Mr. Speaker, I do not see anything in the current approach to the Senate, either in the current make-up of the Senate or in the approach to actually appointing who is there, that would meet any of the goals the member seems to want.
If it happens there is a more equitable distribution there, of women for example, as reflecting the population or minorities, that only happens by accident. The prime minister of the day has no formula to follow as senators are appointed. I do not see there is any great difference here.
We have a formula now in terms of how many senators can come from each province or region. In fact, when we talk about equitability, I do not think I share the view of the member for Vancouver Quadra. We do have a problem in B.C., that we do not have the right number of senators, but not because there is only a certain number for the population of British Columbia. That would make it a proportional institution, something like the House, which runs counter to what the Senate should be like. It should be an equal number of votes for a region or province. It does not have to do with proportional representation based on population.
There is some work to be done. We need more senators from B.C. because the other regions have more.