Mr. Speaker, I listened with some attention to the address by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River tonight.
She takes issue with the Prime Minister appointing some 50 senators, having said that he would not do so. She said that the Conservatives and the Liberals had not taken this issue seriously.
The member, if she were listening to the debate in the House tonight, would know that we cannot abolish the Senate simply by cutting funding. It is part of the constitution and we simply cannot ignore it.
On the issue of appointing senators, would the member not acknowledge that the era when the Prime Minister had left about 18 seats vacant, hoping to appoint senators who were elected, like the ones from Alberta, after a coalition of NDP, Liberal and Bloc leaders proposed to appoint their own senators, the Prime Minister acted to fill those positions so they would not be used that way.
Will the member not admit that the motion today is just a gimmick. Although we are all upset about abuses in the Senate, we are seriously trying to make—