Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for understanding the fundamental issue before us tonight. We are not talking about defying the Supreme Court. We are talking about our job as the elected members of this House representing the taxpayers of this country to establish some manner of rules.
We have given the crowd in the so-called upper chamber 150 years to reform themselves. They refused. When the Accountability Act was brought in, they said that they were exempt from it. They limited the ability of the investigative officer, the ethics officer for the Senate, to even begin an investigation without their permission. That is how defiant they are. They believe that they are above us.
If we look at the House of Lords, they only get paid if they show up. They only get a per diem. That is not a bad model. That has nothing to do with the constitutionality of the Senate. We have to put the financial spending of the Senate on the table, because every Canadian has been told to tighten the belt. Every Canadian has been told that the cupboard is bare.
My hon. Liberal colleagues said nothing about the fact that the government is going after the pensions of civil servants, or the fact that people have to make their medical payments when they retire. The crowd over in the Senate—