Mr. Speaker, I agree with my good friend on a lot of political points but there are some on which I do not agree. I think the public is eager and hungry for change here and this could be a very popular move. I do not think that even the members of the Bloc would object to senators being elected by the people. I think their objection would be that this may run up against the Constitution. They may be right but I do not think so.
The minister pointed out that in the past 143 years there has only been one change to the Senate and that was in 1965 when the age of retirement was limited to 75 years where it had previously been unlimited. It is clear that the House can make certain decisions and the government obviously contends that this is one of them. I tend to agree with it. This should be one of the changes that the government should be allowed to make.
Where we get into the constitutional question is when there is more fundamental change to the structure. On that basis, I think the Bloc member may be right. If the government were making more fundamental changes, perhaps there would be room for a court challenge, but this is not, to my mind, a huge change that would require a challenge to the courts. The members say that may happen, and it may at the end of the day, but it also may not.
Yesterday the Liberals mentioned that they think there could be a court challenge here. On the other hand, they are saying that they might be able to go along with this bill if we were to limit it to 15-year terms. I think the Liberals are holding their cards open here and in that way they can win either way. Their argument is that if it is going to go through, they want to have a 15-year term. They are thinking that if they get it thrown over to the courts it will be another 10 or 15 year delay. However, when they lose their majority in the Senate, watch them change their view on that. Then they will be complaining that the Conservatives are dominating the Senate, ramming legislation through and being unfair to them. I think the Liberals, in particular, are in a very difficult, dicey situation here because no matter which way they turn they have a problem.