Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I appreciate what Mr. Waugh said about Fridays, Friday question periods, and the importance to backbenchers. Look at tomorrow. Tomorrow, you're going to see a bunch of people get up who typically would never get a question Monday to Thursday. It's not going to be people on the front bench. It's Friday.

It's often that people have an issue. Their leader will tell them there are important questions to be asked in Parliament. Whether it be a war or different things that are happening, we need to discuss them, and we need to have those hard questions. It's that opportunity when we can ask those questions or questions about issues in smaller communities. They often surface on Fridays to make sure that everybody has a chance. It's important that we look at Fridays and see what's happening on Fridays. People are getting a chance to speak.

I also want to talk about the importance of question period, not just for the questions and not just for the camera, but I go there often in the hope of seeing a minister to have a conversation. Good luck setting up a meeting with a minister. I understand how busy ministers are, and the important role ministers play, and the number of people they are responsible for in working with all of us. Going to question period is a critical moment when, by crossing the aisle, I can have a 30-second conversation with a minister and enlighten him or her about something very important that's happening in our communities, something that's so important it might save lives.

I talked to Minister Philpott at the start of the week, to tell her about a suicide crisis happening in my community, and that we need urgent assistance. I talked to Minister Bennett about that as well. Today, it was Minister Bennett who came across the aisle to see me. Maybe tomorrow one of them will be in the House to give an update about the work they're doing. That's critical for me to get to the people in the community who are in these terrible situations.

They're not funny. They're real. They're happening. These meetings are very important, so I want to make sure that we don't laugh about these things, because they're not funny.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Just for the record, I wasn't laughing at the content that you are speaking to. I was talking about if these issues are so concerning to you, is 30 seconds enough allotted time for you to get your point across or discuss this with them?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

When I'm walking over to ministers, I'm handing them a letter. I'm letting them know how important it is and, yes, absolutely, it saves lives.

These meetings are critical, and question period is critical. Having Friday to follow up is an extra day to find out what's going on, and what action is going to be taken by the government, and we count on it. Someone like me who's a backbencher from western Canada from a distant, remote area—

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm sorry to interject, but just to clarify, are you able to do all of that in the 30 seconds that you're getting?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Maybe it's a minute sometimes, and maybe it's a minute and a half, but we show up for question period. We show up to talk to ministers and ask them questions. Maybe you can check with Minister Bennett and Minister Philpott to ask them how important those questions are, or you can ask Minister McKenna about the letter I handed her this week just to keep things rolling.

These are important to us because we're not going to see those ministers in a meeting. It's going to be a meeting a month down the road when they have time to meet with us. Absolutely, question period is a lot more than asking a question. It's when we can come together and talk to each other about important issues. Sometimes I talk to my colleagues about a bill or a private member's bill that they're doing.

We do that at question period, in the lobbies before and after question period, and in the gallery. It is important to know that the more often we're together like that, the more work we can get done. Then, the longer we're in our ridings the better, because we can get out to those remote communities.

This government ran on an agenda of being inclusive, of being open to inspiring people, inspiring parliamentarians by bringing them together. To tell them that they are going to make decisions around procedure without consensus is not inspiring. It's not open and it's not inclusive. I want to make that statement for the record.

I'll pass it to the next person, but—

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'd like two seconds.

I appreciate your comments and I actually do agree. I would just like to ask you a question.

If you value that time you have with the ministers and you're able to provide them with a letter, do you not believe that their constituents feel the same way, that having that extra time with them on Friday to give them a hand-delivered letter or have a 30-second or 30-minute meeting is equally as valuable?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I think what you're trying to tell me is....

I absolutely agree that parliamentarians—

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm not actually trying to tell you anything. I was just asking.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

No, it's a great question and I appreciate it, but I have to say, when you live in a rural riding that's very far away, being in the riding longer is better. I can't get to Denman Island or Hornby Island very easily. I have a 12 and a half hour trip to get to Nanaimo. I have to drive to Buckley Bay, take a ferry to Denman Island, drive across Denman Island, take a ferry to Hornby Island, and maybe 16 or 17 hours later, I'm there.

