Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his questions. Democracy costs money. Yes, we can cut expenses in the House of Commons by reducing the number of members.
However, democracy does cost money and, in order to add these new MPs, it will cost money, but that is the price one pays to live in a democratic system.
I have heard similar arguments from people who say that we have had too many elections and that we can do without the expense of an election. We could go to elections every 10 years and we would save $500 million or $600 million, but that is not reflective of the values in this country. We need to have a democracy and that involves certain costs. This is the price we pay to live in a democracy.
As far as abolishing the Senate, that is not constitutionally and politically possible at this juncture so it is a moot point.