Mr. Speaker, I might be a little partisan in my remarks here. It has happened from time to time.
Any time we have discussions about democracy, there are certain forces in this world that are always claiming they are acting in the best interest of the people, for the people, but the reality is it is just a smokescreen. We only have to ask the Hugo Chavezs of the world. What happens when totalitarian leftists or extremists on either side get into power? They circumvent all the processes that they have to in order to seize and hold power indefinitely.
Our first-past-the-post system is a tried and tested method of democracy. We have inherited this from our parent countries when we became our own country. This is something that works and it works in the House. It will work in the upper chamber as well.
We can elected people who belong to provincial parties, or people with affiliations to federal parties, or people with no affiliation to any political party at all. What a novel concept. How many members of Parliament have heard complaints from their constituents in that they do not really like the party but they vote for the person?
Now we have an opportunity through this legislation to elect an individual with no party affiliation at all to represent the interest of a province in the upper chamber. However, the New Democrats say that this is not good enough for them.