If we sit maybe three more weeks, how many times am I going to get all the way to Hornby Island, where it's going to be accessible? Right now, the way it's set up, we have more time in the riding.

I'm actually not afraid of having the conversation. I'm not discouraging it. I think the conversation is important and I really appreciate it. We should be having the conversation, but it shouldn't be a conversation where government is going to be ramming through the decisions. It should be consensus-based, and that's going to inspire a real conversation, a healthy conversation, where we're going to be able to share those concerns and ideas.

Mr. Sikand, I really appreciate your bringing these ideas forward about whether the minister should also be in her riding on Fridays, or whether the minister can do it on a Saturday, or whether we should allot more weeks in the riding. I'm for the conversation. What I'm not for is government just making the decision without consensus.

It is about our serving all of Canada, and it is a very important conversation. I really believe it's more important than anything we've talked about so far, in terms of making decisions around rules in the House. It is very important that this be consensus-based moving forward. It has been in the past. Why would we change it right here in this Parliament? That's what I have to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Ruimy is next, and then we'll go back to Mr. Nater, because he has only 45 minutes to do his treatise on the Speaker.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I want to speak to Mr. Johns' comments.

Another thing that I take offence with, and I hear this all the time, is “backbenchers”. You know what? It's not a bad word. Sometimes the opposition uses it to try to embarrass or whatever, but here's my point. No, trust me; we hear it on our side: “Oh, you backbenchers, you're just following your whip. You're just following. You're nothing but sheep.”

Let me tell you something, because there's a story here. First of all, I'm proud to be where I am. I don't care what bench I'm on. I don't, because I will tell you something. I have more influence than most people actually think. I don't know if I said that right. I have more influence than most people believe.

I'm not going to say who, but I met with one of your colleagues about a situation with a constituent, a life or death situation. This person was very frustrated because the minister wasn't responding. It was horrible, the way that it was explained to me. I told him I would get him a sit-down meeting with the parliamentary secretary and we'd figure this thing out. The person thought about it, and said, “Wow, you would do that?” I said, “Absolutely.” He thought about it some more and he didn't take me up on the offer. He said he was going to go to the press instead. That's fine.

The point I'm trying to make is that 30 seconds that you're talking to the minister, I already know, I learned in my first two weeks in this House, that I don't go talk to the minister for 30 seconds, because they're not even listening. They have so many things going on. You have to figure out who their people are, and then you start to make those relationships.

Let me finish. What frustrates me is that we are on the same plane at times. We can have that relationship. I can make those connections for you, because if you want influence on the other side, you do that through the backbenchers. That's the opportunity, right? We look at the ministers and we put them on this pedestal as though they're going to solve the problem, when it's really the influence that we can bring to the table by how we work together, because that's how I work.

I have tried to reach out many times. If somebody needs something, I don't care who they are. Even though I'm a Liberal, I believe myself to be non-partisan. If you had a problem, I guarantee that if you came to me, I'd figure out a way that you would get time to sit down with the minister, if it was that important to you.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Ruimy.

Honestly, I think we all have our own way to get things done. We all do. We have to find our way. The school of being an MP isn't really refined, nor should it be. It should be something that we get creative about.

I agree with you on one thing: we are all equal, whether you're a cabinet minister or sitting in the backbench. I actually don't think “backbencher” is a bad word, either. We are all equal. We're all here to represent the people in our communities, and I respect that. I respect people from all political parties. Everybody's message is very important because we represent everybody in Canada, and that's important.

When I talk to ministers or whoever I need to talk to, sometimes it's parliamentary secretaries and sometimes it's backbenchers. You're absolutely right: we work with people across political lines, but we do it at question period, often. Often we're walking up the lane and we're talking with someone, whether we sit with them on committee or in a caucus. Ms. Sahota and I sit on the entrepreneur caucus together. We usually talk about it at question period, with Mr. Allison from the Conservative bench, as chairs. That work often happens, not just with ministers.

I have to say that sometimes there are crises where you have to go to a minister, or it's a ministerial decision. There are discussions I've had with ministers. I know, Mr. Ruimy, you're really helpful on the government bench, and I appreciate that, but there are conversations I've had with ministers where they'd certainly want me to be talking to them directly. I've had those conversations and I'm certain that they would want me to be talking to them about it. I have to say that. It's very important we clarify that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay. Thank you.

