Senator Woo: Thank you, Senator Housakos, for your questions. To the second question first — we are not elected. The will of the public is not reflected in the composition of this chamber. Therefore, your point about neglecting the will in the other house is irrelevant.

With respect to your question about appointing both — and it wasn’t quite clear how your question as constructed makes sense — insofar as you’re asking how the Government Representative Office, or GRO, can be appointed, I will leave the GRO to explain for itself. I will speak for myself and for the 80 other senators who sit as non-partisans that we are clearly not part of the government. For you and your colleagues to claim repeatedly that we’re part of the government is an insult to us because it goes against what we believe ourselves to be. We don’t need to explain further why we’re not part of the government because it says clearly in the rolls of the Senate that we sit as independents in three different groups that are non-partisan.

Senator Housakos: Senator Woo, there’s something in the Westminster system called parliamentary responsibility and accountability. You cannot say the elected house in our parliamentary system is irrelevant. Nobody will accept that. Your accountability, and mine, and that of everybody in this chamber comes through that elected house. At the end of the day, as we’ve always said, for this place to function, and as it has functioned, the opposition, as chosen by the people in an election, determines the party members in this chamber who represent the opposition; and the government’s side is chosen by the people in a general election who choose the governing side, including all of their appointees.

Again, the important question here is this: If you’re not accountable through a democratic process in the other chamber, to whom are you accountable?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, two years ago the people of Alberta elected three people to be their nominees for appointment to the Senate: Pam Davidson, Erika Barootes and Mykhailo Martyniouk. Over a million Albertans voted. This is truly an independent advisory board. There are currently two Senate vacancies from Alberta.

Senator Gold, when will the Prime Minister appoint two of the elected nominees to the Senate and respect the democratic will of Alberta?