Thank you.
I want to revisit an area that has been visited a couple of times by a couple of my colleagues. My question will be for you, Professor Turnbull. One of my concerns about the bill, as it was originally drafted, was the idea...and Professor Franks actually said it very well when he talked about his concerns about Parliament prescribing to political parties or to caucuses how they govern themselves.
I had that same concern. Some of the amendments that we've heard publicly seem to certainly address this by enabling caucuses to choose whether they opt into the provisions, and these kinds of things. It at least gives that caucus the ability to make some decisions. I think, therefore, in some ways, it gives the party members some decisions through those members in some ways, so I think the amendments that are being suggested certainly would strengthen the bill.
I wanted specifically to come to the part about the leaders because I think that's one part where, as I said, it has been addressed a little bit before. But the leader of the party is the leader of the political party and also the leader of the caucus. The changes being suggested here obviously would change the balance in terms of who has the right to make a decision about who that leader is, because obviously you have the party members on one hand choosing the leader, and on the other hand you have the caucus having the ability to remove the leader.
I know in response to a previous question you mentioned they would only be able to remove, but that the membership would still be able to choose who the new leader would be. However, when there are competing interests there, I'm concerned as to whether you see any concerns about that reducing the say of party members because they can choose someone, but then the caucus can remove them.
Do you have concerns that this might remove some of that ability from party members to be able to really have a say in who their leader is?