Thank you, Mr. Christopherson, Mr. Chair.
I think we're all concerned about any change to an old institution, but I think we know the consequences of some of the changes I've proposed, because some were past practice in the Canadian House of Commons for many decades. Arguably the question period we have now is an aberration. It's a question period with rules that were established only in the last 30 years. Question period started after Confederation under unwritten conventions, but nevertheless it existed for many decades before the more recent changes that were introduced in the last 30 years. We know the consequences of some of these changes, because they were past practices in the Canadian House of Commons.
We also know some of the consequences of the other changes I've proposed, because they're present practice in other Westminster-style parliaments. So we can look to those parliaments to see how question period functions in them.
The other thing I'd add about change is that we weren't cautious about the change in 1980 when we stripped members of the right to ask questions in the House. We weren't cautious in 1997 when we decided to go from minute-long questions and minute-long answers to 35-second questions and 35-second answers.
There seems to be a great deal of caution when we're trying to restore the right of members to represent their constituents to ask questions, but not a lot of caution when we need to further centralize power among the party leadership in all the parties.