Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your giving me a question.
Brian, I just want to talk to you very briefly about the definition of confidence, which you've mentioned several times, particularly as the government deems confidence. You've mentioned that governments more than opposition over time have used confidence votes for their own purposes.
Our government has basically gone by the...I wouldn't even say it's a definition, but more of a rule of thumb, that for something to be deemed confidence, it has to be of national importance. I'll give you a clear example and one I know, being a former Saskatchewanian, you would be very familiar with, and that's the Canadian Wheat Board.
I personally get a lot of my strong supporters who are anti-Wheat Board phoning up and giving me hell all the time and saying, “Look, I know you're in a minority government so you can't get changes made and all this sort of thing. Why don't you just make it an issue of confidence and force these guys on the other side?” I just answer them back by saying, “It's because it's not of national importance.”
I mean, as important as it is to western Canadian grain farmers, it doesn't have importance throughout the country. It's not important in Ontario, Quebec, or Atlantic Canada. So we cannot, and we will not, make it an issue of confidence.
But my question to you is this. If governments guide themselves by that rule of thumb, is that sufficient, or do you think there needs to be more clarity on what actually deems confidence measures, brought in either by the opposition or by the government?