Mr. Speaker, I intend to address the relative merits of the bill, but I wanted to first point out the origin of the bill.
The Conservatives appointed the party president to the Senate, then the chief campaign manager of their election, then the chief fundraiser and then the communications director. The entire Conservative war room is now sitting in the Senate doing purely partisan work and the Canadian taxpayer is paying for it and their staff and their travel privileges. It is an atrocity. It is atrocious that the House of Commons does not rise up and finally deal with Senate reform because it is an international embarrassment.
As I said, the Conservatives lost any credibility when they killed the climate change bill without a single witness being heard and without a single hour of debate in that chamber. It took five years to get it through the House of Commons through careful delicate negotiations and it passed at all stages in the House of Commons.
In fact, that is the direction things are supposed to go. We develop the legislation, the Senate is allowed to check it for spelling mistakes and then we get it back. We do not deal with its legislation, it deals with our legislation.
The best thing to do with legislation like this that has an “S” on the front is to tear it up and throw it in the air. That is all it is good for.