Mr. Speaker, this proposal from the committee was intended to eliminate partisanship from the management, if I may put it that way, of the debates in the House. Had the government implemented it, we would not have had this debate, which, far from eliminating partisanship, does the very opposite.
I regret the fact that, in their defence of their position, the members of the Reform Party are in fact helping to make it partisan. Had the government done what it ought to, our Reform colleagues would have proposed someone as deputy speaker, I hope it would have been a woman, and I would not criticize her, particularly on the basis of incidents that allegedly occurred in a committee where I was not present.
I think the spirit was to have each party participate in the management of the House and therefore each party believed that those it proposed were best suited to ensure that debates were appropriate to the institution.