Madam Speaker, I wish to congratulate my hon. friend from Sackville—Eastern Shore for being elected the most congenial of members of Parliament five years in a row. He reflected that in not taking any hits against any person named in the Senate, who are all good people.
I want to buttress his arguments slightly by going to Bill C-7. There really is no mandatory element that senators should come from this list. Clause 3 states that the Prime Minister “must consider names from the list”. Within the schedule, paragraph 1, we have the strange construction that “Senators to be appointed for a province or territory should be chosen”.
As a student of law, I learned that we look for discretionary language “may” or mandatory language “shall”. I have never before found a “should” in legislation.
I find this whole thing rather illusory that the government is requiring anyone to come from a list that is elected. Could my hon. friend comment on that?