Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent question and I thank the member for it. My answer to that would be that to the best of my knowledge each of the parties in this place, if we ever did go that way, has confirmed that it would elect anyone on any list within each one's own party.
There would have to be some level of democracy. I doubt that any of us would stand for our party leader unilaterally saying “him, her and him”, who suddenly get seats. There is that accountability back to the party. In large part, that accountability will be reflected by how well the party did in the last election. If it did not do very well, it knows where the weak spots are. The hon. member has been around politics a long, long time. He knows how that would be.
The difference, of course, is that with the Senate, if a person is appointed at 40 years old, he or she has a 35 year term and at no point, none, ever, does he or she account to anyone for that time.
I take the point. It is a valid one, but I do think that the element of democracy still being in there does stand the test of time in terms of a comparison between the “win a lottery for life” sort of thing over there versus still having to go back to somebody in the democratic process, where at the end of the day, the people still decide. If we do not get any votes for our party, nobody will get in there.
That is not case in the other place. It is still a matter of one person in this entire nation, one person in the Prime Minister's Office, who decides who goes into the Senate. Once they are there, they never, ever have to account to anyone about anything.