Mr. Sauvageau, I am not trying to avoid answering your question, but several aspects of this bill are outside of my area of expertise and my experience. I would go no further than what I already said. To my mind, one of the problems with the bill is the decision to enshrine the secret ballot in law. Such a decision would restrict the House and would bind the Speaker to following the procedure set out in the statutes, even if it were not the will of the House.
Secondly, whenever you include procedural matters in a bill, you are asking for the courts to get involved. It could give rise to all sorts of situations. Let us say, for example, that somebody was unhappy with the secret ballot, be it in terms of the process, the results, or something else. The individual in question could ask the courts to change or annul the result. While it is possible that the courts would respect parliamentary privilege and independence, there are no guarantees. In an ideal world, everybody would be reasonable and a reasonable question would be brought before a reasonable judge. But that is not always the case, and whenever you blur the distinction between parliamentary process and the courts, you run the risk of there being court interventions in the future.