We'll go back to Mr. Nater. I know he's going to do a treatise on Speaker elections. We have about 40 minutes, roughly.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That sounds good. I look forward to this.

I want to thank the committee members for the introductions. I think it was a worthwhile discussion we just had. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for enabling that. I think it does give us a glimpse of where we want to get to by giving this committee the opportunity to actually have this discussion. Going back to the motion and the amendment, I think we can get to that point. Whether it's through the amendment to the motion or through alternative means, such as the special committee that's been proposed by the opposition and third party House leaders, I think we can get to that point. To enable this type of discussion is absolutely essential. I've enjoyed the discussion that has taken place.

The comment from Mr. Johns about question period and the ability to have that discussion goes back to one of the issues that we have regarding Parliament.

Parliament is both the building in which we currently sit but it's also an institution. It's an institution that has certain norms, certain practices. How those norms and practices evolve affects how we operate.

If we look at times past when MPs used to travel on the train together, there was a great deal of collegiality. For several days, MPs would be on the train together and they had that opportunity to interact. We don't have that opportunity anymore. We have short flights. We have individual car rides. We don't have that opportunity to interact.

Mr. Johns' point is that it is essential to have the opportunity to go to question period and to flag down a minister. I can think of at least two examples, one an immigration issue and one a public service issue, where we've had that opportunity to speak with ministers. I really appreciate that insight.

I want to bring us back to the concept of the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons. It's one of those issues that has peaked my interest.

Just as many academics look at different things to study, I like to look at issues that don't have a lot written on them, the gaps in the literature, things that may be tangentially touched on but never actually directly discussed or reviewed.

In 2013, I co-published an article entitled “Legislative Dissent Without Reprisal? An Alternative View of Speaker Selection”. For those who wish to read the article in its entirety, it's published in The Journal of Legislative Studies, December 2013, volume 19, issue 4. It is available online. It's available for free download as well.The Journal of Legislative Studies provides for that.

Incidentally, The Journal of Legislative Studies is an academic journal, but it's actually edited by Lord Norton of Louth, who is a member of the British House of Lords' constitution committee. Later, I may touch on some of the United Kingdom examples of that.

The election of the Speaker is a fascinating concept and a fascinating procedure. Traditionally, the Speaker was elected on the nomination of the prime minister, or by the premier in a provincial legislature. That has been the case for a lengthy period of time, since Confederation.

At the federal level this was changed in 1986, following the McGrath report, and when Speaker Bosley gave up the position, Speaker Fraser was elected. In some of the provincial legislatures it took a little more time to get to that point. In Ontario it was first implemented in 1990.

My interest, however, is not only in the procedural element of the election of the Speaker, although that's important and certainly we'll touch on that, but in the issues that surround the election of Speaker and how the election of the Speaker is really dealt with in different examples.

One of the things I like to do is to look at provincial versus federal examples. I think the provincial example in Ontario of the election of the Speaker of the Ontario legislature is informative of how we can see this procedural process really affect the way in which MPPs function at the provincial level.

Very little research has ever been done on the election of the Speaker. It's largely dealt with in textbook format. It's mentioned that the Speaker is elected, but there hasn't ever been an in-depth study of the election and how it's undertaken.

For my interest, I think we need to see the election of the Speaker as more than simply a procedural, individually focused exercise, but rather as a collective exercise by a legislature. Specifically, I make the argument that the election of the Speaker through a secret ballot can actually be seen as a form of legislative dissent against the governing party by the party's own individual members of Parliament.

The example of the Ontario legislature is informative about this. I'll cite some federal examples as we go through as well. The process that the provincial legislature follows is informative about how we go about it.

To structure our thinking on this, we need to think of some of the thoughts and considerations that go into the election of the Speaker. From a government perspective, the government is eager to see a Speaker of the House of Commons or the Speaker of a legislature who is somewhat loyal to the governing party or at least open to working with the governing party. The opposition, of course, would prefer to see a Speaker who is perhaps more aggressive, perhaps more open-minded, and more eager to work in a maverick way.

