Yes. Everything comes from somewhere. Occasionally, something interesting does occur out of thin air, the very first time, but I suspect it's not the case here. I suspect this is something that is precedented somewhere. I'm just guessing that. If there was a footnote to this, we'd actually have some idea where it came from, some authority would be cited, but we don't have that. So how do we find out?
I suppose if I had thought of it, I could have asked the government House leader on Sunday, because I ran into her at Pearson Airport. We had a brief chat. She was on standby, so she was distracted by the need to rush up to the desk and get her boarding pass. It was a nice chat. There could have been a Liberal caucus meeting on that airplane, by the way. It was amazing. Anyway, there were a lot of people on that plane, and she was one of them. I could have asked her then, “Hey, where did you get this idea from?” But I didn't think of it. Now I literally can't ask her because I am in this committee holding the floor in order to make sure that something doesn't get through, which could be disastrous, I think, for the way the House of Commons runs. I can't go and ask her where she got this from.
Then we could go and look at that example, where you got it from, and whether it works there. How does it work? How good is it? Is it a successful sort of thing or not? It may have positive features. It may have features that look positive at first glance, but aren't so good once you look at it in a little more depth. That happens a lot.
That was the feeling I had when I looked at the Australian Federation Chamber. It's the room where the parallel debating takes place. It sounded better at first than it seemed as you investigated in more detail—at least that was my impression.
This might be brilliant; it might not be brilliant. I do wonder. The Speaker, of course, is meant to be independent. But he's independent in a way that essentially allows him to garner increasing independence from the agendas of the parties as time goes on, so a new Speaker has less gravitas than a Speaker who has served several years. This would be true with every Speaker, regardless of how much intrinsic gravitas they have. It's true of the current Speaker; it's true of his predecessor, Andrew Scheer. It was equally true of Peter Milliken, who came very well-equipped for the speakership, but who nevertheless grew in his job as time went on.
Here we're getting the opposite starting to happen. The Speaker is supposed to define a unifying theme for the bill. Maybe there's academic literature out there he can draw upon to say here's a unifying theme. Maybe there isn't. I actually don't know. But you'll notice when the Speaker actually has to make a ruling on something, a tie vote, for example, he almost magically has in his hand a piece of paper that he reads, which says that—and I'm paraphrasing—whereas the underlying principle of Parliament is the continuation of debate, and it is second reading, and my vote against this would cause debate to be precluded, thereby also precluding the possibility that a majority of the House will find on one side or the other; therefore, I'm voting in favour. Whereas we are at third reading, and voting in favour of this motion would cause it to cease to be within the purview of the House where no more debate could occur; therefore, I'm voting against.
He is breaking a tie vote, but he's breaking it in a way that is entirely based on precedent. His authority is all based on the will of the House. I wasn't sure if you wanted to....