Mr. Speaker, the amplification system may not be working. I think the member was talking about recent government appointees to the Immigration Review Board and the Employment Insurance Umpire Board, who I think were 100% Conservative appointees.
However, if I heard him talk about Senate appointees, I make no apology for prime ministers and parties who were in this place 100 or 150 years ago. In some of those years, women were not allowed to vote. There was hanging in this country. It was not the country that it is today. I do not know where that is coming from.
I am suggesting that the government ought to speak to its provincial counterparts. It ought to come back with a bill that is destined to deadlock between the two Houses. That member may find himself some day in an argument with some senator, elected or selected from Saskatchewan, who claims that because he had a province wide election he has a lot more clout than that member and whatever he says in the Senate is more important. I am not saying that is good or bad. They work it in the United States but they have had a history of a powerful bicameral government. We have not had that history. The Senate was designed to safeguard provincial interests but it was not given the power that this House has.
Does the bill mean that the two Houses would be on a collision course and that you, Mr. Speaker, would be a much less powerful person in this country? I hope not.