I would comment, as well, that my colleague from the Bloc is continuing to heckle me.
The reason the Bloc Québécois is in favour of abolishing the Senate is because in order to abolish the Senate we must amend the Constitution. There is nothing the Bloc would rather have this country do than to get into a divisive constitutional debate.
What is more, the Bloc members want to abolish the Senate because it wants to have that Senate debate. They also recognize that about a quarter of the 105 senators are from the province of Quebec, which means that about 75% of the Senate are federalists. The Bloc does not like the idea of having that many more people in Ottawa in one of the two Houses of Parliament fighting for and defending Canada's interests. It wants to have fewer federalists in Ottawa, which is why it believes in abolishing the Senate.
The members of the Bloc Québécois, as usual, are up to their own mischief on this issue. They do not have a sincere position. Their position is about mischief making and about driving their agenda of tearing Quebec from the heart of Canada and we, frankly, will not have any of that.
This bill is about consultation. It is about reaching out to provinces and recognizing their role in having provinces at the forefront of the decision making of who will represent the provinces in Canada's upper house, which is an important step forward.
It is important to note that the province of Alberta has Senate election legislation and it has been exercised twice. In our government, we appointed Bert Brown to the Senate, who was elected by the people of Alberta. When a subsequent vacancy arises, the Premier of Alberta will have the capacity to elect senators in waiting who will then be appointed to the Senate on a democratic basis by the people of Alberta.
Under the NDP, the New Democratic government in the province of Manitoba passed bill 20 to elect senators in the province of Manitoba. The citizens of that province can have their say on who will be fighting on their behalf on Parliament Hill.
In the province of Saskatchewan, Premier Brad Wall has already indicated that he is drafting legislation and working hard to put forward Senate election legislation in the province of Saskatchewan so that the people of Saskatchewan can decide who their senators will be.
In British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell has indicated that he is interested in following this path as well.
We have a conceivable situation where the four western provinces of Canada, based on their democratic choice, will enter into a process to elect senators at the grassroots level so Canadians can have a direct say in which politicians are in Ottawa, spending their money, in scripting their freedom and advocating for public policy changes. It is important that Canadians have that democratic right. That is something our party has always advocated and it is something in which I have always believed.
The is all about that. It is about consultation with provinces and it is about incremental reforms.
My colleague from Timmins-James Bay also mentioned the former Liberal government, under the member for LaSalle—Émard when he was prime minister. He used to constantly say, when he was campaigning in western Canada, that he believed in Senate reform. He was not prepared to engage in sweeping constitutional reform and Senate reform. He was not prepared to have any kind of incremental reform. Outside of that, he was all in favour of Senate reform.
We recognize we have a minority Parliament. We think Canadians are prepared for this debate and are prepared to engage in it. I do not think we want to go down the road of engaging in constitutional discussions if it is not necessary. We think there can be incremental Senate reform in the country, and this is one of the mechanisms by which it can be done.
A couple of bills on Senate reform are being considered by the House. The other bill is to have Senate term limits, to limit the number of years somebody can serve in the Senate, from a maximum of 45 years down to 8 years. That is a reasonable reform and proposition. Also we have the bill before us, which provides for consultation.
I reiterate the point that abolishing the Senate requires a constitutional amendment. The New Democrat position is a very idealistic one, but it is a very unrealistic one. Without constitutional amendment, the Senate cannot be abolished.
There is a backdoor way of abolishing the Senate, which is do not appoint any senators, leave the vacancies sitting there. Over time, these vacancies will accumulate. There are a couple of problems associated with that. One is the Senate vacancies will not come up proportionately across the country. We may be a situation where one province is dramatically disadvantaged in the Senate by virtue of the number of vacancies relative to another province.
We are almost getting to that point in British Columbia. Three out of the six seats in the Senate are currently vacant. Half of our Senate delegation is not there. We hope those seats will be filled through a democratic process, ultimately by consultation.
The other problem with the backdoor way of abolishing the Senate, without constitutional reform, is we get into this dynamic where the smaller the Senate, the more power it has. We have seen this. We have seen the Senate exercise its power in a way that is not helpful to the democratic mandate provided to the House by the Canadian people. We have seen that in the past and we see it today.
We know the clichéd saying that the Senate is supposed to be the chamber of sober second thought. We have the example of Bill C-2, a comprehensive crime bill. It was one of the cornerstone issues on which Conservatives campaigned in the last election campaign. When I campaigned in my district in the suburbs of Vancouver, it was the dominant issue I pushed on the doorsteps. That was what I heard back from my constituents. As good politicians, we talk about the issues that are of concern to our constituents.
Criminal justice reform was probably the central issue of concern for my constituents. We campaigned hard on criminal justice reform matters. We were elected to Parliament on the basis of our criminal justice platform, and we put forward these bills twice, once in the individual forms, and we did not succeed. The House prorogued. We came back, we packaged them together in Bill C-2, a comprehensive tackling violent crime act, and we have pushed that legislation forward.
We had full debate in the House of Commons on the legislation in the original form. When it came in the form of Bill C-2, we had a full debate in the House. We had a full debate at committee. We considered amendments and accepted them. Then the bill finally passed, with the support of opposition parties. Now it is in the hands of the Senate.
The government was elected on the basis of a very specific platform of criminal justice reforms. We passed them in the House, with the support of the opposition parties, and they went to the Senate. Now the Liberal Senate members have proposed 59 witnesses on Bill C-2 to logjam bill at the Senate side. After more than two years of government, where we have compromised on the bill, we have worked together, we have worked across party lines, we have passed the bill, we want to see it become a reality. This kind of activity on the Senate side needs to be stopped.
Therefore, if there is abolition of the Senate through constitutional means, the Bloc will play its games. If there is abolition of the Senate through backdoor means, by restricting senators, a smaller number of people will be empowered to play more games like we have seen on Bill C-2.
The way to go ahead is to have incremental reform with reasonable measures. It is not unreasonable to say that senators should sit for a maximum of eight years rather than 45 years and have that responsibility of being a senator circumscribed to that amount of time. That is an entirely reasonable reform.
The second one we have proposed is to have the federal government sit down with the provinces and consult with them in the best way to allow the people to decide who should legislate on their behalf in Ottawa.
This is quite straightforward. I think if that proposition were put forward to Canadians, we would win this debate 95:5. This is why I hope the bill will see that kind of support in the House, with the support of opposition parties.