Mr. Speaker, I realize how difficult it must be for the member to defend the 143 years, mainly Liberal years of government and having done absolutely nothing to make changes that we are talking about right now.
The Minister of State for Democratic Reform pointed out that in 143 years, there was a change limiting the retirement age of senators to 75 years back in 1965.
The fact of the matter is the NDP have been in favour of abolition of the Senate for many years. However, I think we have to recognize that incrementalism in this case is perhaps something we have to deal with. We are not looking at abolition so we may have to take this one piece at a time.
The Conservative minister who is proposing the bill is actually coming out of a process where the previous party wanted many more changes. It wanted elected senators and many more changes but it was unable to get them because of the constitutional aspects.
We have to give the minister credit for at least making a little bit of a step. This is not a big step. I do not see why the Liberals should have a big problem with this and would want to delay it another 10 years by sending it to the Supreme Court.