I have one last question. This one, I think, will be fairly brief.
I've been struggling too with the question of whether an advisory election constitutes an actual election or whether the advice can be set aside. The parallel that occurs to me as perhaps the best--and I guess I'm asking whether you agree with me that this is a valid parallel--is the prohibition plebiscite of 1898, in which a majority of Canadians voted in favour of prohibition. A very large minority voted against it, and of course there was a very strong regional divide. Based on that, the Prime Minister of the day chose to set aside the result.
I'm wondering whether, in essence, that option would remain available to prime ministers if they should see some kind of problem. What I'm really getting at is whether this is in fact to be understood as being an election that is advisory rather than being a de facto way of doing indirectly that which cannot be done directly, imposing an obligation on the Prime Minister and therefore on the Governor General.