Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his very pertinent question
With this bill, the Liberals are taking a somewhat populist approach, suggesting that MPs and democracy cost too much and that we should not be spending money on that. In our opinion, as democrats, that sort of argument can be used in an extremely dangerous manner.
The issue of cost is important because we want to manage public money properly. We do not want to waste money. However, let us look at democratic representation. We are the representatives of the people. We have a mandate. We can be dismissed if our constituents are unhappy with us. That happens quite regularly. We have been surprised at times. Nonetheless, we have a legitimacy that the senators do not have because they are appointed.
Speaking of cost, I wonder why the Liberal Party wants to maintain a Senate that cost $107 million last year. Why not abolish the Senate, as the NDP is proposing, and take that money and invest some of it in having more legitimate, democratically elected representatives of the people here in this House?