Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the member understands the bill. I have no big problem with an elected Senate. I think Senate reform is a good idea. I think proportionality and representation are all good ideas, but I do not know that they can be done piecemeal.
The member said that when we have one Senate vacancy, there would be an election with a transferable ballot, a preferential ballot, not the first past the post. If we look at a province like Ontario and consider that the government is advancing two bills, one for fixed terms limiting the terms at eight years and another one for elected senators, we would have to calculate that every four years we would have at least 12 or 13 senators to be elected.
Presumably we would not have one a month or every two months. We would have these all at the same time. If we had a dozen senators and if it is split every four years for an election, then we would have a minimum of 12 people. If we want to set the selection of the three preferred ones, we would have to be voting for 36 people, I would presume, or a long list of people. It seems to me like a complicated and convoluted process.
In a province like Ontario, how would anybody from any of the regions outside Toronto ever get elected?