Madam Speaker, I have been to many countries that have proportional representation. The people are appointed through a convention, not by a leader of a party. Their appointment is not done through one person.
I am not degrading people in the other place. I am not saying that the senators do not do any work. I am asking if we need the Senate.
The member says that senate is the place of sober second thought, but that is why we have committees. If the government were to stop putting time allocation on debate in the House of Commons and let us do our jobs, if it did not stop debate in committees and let us do our jobs, then maybe we would not need that other place to do the second thought. We could do our own sober second thought. Right now the government is stopping us from doing our jobs, yet it is telling us that we need the Senate to repair things. We could do the repair work right here. Leave us to do our work.
The Conservative government has stopped debate in the House 11 times. We are allowed to debate a bill for two hours and that is it. That is not democracy; that is anti-democracy. The member should think about that too.