Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is an excellent one. I will answer by saying no, and that is the difficulty, it does not go all the way.
There are two pieces to this. First, is this enough democracy to say in regard to the existence of the Senate that it is okay, we can live with it and at least it is democratic? The answer is no, not by a long shot. One election in eight years is not democratic accountability. I do not know anybody else who has an eight year term that is somehow called accountable and democratic.
The bigger issue, though, is still whether or not the Senate, even if it were fully democratized, and this is far from that, is the structure we want. Do we really want to duplicate the whole process? Do we want to run the risk of gridlock? Do we need two full houses for 35 million people? Is this in the best interests of Canadian governance?
We in the NDP believe it is not.