Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments. I would like to make some very brief remarks on an example just given of a petition to recall members. I find this extremely dangerous. I agree with the hon. member opposite who just said that it would be possible for a
1633
party to put pressure on a member who did not agree on a certain subject and force him to resign. That is the first point.
The second point, also extremely important, would be to limit a member's foresight. In this House, around 1990, we saw five or six Conservative members leave that party to sit as independents; later, they formed the Bloc Quebecois. If the members had had to be recalled by law, I think that we would have simply prevented those people from exercising their foresight, because it was not just five or six members who saw that things were no longer working; in the last election, all of Canada voted that way and eliminated the Conservatives from this House.
For these two reasons I think that it would be rather dangerous to put that position into law.
[English]