Mr. Speaker, it is a little ironic that a member of the NDP would criticize the people who supported the triple-E Senate for being in opposition in perpetuity.
The fact is that the NDP is well established in saying that it would like the abolition of the Senate, which is fine, but that will not happen any time soon because of the obvious constitutional obligations and so on.
The government is taking a step by step approach that is within the purview of Parliament. The eight-year non-renewable limit is one of those things, and I appreciate the NDP supporting that.
The senatorial selection act, which was introduced in the other place, would allow people to have a direct say in who the nominees for the Senate would be. The NDP provincial government said that it would look into this, which it has with a bipartisan committee. This would give even the NDP the opportunity to run candidates for the Senate within eight years if both pieces of legislation go through as planned.
Why would the member not support Senate selection when he does support the eight-year term limit?