportunity to stop in Calgary and visit with them on occasion, but I am not an Albertan.
The reality is that if the Prime Minister was actually committed to democratic renewal, democratic change, democratic improvement, there is no logical reason, none, except for his wish to do so, to appoint to the Senate, his own people, the people that he chooses, rather than the people that Albertans choose. It puts paid, certainly to Albertans, to all his arguments about wanting to restore and reform democracy in this Parliament and the other place.
There is a third issue that attracted me to politics, other than the need for democratic reform and the nation's finances.