Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my Liberal colleague, and I certainly think the issue here is what the Liberals have done for years. They will point to this senator or that senator and say, “See, because we as a party have chosen who will make decisions, there are certainly some who will actually show up and do their jobs”.
However, that is not the question here. The question is whether that is right, whether that works in a 21st century democracy.
I had spoken earlier about the egregious loopholes that exist within the conflict of interest guidelines of the Senate, which these senators chose for themselves. For every good and hard-working senator that he can name, we can name many senators who have very low attendance records or have conflicts of interest.
We have, for example, Michael Kirby, who sits on the board of the largest private health care company in Canada, yet he was able to chair and write a report for a Senate committee study on the future of health care in Canada.
We have numerous senators who sit on the boards of telecommunications operations, even those these are federally regulated. We have Michael Meighen who is a director and trustee in 25 companies, including many income trusts, so certainly this could come before the Senate and he would be in a position to speak on--