Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his excellent question. He is right. At a time when money is tight and deficits are enormous, we could be taking this opportunity to save a great deal of money. The Conservatives have gone from a $17 billion surplus, which they inherited from the Liberals, to a $50 billion deficit. Of course they will tell us there is a global crisis and so forth.
My colleague is doubly right when we see how the parliamentary system works. A bill is passed and sent to the Senate where senators can make amendments to it. However, if we are not happy with those amendments, we can bring the bill back to the House of Commons and reverse the Senate's decision. That is what happens. In theory, there should not even be a Senate. We should pass legislation and that is where it should end.
The Senate did a study on safety, noise, nuisances and so on in the railway system. When it looked at the bill passed by the House of Commons, the Senate only called in the railway companies because it did not want to hear from those who were reporting the problems with the railway in the first place. The Senate ended up changing our bill because the Conservatives convinced the Liberals to do so. They were already lobbying then.
When we saw the senators engaging in such partisanship and listening only to those they were interested in, we should have stood up to them and passed the bill as it was. The House of Commons has priority. In the legislative system, the Senate serves no purpose.