In an ideal scenario, an opposition party would like to see an opposition MP as Speaker. There is no question of that. That would be the best scenario for an opposition party. In a majority government, that's very unlikely to happen. The next best scenario is seeing which of the government MPs or MPPs would be able to fill that role of being a more maverick Speaker.

The election of the Speaker is very important because of the format by which the Speaker is chosen. When we cast our votes for Speaker, we do so by a secret ballot. A secret ballot in the election of the Speaker is really the only time in our parliamentary careers when our votes are done by secret ballot. We don't vote on legislation by secret ballot. We don't vote in committee by secret ballot. It's done publicly, even if it's not always recorded. Typically on recorded division, names are recorded in the Journals. Sometimes we have voice votes when we don't force a recorded division, but typically even then, it's a pretty good indication of who is voting for whom, whether the opposition is voting in favour or against. For an individual MP, whether it's an opposition or a government MP, to vote against his or her party on a serious matter of government legislation is rare. We've seen some examples of it.

I haven't seen the statistics yet for the current Parliament. In former parliaments, we've seen different research done about which MPs are most likely to dissent from their party and what the loyalty index is for each example. In the last Parliament, there were actually some Conservative MPs who were highest on that list. In the current Parliament, I suspect there are a couple of Liberal MPs I could point to who are probably fairly high on that list, which is to their credit. However, we can see that because it's recorded in the Journals. It's recorded in the records of the debate. We know who votes for what piece of legislation because they rise in their place and do so.

When it comes to the election of the Speaker of the House or the Speaker of a legislature, we don't have that ability. No one but the individual member who marks their ballot—I was going to say “mark an X”, but now it's a ranked ballot, so it's to mark numbers—knows how they voted and no one knows the outcome. In fact, we don't even know the total numbers. We don't know what the first ballot or the first preference was, or the second ballot, or the third ballot. We don't know that and we don't know how many ballots it would take in the current situation, in which we don't have multiple ballots and we have a single alternative vote.

We can see the election of the Speaker as potential for a private act of dissent in which an individual parliamentarian, whether at the federal level or provincial level, can vote against their party's preferred outcome, can vote against what their leaders would ideally like to see.

I want to walk through the Ontario example. The federal example has some great opportunities and I'm going to discuss that at the end to see this standpoint, but the Ontario example is better. There are a few reasons I say that.

I don't know if I could consider myself a political scientist, using the word “scientist”, because I don't think political scientists are actually scientists but it's the word we use. However, wherever possible, trying to conduct a natural experiment in the real world is tough unless you can control some of the variables. Ontario provides a unique example for a number of reasons.

First of all, in the years since the secret ballot for the election of Speaker has been introduced, we've seen only majority governments in the years we studied in this article.

Second, it also provides us the opportunity to look at each political party having held government in Ontario: the New Democrats, the Ontario PC Party, and the Ontario Liberal Party. It provides us an opportunity to compare and contrast the election of a Speaker under each of those scenarios.

Third, Ontario has one of Canada's largest legislatures, second only to the federal House of Commons. It allows us to look at a large parliament, a large legislature, which will allow us to see the challenges going forward.

Finally, it allows us to see a natural experiment in the legislature in the fact that in 1996, in preparation for the 1999 provincial election, the then Mike Harris government introduced what was called the Fewer Politicians Act. It was an act that decreased the number of MPPs in Ontario from 130 to 103. It allows us to look at the size of the legislature, caucus, and the cabinet to see whether that's a variable in the election of the Speaker, how we might see that dissent play out in the election of the Speaker.

Ontario wasn't the first legislature to move to the election by secret ballot. That lies with our federal Parliament. At the time that I published this paper, P.E.I. and Newfoundland had not had contested Speaker elections. I'm not sure if that has changed in the last three or four years, but I will double-check and report back to the committee so it has that information.

