Politicians get called many names in the course of a career. But how often are they compared to the once pampered European upper crust?

In reintroducing the Harper government's legislation to reform the Senate, Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan took a swipe at well-tenured Liberal senators, calling them "increasingly aristocratic", "not democratic" and the "legislative successors of the nobility who once ruled by arbitrary fiat."

Van Loan, who represents the rural Ontario riding of York-Simcoe and is pictured on his website leaning on a farm gate, sounded positively revolutionary as he derided the Senate's high cost, easy work schedule and lack of accountability.

Reform the Upper Chamber, he warned, or the government would consider abolishing it.

Perhaps for dramatic effect, Van Loan made his announcement in the Salon de la francophonie on Parliament Hill. The opulent wood-lined room is decorated with portraits of five French kings, including Louis XV, one of the last monarchs to rule before the French Revolution.

Van Loan was accompanied by Senator Marjorie LeBreton, the Conservative government's leader in the Senate and minister of state for seniors, who has been a member of the Upper House for just over 14 years now.

Thankfully, neither LeBreton nor Van Loan mentioned the guillotine as a possible means of Senate reform.