Mr. Speaker, I always find it somewhat strange whenever I hear a member of the Bloc Québécois stand and criticize a parliamentary institution like the Senate because as we know, the Bloc does not believe in the Senate. In fact, the Bloc does not believe in Parliament. In fact, the Bloc does not believe in Canada, at least the Canada as I know it, a Canada that includes Quebec, because the Bloc, as we all know, wants Quebec to separate from Canada.
So, on one hand, to complain about a parliamentary institution while in the same breath arguing against Parliament seems to be, at best, a slight bit hypocritical.
However, I would suggest that if he does truly have a concern about the Senate and perhaps, as he thinks, the Senate's abuse of power, he should join with us and our government in our attempts to reform the Senate.
We believe that the Senate, as we know it now, the status quo, is not an option. We believe there needs to be some democratic reform initiatives brought into the Senate. Specifically, we have a couple of initiatives before us, one emanating out of the Senate, called the senatorial selection act, which is an attempt to allow Canadians to voice their opinion on who they would like to see represent them in the Senate. The second, of course, is Senate term limits, an act that we have here in Parliament which would restrict the length of time that senators could spend in the Senate. Our term limit is suggested as eight years, as opposed to the current 45 year maximum.
Those two reform initiatives alone would go a long way toward ensuring that the Senate of Canada is a better place, a more functioning place, and represents Canadians better.
I encourage the member opposite to join us with those initiatives.
