Thank you very much, Chair. I find this very interesting.
I'll defer to your experience and your love of history. I wonder if these regulations and rules were put in place before the advent of television and monitors. I can understand why they would have a rule saying you cannot say Mr. Godin is not in the House, because up until the time of televised debates, that was breaking a confidence. Quite frankly, now I'm not breaking any confidences if I say Mr. Godin is not in the House because that's available in so many other ways.
I just wonder if we're not trying to enforce a rule that is almost unenforceable at this juncture. What the heck is the difference whether in this day and age I say Mr. Godin is not in the House? Is that as damaging today as it was when this rule was incorporated?
Is it so serious?
I'm not sure. That's why I'm asking that question. I guess that's the question I would ask: is it as damaging?
I think we're trying to get the Speaker to enforce a moral code of sorts of our conduct as parliamentarians, that we should respect each other and that kind of thing. I don't know that we're going to have a whole lot of luck in putting in a whole bunch of regulations and rules, etc., that are going to be terribly hard to administer.
This business of Facebook and Twitter and all that...I could Twitter to one of my staff and they could get it out there. If we really want to do something, we're going to be able to do it. As Mr. Dryden said, in the overall scheme of things, how significant is it? I'm just asking the question; I'm not making a comment.
I'd like to hear your comments on that.