You're still a young man.
At that time it was a highly confrontational environment. We had been given some business that profoundly divided the committee on government versus opposition lines, and it was a minority government so the opposition had control over any vote they wanted as long as they presented a united front, and that included finding no confidence in the chair, which occurred. Mr. Goodyear was voted out.
If I recall, it was very indecorous and I think I was one of the least decorous people in the room at the time. There is a Hansard of all of this, so you can decide that for yourselves.
But what happened was, one limit on.... I think the problems that were created by that—and it was very problematic and we stopped sitting—we became completely dysfunctional. We were in the context of a House that was completely dysfunctional as well, I should add, but at least they had to choose a member from among the government members. The rules say that the new chair must be a government member chosen from within this committee. At least when Joe was chosen he had some knowledge about what was going on from personal experience and some of the nuances.
This is a concern that I've had as I've listened to the discussion. At that time the rational strategy for the opposition would have been to pick some government member from outside this committee and drop that person into place. That option wasn't available. I think, in this particular case, that limited the problems that arose from the fact that we were being pushed to deal with issues that would ultimately decide the confidence of the government. The trouble is, that kind of hothouse environment, infrequent as it is, is the moment at which it is most critical to have a set of rules that work and at this point I'm just not sure that I know the implications.
Perhaps in Britain they've had some relevant experience, but I do worry about that. That's why I'm very interested in what you have to say.