It's interesting that you would mention that event because I think the event took place at 2:30, and it was 1:45 when Speaker Milliken came into my office with the government House leader to say that there had been a change in plans and they wanted the representatives of the first nations on the floor of the House.
So we went into full improvisational mode, but improvising on the principles that are still sacrosanct. We figured that we wanted people on the floor of the House and that we would do that by having a motion to go into committee of the whole. The motion would provide for the Speaker to actually be chairing, even from the committee of the whole, and the motion would specify that, so we were drafting the motion as we went.
The one hiccup that we ran into was the fact that we only had one microphone that was working and could be passed around—of course, Murphy's Law would follow an O'Brien clerk—and we figured we'd go with that and they would just pass it around. That worked and seemed to be part of the choreography of the thing.
As you said, it was tremendously moving and it was just an absolutely tremendous event for the entire country.
I think that part of me, even though I'd like to see things sort of written down in terms of principles, to pass that on to people.... One of the other things that I find is that certainly the whiter my hair gets, the more I see the generation gaps that don't take 20 years any more, where people just don't seem to be particularly aware of what I would have viewed as basic courtesy. Maybe it's too much texting, who knows; I'm too old. But anyway, all of that is to say that writing it down and then adhering to it slavishly would be a terrible mistake because I think, again, you have to go with the idea of what your objective is. Your objective here is to indicate, with the greatest respect and dignity, the sorrow of the nation because of the circumstances that people were forced to live through. And again, you can't quite throw the rule book out. You have to have it choreographed so that people know what it is they have to do so that is done with due ceremony, if you will.
But I wouldn't like to see flexibility lost, either, because I think that really is the essence, the art.