Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this debate today. I appreciate the passion from my colleague from Hamilton and from the NDP on this subject.
I really do disagree with the NDP's position on this issue. I want to talk a bit about some of the merits of Senate elections and the demerits of the NDP position.
I am the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works. As members know, the Minister of Public Works is a senator. One of the benefits of the current system is seen when we have a federal election. In the last federal election, the Conservative Party did not get a member of Parliament elected from downtown Montreal. We have the view that the second largest city in Canada should have somebody sitting at the cabinet table to defend the issues relating to the city of Montreal. We appointed Mr. Fortier as a cabinet minister and Minister of Public Works.
We also decided that there should be a measure of democratic accountability, so he was appointed as well to the Senate, because the Senate has a question period and has an access so that opposition parties can ask him questions directly about his activities as Minister of Public Works.
I suspect the NDP may well condemn what we did in this regard, but my colleague should know that when the NDP was in government in British Columbia, it did the exact same thing. When the NDP was in power, it appointed as minister of aboriginal affairs an individual who had not been elected. The NDP did so because at the time we were just coming out of a debate over the Nisga'a agreement in British Columbia and that party wanted to have an aboriginal cabinet minister at the cabinet table.
We believe that at this time in Canada's history all regions of Canada should be represented at the cabinet table. We also want to make sure that all the diverse regions of Quebec are represented, including Canada's second largest city. This is an important thing. This is a practice that has been done before.
We want to make sure that regions of this country are represented. There are 50 separatists here in the House of Commons who want to rip Quebec from the future of this country and we want to make sure that the province is well respected and well represented at the cabinet table. We have done that. Minister Fortier will be putting himself forward to be a member of the House for the riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges in the next election campaign.
I have a question for my colleague. It has not been uncommon for provincial premiers historically to be in favour of abolishing the Senate, because they all have unicameral legislatures so it makes sense for them to say that this should be transitioned federally. The problem, of course, is that historically it is a two party system in most provincial election campaigns so there are majority governments and of course it makes sense to get rid of an upper chamber so there is unfettered support.
However, in our system it does not serve our best interests. I believe that my colleague's constituents in Hamilton would not support the NDP position of abolishing the Senate, given that if it is abolished, the cities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver alone, those three cities, would have an absolute majority of seats in the House. The regions, the suburban areas, the rural areas and the northern areas in this country would not have the same effective voice that they do now with a balanced system where we have provincial representation and a fair voice in the House of Commons.
There are reasons for the status quo. There are ways to improve it, but I think the NDP approach is thoroughly backward.