Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member's presentation. He seems to be very much in favour of the consistent application of certain principles. This raises a couple of questions.
Why did he single out only senators appointed by Liberal governments and leave aside the most egregious appointment that has been seen in decades? That would be the appointment of the public works and government services minister, who refuses to run in an election in Montreal. Every time a seat opens up, he refuses squarely to run for election. I would like to hear the hon. member's opinion about that.
If the member is in favour of consistency, I wonder if he would go a step further and argue for what exists in the United States, that judges should be elected as well. If he is in favour of consistency, why would he not be in favour of the same election rules for the Senate and the House of Commons?
If he believes in accountability, I would like to know what he thinks about the arguments put forth by those who believe in proportional representation, that it is a more democratic system than the first past the post system.
I would like to raise a hypothetical situation. Let us suppose that the Prime Minister went to a system where he only appoints senators who have been elected. If a province decided not to play by those rules for whatever legitimate reason it might have, and there were retirements of senators from that province, but the Prime Minister would not appoint senators unless they were elected, and the provincial government would not go to elections, that would mean that province would be underrepresented in the Senate. What does the hon. member think about that?