Mr. Speaker, I do not know why my friend thinks his particular version of the constitutional requirements is the correct one because we have a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada now.
My hon. colleague thinks a change to the Senate would require unanimity in the Constitution, and some would think that. Others, however, believe that we can amend the Constitution with the approval of seven provinces with 50% of the population. That is the first thing.
Second, I would ask why he is disagreeing with the interim leader of his party, who, in 1984, stated:
In its conception and in its operations, the Senate is neither regionally representative in the sense that we understand it today, nor is it democratic. In tact the Canadian Senate is an undemocratic institution working at the heart of democratic government. That fact, combined with the history of the Senate as nothing more or less than a tool of patronage in the hands of the party in power, has led [me]...to the conviction that the Senate should be abolished.
That is what the leader of the Liberal Party said. The former premier of Ontario, Mr. McGuinty, has called for the abolition of the Senate. Premier Christy Clark of British Columbia said that the Senate has outlived its usefulness. I do not think my hon. colleague commands—