It does come up.
I'll give you the overarching theme that I'm getting at here. The change is complicated for me to explain because it is inherently a multi-faceted change to the status quo. It may be good or it may be bad, but it's not something that could be dealt with rapidly. It's not something that can be dealt with by merely looking at one example. I'm giving two examples from my own experience; others who have attended the sittings of other jurisdictions have different reports to give.
I'm a comparative historian by training, and this is how I approach everything. When I looked at the issue of the potential partition of Quebec upon secession, I looked at other jurisdictions and how they dealt with it, for good or ill. The illustration I gave was what seemed to be the least bad and the best solution with no separation, no need for petition, an intact Quebec, and an intact Canada, obviously.
However, there's an example of a Swiss canton from which a part succeeded. It was the Jura canton and its separation from the canton of Bern in the late 1970s. Another example, which partitioned Northern Ireland from the rest of the country of Ireland, was an example of what not to do. I went through that and there were a number of other examples that I looked at.
I think the same thing ought to happen when you're dealing with these things. It's difficult to do a comparative study of all subjects at the same time. If you're just talking question period, it is possible, but it's not possible to do it with the deadline proposed by Mr. Simms. It's possible to devote several months to it, and it might be something that would yield a meaningful improvement.
There are many complaints, some not justified, some very much justified, about the nature of our question period, although I have to say that on the whole it has been getting better. There's a secular trend for it to get better over time in terms of decorum—decorum is the main thing we focus on—compared with where it was when I first arrived here. If the stories are to be believed about what it was like in Sir John A. Macdonald's day, it was a good deal worse, including people coming in drunk and people throwing things at each other. Some Parliaments still do that. I'm told that they bring bags of shoes into the parliament in Iraq, people rushing the chair and so on. It has been better over time. It's actually a long-term secular trend.
The point to be made here, relating back to New Zealand, is that this is a complicated matter. This is a matter that cannot be dealt with in the proposed time frame. While question period is almost certainly one of the items we'd want to discuss, and is potentially, depending on the direction that the government is willing to go, one in which we can find consensus, I would submit that it is inconceivable that we would come to a consensus that does more than a very tiny amount of change if we stick with this deadline.
That's if it were the only item we were discussing on its own, but of course, it is not the only item we are discussing. There are numerous other items. That's the issue of the length of time.
I also went on to show that you could look at things like.... It's not mentioned here, but seeing as the ministers are from all over, you could look at the idea of rotating questions, as they do in New Zealand.
By the way, although I thought that was good in some respects, it did lead to some peculiarities, and it did not stop ill-tempered, ill-advised commentary. One parliamentarian, a man named Winston Peters, stood up and gave what I thought was an outrageous statement. It was quite an offensive gay-baiting statement in the question he asked. It's hard to get that stuff out of parliamentary life.
In all fairness, I don't think the minister is suggesting that what she has put forward here is utopia. She merely suggests that it's an improvement. I happen to think that utopian changes should be avoided at all costs. We are all about incrementalism in the way we deal with our Standing Orders and rules. We are evolutionists, not revolutionists. We do well to methodically work things through. I think, when it comes to this, that is the spirit that she too is imparting.
Let me turn to the Prime Minister's question time as done in Britain. I'm not sure whether Britain is the only jurisdiction that does this in the Commonwealth; I actually don't know.