The introduction of the secret ballot changes the dynamics. We can test the likelihood that different issues would have on the dissent of parliamentarians. One thing you can look at is party popularity at the time of the Speaker's election. We can look at the size of the cabinet and whether that has an impact. The likelihood of joining cabinet would affect the determination of whether they even seek the position of Speaker, and the percentage of new MPs entering a legislature at any given time would certainly have an impact on it.

A secret ballot, though, is not a normal part of a Westminster parliament. It's somewhat foreign to our system. It's not something we would find anywhere else in the Standing Orders other than in regard to the election of the Speaker. We were starting to elect our Speaker by secret ballot in the mid-1980s, but we'd have to wait until 2009 in the United Kingdom at Westminster to see them elect their Speaker by secret ballot. It's not a common approach.

Speaker John Bercow was elected by secret ballot after a fairly significant expense scandal in the United Kingdom saw their Speaker resign. It was a fairly significant break from tradition to move to that approach in the United Kingdom. We are ahead of the times in the sense that we've had this experience for nearly 30 years in Canada, as opposed to a very short period, a single data point, in the United Kingdom.

Even initially when we moved to this approach in Canada and we saw the election of Mr. Speaker Fraser in 1986, it was kind of seen as a fluke. It was kind of seen as that okay, we'd done this once, that we'd had the show, but now we should move on. We'd go back to the normal process later on, that even if it were a secret ballot, there would only be one candidate put up, and the government would still control the process. That was very much the sense of what would happen. At the time, different academics and former parliamentarians conducted reviews of this and they very much said that this wasn't something that was going to last. It was not going to be something that took hold.

One individual reviewing it at the time, Ned Franks, or C.E.S. Franks, originally from Queen's and now professor emeritus there, wrote:

I have every optimism and every hope that in the future, the House, regardless of party stripe, will choose as Speaker somebody the House trusts and wants to have.… I think the Speaker enjoys the confidence of both sides of the House and has a power over the House through this method of election that the Speakers never had before. Therefore I consider that a real plus.

Of course that was tempered by the pessimism that it wouldn't continue on very much past that.

The introduction of the secret ballot did stick around. It did last, and then it was slowly adopted at the provincial legislatures as well. In Ontario, 1990 was the first example of the Speaker being elected by secret ballot. In previous times, the Speaker would be nominated by a government minister, typically by the premier, would be seconded by the leader of the opposition, and then would be unanimously voted on by the House. That was the usual practice of the House.

The last Speaker not to be elected by secret ballot in Ontario was a gentleman by the name of Hugh Edighoffer, who was coincidentally the MPP for Perth, my home riding at the time, a Liberal MPP who had served many years, but he was unanimously selected. There was no indication that he was a poor Speaker. In fact, he was very well respected as Speaker. He opted not to run again in 1990 and retired with great credit from his fellow parliamentarians. But there was a growing sense of a need to democratize the process. So, when the NDP was elected in 1990, it was certainly top of their agenda to see that democratization of the legislature.

I wish Mr. Christopherson were here this evening because I will actually quote some of his comments later from this article, and I think he would have appreciated that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll let you repeat it in the morning.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I will repeat it for Mr. Christopherson in the morning.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Johns has offered to phone him for you.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

We'll link him in through speakerphone.

Incidentally, I should note as well that in 1990 my mother's uncle, so my great-uncle, was also a member of the legislature in Ontario. He served as a New Democrat in the Bob Rae government. He served from 1990 until 1999 with Mr. Christopherson. We have that connection—not party affiliation, but we have that connection.

The NDP in Ontario had a long-time opposition to the nomination of the Speaker by the premier through that process. It was not that there was anything wrong with any of the individual Speakers, as they themselves noted, but that the overall process didn't lend itself to a democratic House. There was a need to see a change in the way in which that was undertaken.

What we're looking at is each Speaker's election from 1990 until about 2007, how each of those elections took place, and some of the factors that affected the way in which the Speaker was elected in each case. We looked at each of the elections and determined in each of the seven races who was the government's preferred choice, who was the premier's preferred choice. We were able to determine fairly easily, from public comments from the premier of the day, from government ministers, and from the media at the time, who was the preferred choice of the premier or the government, and who was seen more as the maverick, the one who wouldn't have been preferable to the government.

