Senator Dalphond: Senator MacDonald, did you think about this amendment before the first amendment or after the first amendment?

Senator Dalphond: Thank you for agreeing to answer my question.

In a country where a majority government can be elected when one party wins between 37% and 41% of the vote, that means that 60% of the people did not vote for that government. Are you saying that if there are ever changes in government, we should speak for the 60% who didn’t vote for that government and prevent its bills from being passed?

Senator Dalphond: I guess it is a bit like in court. The first test is the smell test. If I like the smell, I have a tendency to favour the answer, but this is not the test we have to apply here.

The test here is what our constitutional role is further to that message. Some will like the message, some will not like it, but this is not the answer.

The answer is whether, further to an analysis, we find we have the constitutional authority to say no and insist upon one or more amendments. The answer, as I’ve tried to demonstrate in my speech, is that there is no reason here to justify insisting upon any of the six amendments that were rejected. Thank you.

Senator Housakos: That is an excellent question, Senator Dalphond.

First of all, as you know, our small group of Conservatives speaks for the majority of Canadians, since we won the majority of votes in the last election. This is an important vote, and we still won more votes than the party that was in power. We won more votes than the current government in two consecutive elections.

It goes without saying that even a democratic parliamentary system is perfectly imperfect. I would also point out that the government is of course elected based on its electoral platform. However, we must not forget that in any election platform, like the Liberal Party platform, it is one thing to say that the Broadcasting Act will be reformed. But the details of the reform process aren’t included in the election platform. The details come later, in a bill, and if there’s any time for the upper house to do its job, it’s to study all the details. An election platform is very general.

Furthermore, I would never argue that we should support a bill simply because reviewing it was part of a political party’s platform, since that is entirely contrary to the idea of the independence of this great parliamentary institution.

[English]

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Thank you very much for this proposal, senator. Did you think about this amendment before the first amendment or after?

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Would the senator take a question?