Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of raising this question about two weeks ago. I asked a similar question of a former prime minister who was prime minister here for many years. I thought I could get a crisp answer. He gave a good answer but it did not help us at all. It does not have the easy answer.
Each MP sitting on a committee is part of a party. Members realize that they got elected as part of a party in many cases. When some direction comes from the team captain, they listen carefully.
I have found in my experience that as one gets experience in parliamentary work and as committees get experience and build up a sense of cohesion, a policy base and a policy focus, its members are more confident in the views they may take and put forward. As to questions that have come up at committee where there has been some tilt from the executive
part of government, I can honestly say that I have seen these things go both ways.
I remember on one committee a few years ago, I had to wait a whole year to get through a resolution on a matter where the government absolutely did not want that to happen. In the end colleagues on the committee on the government side saw the right way, acquiesced and it went through. That matter is still a matter for this Parliament. It is in the pipeline.
It is a matter of generating the self-confidence and the knowledge in the field. It is a matter of MPs themselves making the right decisions in committee, taking into account their team responsibilities and the public policy interests that may be involved in a question. In the end, there is no simple answer.