Mr. Speaker, I am afraid my hon. colleague confuses two things. We could have a good, wholesome debate about whether or not the Senate should be abolished, whether it is worth the $90 million, whether Canadians get good value out of it, whether it should be abolished or whether it should be reformed, et cetera.
What we cannot do is simply cut off the funding and expect this federal government to continue with business as usual. As I have explained in two speeches in one day, the effect of doing that would be to cut all the civil servants out and to cut out all the operating expenditures of the government. There would be no lights on in this room or in the other chamber down the hall. Nothing would happen. All of the Senate staff would be fired. The government could not get things through the Senate. The only statutory expenditure, which the member for Winnipeg Centre mentioned, for the Senate, is the salaries of senators.
Is the NDP suggesting that the Senate should have nothing to do, but the senators should continue to be paid? Is that their idea?