On a point of order, Mr. Chair, Mr. Nater is going to talk about the selection of the Speaker. I would like to share one of my stories that I thought I would take to my grave.
Mauril Bélanger was one of three or four, perhaps five, who wanted to be the Speaker of the House when we convened after the election early in November. I want to tell this story, and I've told it in the Canadian heritage committee. As a first-time MP, all of a sudden you get solicitations from people who want to be the Speaker of the House; and as I've mentioned before, I'm here on Fridays and I fly back to Saskatoon.
I would like to tell the story before you go into that, because it was kind of neat.
Geoff Regan, who actually won the vote for Speaker of the House, and my son spell their first name the same. We thought, well, we're going to vote for Geoff first because he's from Nova Scotia and they haven't had a chance from that province to be Speaker of the House, and Geoff to Geoff. However, I'm going to tell you a story about Mauril Bélanger.
As you all know, during the election his voice got very soft and nobody knew why. It was the longest campaign in the history of Parliament and of democracy here. Anyway, he was re-elected. I mean, how can you lose in Ottawa-Vanier, right? It has been decades since a Liberal has lost in that riding. However, he phoned Friday night asking for my vote to be Speaker of the House. My wife answered. My wife was an educator at an elementary school and asked, “Who are you?” He said, “I'm Mauril Bélanger and I want Kevin's vote to be Speaker of the House.”
I'm just going to tell you something about the guy. My wife isn't very political. Mr. Bélanger started at nine o'clock at night his time, so back then it would have been seven or eight o'clock Saskatchewan time. My wife said, “Listen, I'll take your number and Kevin will phone you Saturday morning when he gets home from Ottawa and you can further the discussion. I have no idea what the Speaker of the House does.” She had no idea. Do you know, Mr. Bélanger stayed on the phone for an hour and a half with my wife talking about how the Speaker, as you said, is the servant of the House, the protector of the House? Through it all, I just want to share this one story, because his voice at the end got very raspy and she could hardly hear him. He was an hour and a half on the phone speaking to a person he didn't know. It's such an important part of the parliamentary procedure, and here he was trying to get one lowly vote from a rookie MP. He spent an hour and a half on the phone speaking with my wife. I got home at 11:30 that night and my wife—