Professor Schwartz, I'll start with you. Given the short time we have, it may be that I'll only be able to interact with you as opposed to the other witnesses, for which I apologize. It's just the time issue that drives this.
You made a comment that has not been said very widely in our hearings. I have a suspicion if we'd been doing this at the time of Confederation it would have been heard much more: the “alternation is important” idea. Back in those days, when parties were, to a large degree, non-ideological, and particularly before the rise of the various labour parties and socialism that really transformed the party system both here and in Britain, Australia, and so on, I think there was an expectation that you ought—it was your responsibility—to join either party A or party B, party red or party blue, and that they ought to form a majority. The expectation was, for every government there was a mirror or shadow government; they're loyal to the Queen and the Constitution which will replace it.
I think what's really happened here is that over time we have had to revise our views simply because the multi-party system is clearly a stable feature of our system. The actual parties may alternate or change, but the multi-party system.... Due to the fact that we now have a multi-party system as opposed to a political culture that says you ought to be in party A or party B, it's your job to be capable of forming a majority, do you feel the “alternation is important” idea applies to the multi-party reality that we have today?