Mr. Speaker, perhaps what I should do is respond to the parliamentary secretary's question in the first part of his response.
He asked why, following the Supreme Court's ruling, the former prime minister did not go ahead and fill the vacancies with elections? The reason is that only one province, Alberta, actually has a senatorial election act. There were no vacancies in Alberta. The next one is in 2018. He had previously made appointments from those selected under the Alberta senatorial selection act. No one said that was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court certainly did not.
What the Supreme Court did say with regard to the prime ministerial monopoly on appointment, which the government seems to regard as being constitutionalized, was that it was purely a constitutional convention. Therefore, in fact, the current government could make appointments to the Senate from Alberta based on the elections. I encourage it to do so.