Certainly, in each case the government would have preferred their own MPPs to endorse their preferred candidate. That's the logical inference that anyone would make, but that wasn't the case in most cases.

One of the most stunning examples is the very first one. In 1990 Bob Rae was elected as premier. It was a significant surprise. I don't remember it. I was six at the time. The CBC archives provide the reaction of Bob Rae himself when he was elected. He was surprised, and I think his caucus was surprised as well. You had a new caucus as a new group of parliamentarians, not necessarily having been entirely involved in politics beforehand—some probably didn't expect to get elected at all—suddenly given this opportunity, for the first time ever, to undertake a major election of the Speaker.

Bob Rae certainly wasn't a neophyte politician. He had served many years, both at the federal level previously and at the provincial level, and he certainly had his preferences for whom he wanted to be Speaker. He tapped a gentleman by the name of David Warner to be the Speaker of the Ontario legislature. That was his preferred choice, and he made it known to his caucus and to the media that he wished to see David Warner elected as Speaker of the Ontario legislature.

As is always the case, both in Ontario and federally, other MPPs or MPs will put their names in as well. In 1990, two Liberal MPPs also put their names in, despite being opposition party candidates against a majority New Democrat. In fact, the New Democrats held 73 of the 130 seats in the legislature. They had a substantial majority, or a healthy majority, at least. There was a very public, and private, and political acknowledgement that David Warner, the NDP candidate for Speaker, the only NDP candidate for Speaker and the premier's choice would be the Speaker once the secret ballot was counted. But something happened. He did eventually end up as Speaker—a bit of a spoiler alert—but it took multiple ballots. When the first ballot was counted, one candidate, Jean Poirier, was eliminated, but Mr. Warner did not have a majority of the votes.

Despite the New Democrats holding a majority, despite the premier making it very publicly known that he had a preferred candidate for Speaker, certain members of the NDP backbench decided that was not what they wanted to see. In fact, the result was quite publicly covered. The Toronto Star wrote of it, and said:

Warner was the only New Democratic candidate and was expected to win on the first ballot since his party has a 73-seat majority in the 130-seat Legislature. The New Democrats were so confident the diminutive Warner would be elected that the legs on the Speaker’s chair were sawed down before the vote was taken yesterday afternoon.

It shows that the NDP members didn't actually vote along party lines. It showed that there was a degree of legislative dissent that allowed a message to be sent to the government caucus, to their own members, that there was some unhappiness with where the party was going. I think you'll often find that in a first-term government with new MPs and new MPPs, all with good intentions. You're going to find a degree of challenge in maintaining order and maintaining cohesive and loyal opportunity.

As those who may have paid attention to Ontario politics will know, following 1995, the NDP were not returned to power. Mr. Rae did lose that ensuing election. He lost it to the Progressive Conservatives, the PC Party of Ontario, and shortly afterwards, Mr. Rae returned to private life for a period of time. I believe he did make sort of a re-emergence on the other side at some point in time, but we'll save that for another discussion.

In 1995 we saw in Ontario the election of a PC majority government under Premier Mike Harris. Immediately after the election, after he made his cabinet.... Again, making a cabinet is one of those things where you are not going to make everyone happy. You're probably going to make significantly more enemies than friends and create unhappiness in the process. He had a challenge in which he had to leave a lot of people out of caucus. Among those people who were left out of caucus were those who then put their name—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Out of cabinet.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Sorry, out of cabinet, yes. They were left out of cabinet, and then put their name forward for Speaker.

Premier Harris had a fairly clear decision of who he wanted as the preferred candidate, and the name he put forward was a lady by the name of Margaret Marland from the Mississauga area. She was very much the preferred choice of the premier. It was made publicly known by him and by his finance minister, but at the end of the day, she wasn't elected. Instead, Mr. Al McLean was elected as Speaker, even though she had the backing of the premier, the cabinet, and the finance minister. In 1995, despite winning a big majority.... MPs literally rode in on Premier Harris's coat sleeves. He was the common-sense revolution. He swept—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Coattails.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Coattails. What did I say?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Coat sleeves.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Those, too. The sleeves weren't very long so they had to ride in on the coattails.