Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my comments, I agree with much of what my friend has just said and invite him to take that step, as I said in my address, of putting the question to the Canadian people.
Undoubtedly the issues of conflict of interest and accountability existing in the Senate are ones that concern us. We have a very different set of standards in the House of Commons. We would like to see a similar kind of ethical standards applied in the Senate.
However, it is beyond our reach. It is an appointed body, unaccountable and largely Liberal dominated. Thus far it has resisted those kinds of changes in accountability that we would like to see, although it did not hesitate to get involved in dealing with the Federal Accountability Act.
What is more remarkable is our efforts to reform and change the Senate in some ways face another legislation coming out of the Senate, which seeks to make it harder for that change to happen. Believe it or not, it is a bill being put forward by a senator to make patronage appointments to the Senate mandatory and to compel the Prime Minister to make them now. It is hard to believe that exists, but it comes from a Liberal senator, so it is not entirely surprising.
We have indicated our strong resistance and opposition to that. I hope when it comes over to this chamber, our friends in the New Democratic Party will join us in opposing that measure. It is bad enough we have a Senate chamber that continues to be dominated by a single party, the Liberal Party, which has used it for its own benefit, to reward its activists, its fundraisers, its political campaign organizers, and has resisted any democratic change. However, to make mandatory that further patronage appointments have to be made now would help ensure that further efforts at reform down the road would take that much longer to legitimately democratize the Senate. We want to see it democratized. We want to see it reflect 21st century democratic values.
We would be happy if it represented 20th of 19th century democratic values. The fact is it is an institution more reflective of the 18th century, the time of aristocrats and noblemen. That is not the Canada of today. This is not the democracy of which we are proud, and we want to see that change.