Mr. Speaker, let us clarify this. My friend read out a list of all these senators who have done really bad things. Some of them have stolen things and are being investigated by the RCMP. However, his list stops short by party affiliation. As soon as he runs out of Conservative senators who have stolen from taxpayers, he cannot go to those Liberal senators who have done the exact same thing. Does he not understand how that contradiction, that hypocrisy, might rub Canadians slightly the wrong way—that it is okay to do something as a Liberal that is not okay to do as a Conservative? That does not make any sense.
That is why for decades New Democrats have stood in this place and argued that the system itself is the problem. The privileges that are given to senators, writ large, to enjoy as they please on the so-called honour system will feed the very scandal that is now at the feet of the Prime Minister, with the RCMP knocking on the Prime Minister's Office seemingly every week.
To simply suggest that this is just a one-off scandal, that Mac Harb did nothing wrong, and that Lavigne, who is another Liberal senator and is in jail, did nothing wrong because they are Liberals reminds me of the Gomery inquiry, when if it was being done in a cause that was aligned with the Liberals, then it was okay because it was a Canadian cause.
Theft is theft. Breaking the public trust is breaking the public trust. Why not simply address it in the motion before the House? Why not simply agree that reform, and perhaps abolishment, is the right cause?