Madam Speaker, it would be truer to say that what I said was that it was not that the bill was unfair, but rather that it does not deal with one of the issues that confronts us today, and that is absolutely true.
I would be willing to do this sort of thing, but whether there is a national willingness is not for me to decide. Whether the nation says that it is satisfied with the way things are is not for me to decide.
I would point out the goal of the original Confederation deal on the subject of Senate representation. There was no illusion at the time that we were trying to achieve representation by population in the Upper House, quite the contrary. Nor was there the goal to achieve what the Americans had done, which was equal representation for each of the states. The goal was to achieve equal representation for each of the regions. At that time, we perceived Canada as consisting of three regions: Quebec, Ontario and the Maritime provinces. The west was contemplated but did not come in. When it did, a change was made to the Constitution to allow for equal representation for the western region. That regional principle of representation inequality, more or less, stays in place.
There is a separate issue one could point to. There are 24 senators for each region except for the Atlantic region, which is, population wise, less than half the size of the next region, and yet it has seven extra senators because Newfoundland entered in and was given extra senators.
These are things I genuinely do think can be dealt with by means of goodwill. I do not lose faith in the goodwill of all members, both people in the regions that are under-represented and understand that is not the end of the world, and those who are in the over-represented regions who have a sense that we might want to make corrections. However, I leave that to them. I should not be making decisions on their behalf.