Thank you, Senator Plett, for your question and for your offer of support, which I hereby accept. And thank you for outing the best-kept secret that I’m relying upon Senator Gagné and Senator LaBoucane-Benson to prop me up in the days and weeks to come.

You asked an important question and I can answer with clarity and sincerity. I believe in the independence of the Senate as an institution. That’s why I became a senator, and that’s why I agreed and was honoured to accept the role as Government Representative. And I support the independence of individual senators, because we are all independent in fundamentally and important structural ways.

So I did not intend to communicate — and I don’t think those were my words but, rather, a headline that suggested people should curb enthusiasm. On the contrary, we have a duty to scrutinize legislation, do it properly and do it in full recognition of our constitutional role as a chamber of Parliament — but one that is complementary to the House of Commons.

What I did want to express, however, is that we are in an unprecedented time in our history. Many minority governments have preceded us, as we know. They are hardly abnormal in Canadian parliamentary history. But never before has there been a minority government and a Senate that is organized as we are, and that poses particular difficulties, challenges and responsibilities for all of us.

I have every confidence that every one of us in this chamber will be mindful of the unique challenges that this Parliament will pose, and we will rise to our duties as we did in the past Parliament and in previous Parliaments. That is with regard to your question on amendments.

There was another question buried in there, and you will forgive me if I can’t quite recall it, but I will perhaps invite you to ask it further and I will answer it as I can.

Don’t get used to it.

Thank you for your question. I think that we in this chamber did a marvellous job in the last Parliament. Eighty-eight bills were passed, many were amended and many of those amendments were accepted by the government in the other place.

Perhaps I can take the opportunity to pay tribute on behalf of all of us — and here I will be presumptuous — to my predecessor Senator Harder, a unique pioneer, who managed his responsibility, built a team and built confidence within this chamber and that is making my job a walk in the park.

I differ somewhat, at least from the perception, as you described it. I do not count our success numerically. I do not count it by the number of amendments, many of which originated in this chamber and were not government amendments, if I may, but, rather, by the quality of the amendments and the ways in which we in this chamber, whether members of political caucuses or other parliamentary groups or individual senators improved legislation, sometimes by doing our duty to make sure that our basic constitutional values were respected, and we did that with Bill S-3 most notably. Here the Senate should stand proud for what we did.

But there were many other examples, whether providing more fair access to rail transport in a particular bill or making sure our constitutional balance of power was respected. Here I am referring to Bill C-29, the consumer protection legislation and so on.

I’m going to sit down because this is Question Period, not answer period, as everyone tells me, but I am advised by the government that they remain eager and willing to work with the Senate. Indeed, they understand in ways that perhaps they didn’t understand four years ago how important the Senate can be to improve legislation. In that regard, I invite all honourable senators, if I can quote Bill Withers, to use me as a conduit for your concerns, whether general or specific concerns, on pieces of legislation, so that our views in the Senate can be properly represented to government. Part of my job is to represent the Senate to the government, and I’ll do my very best, but I need your help.