I did not make the constitutional conventions under which we are governed. I have been in Parliament a long time but not quite that long.
We have an interesting proposition here. At the time there were negotiations between the two opposition parties. It is not for me to bring this up but the member has opened up the can of worms so he will have to live with the result. At that time a number of vice-chairs were offered to the third party by the official opposition and they were turned down.
The third party turned down the vice-chair positions that were offered. The then whip, and at that time the hon. member called herself a caucus co-ordinator, did not want the particular vice-chairs that were offered. She wanted better ones. She did not like those particular vice-chairmanships and decided to do that for whatever reason she had in mind, which should have been discussed inside the Reform Party caucus room. It was supposed to have minutes in public later but it never has. However, Reformers can decide that in their caucus room and then make whatever decision they want. Those were decisions made by the two opposition parties.
While we are on that topic, there were also negotiations like that with regard to office space. I remember how they got bogged down too. The leader of a certain political party, not the number one or number two party, not to be too specific, decided he wanted the better part of the whole floor in a building. He wanted sweeter suites, if I can refer to it that way.
Members across the way should watch how they speak on some of these issues. They know perfectly well that it was a representative of the hon. member's own caucus who refused to take a number of vice-chairmanships. She decided that she would rather have none than the ones that had been offered by the official opposition.
That is a disagreement between the opposition parties. It has nothing to do with the government.