Okay. I have to be consistent with what I said earlier. I said that when the act was discussed, this was the hottest issue. We've read the debates of that time, and this was one of the main issues debated. Of course, the Quebec model was put forward in those days as a possibility. It was rejected at that time for various reasons, many of which were legal. Apparently the government had a preponderance of legal opinion on the issue that suggested that this would not stand well with the courts.
I think there were deeper reasons for that. I mean, I have the impression that they feared that following this model would probably be impossible at another level. My instinctive preference—you know, I come from Quebec, so I'm proud of what we have done—is for the Quebec model, but you have to be careful before transferring to an arena something that is quite appropriate in another arena. Quebec is a smaller society. It's more homogenous. It's probably easier to force everybody to be on one side or the other, and we have been able to do it successfully so far.
By the way, our system survived the test of the courts in the Libman case, subject to a few amendments that were not basic in nature. Whether the same system would work on the wider Canadian scene, I'm less convinced. When we were discussing the issue in the abstract in 1992, we did not know what kind of referendum would follow. If I had known through some divine revelation that we would end up with the kind of alignment we had, and the strange scenario you've mentioned, I would probably have been very reluctant to advocate the Quebec model in these circumstances.
A further reason I was not so insistent on taking the Quebec model was that I was not convinced 100% that spending more than your opponents really made the difference. There was an assumption at that time—I think it has been shattered beyond repair—based on the 1982 referendum in Quebec, that you could literally buy the outcome of the referendum. I was not convinced at that time, based on the literature. And with the kind of campaign we had in 1992, I'm even less convinced that money can buy the outcome of a referendum.
We have a bizarre system, by the way. We have almost a free-for-all when it comes to referendum committees. On the other hand, when it comes to distributed time--you know, free air time on TV--it's the rule of equality that prevails. “Yes” has 50% and “no” has 50%. They have to agree among themselves to share that among the various committees. On the whole, we have a free-for-all. It's probably the system that is the least problematic given our circumstances, the complexity of the country, and the fact that one issue may be seen very differently in one province compared to the others.
You know, most of the campaign was along these lines. You went to Quebec, and you would tell people in Quebec, look, it's marvellous; we have 25% of the seats in the House of Commons in perpetuity, which is extraordinary, and the Senate that is proposed is toothless and probably will remain very weak. Now, the same people, if they had to go outside Quebec, had to say, well, 25% for Quebec is not that important, and we have an equality of seats for the provinces in the Senate, and that's great.
Probably it's best to leave some flexibility in the system.