Mr. Speaker, the individual talks about the unelected and unaccountable Liberal Senate. My colleague, the Minister for Democratic Reform, who interestingly enough is also the sponsor of this legislation, has made the point on a couple of occasions that we are prepared to bring in reforms. One is to shorten the term for Senators from 45 years to 8 years. Is that radical? Another is to consult with people directly about who should be a senator in this country. I guess that is another one of those issues that is sitting in the Senate in an expeditious manner. There are couple of those issues sitting there in that expeditious manner as mentioned by the hon. member from the Liberal Party.
I will tell the House what I am worried about. I just do not want the Liberal-dominated Senate to be doing the dirty work for the Liberals in the House of Commons. If they want to defeat these pieces of legislation such as the tackling violent crime act, fine. I indicated that on one of the components there, five of them went against their own party in support of the government.
I am just saying to them to do what other people do. They do not have to take my word for it. They can take the word of those organizations. They can take the word of the people at MADD, or the premier of Ontario, or former attorney general Michael Bryant, who said that the “federal Liberal approach” to fighting crime was something out of “the summer of love”. That is not something that I made up. That is something he said and of course I agree with him.
Let me say for the hon. member from the Bloc, yes, we want it passed, but we were very clear when it was in the House of Commons. He and other members will remember me saying that yes, we were prepared to go to the people of the country in regard to any attempt to sabotage that bill because we believe that it is so important for the benefit of this country.
Yes, we were prepared to go to the people of the country. I made that same point when I went to the Senate last Wednesday and said to let us get it done, let us fast track this, and then we will not have to worry about these things, but that if the senators did not, we were prepared to advise the Prime Minister that this is a confidence matter.