Mr. Speaker, I agree completely with my colleague from Ottawa Centre, as I regularly do, which will not surprise anybody here.
We heard from the current Minister of State for Democratic Reform of the constant need to modernize the Senate. What do we get instead? We get the same old stuff that we used to get from the Liberals: stacking the Senate with bagmen, with party insiders and with the representatives of the upper class in Canada. We get the same old appointments to stack the Senate to get government business through, to do the bidding of the Prime Minister. These are people who have no accountability to the Canadian people. The only accountability they have is to the person who appointed them, and that is the Prime Minister. Time after time they show that is where their accountability lies.
I do not want to deny that the Senate has done good work from time to time, but it is still not a legitimate body. I have a mandate from the Canadian people. I stand at election regularly and I am accountable to the people who elect me. People in the Senate never have to do that, and that is wrong.