Mr. Speaker, the observations of my colleague from Delta are right. I just hate to come right out and say it. Referendums cannot be bought easily but referendums can be massaged, depending on how it is put to the people, the timing of the vote, the wording of the question, last minute changes, release of new information, all those things. One could jack that around, especially the time factor, if one does not give the time required.
Overall the referendum process is a good way of getting a barometer of people's feelings on a particular issue. They need information, the pitfalls and so on to make sure that the referendum is fair and above board.
One of the reasons I think the member from Delta is concerned about a free vote is because a little too often people are shuffled off from this place. They go to become premiers of the Atlantic provinces, where the cards and the chips are called in at that time.
The caution here is, why is it when members are part of the government side, they then go on to the happy hunting ground, taking their pension with them and become maritime premiers. We have had three of them now. They continue to roll back here. They continue to say “How is it going, how is the old boys club, is there anything else we can do for you? I will tell you this. You give us the HST and we won't complain. You give us a billion dollars and we'll shut up”. All that stuff starts going on. Pretty soon we question even something like this referendum result. After all, it was the former fisheries minister who wandered off and became the premier, but I wonder if he is still tied in any way to the government side?
It is speculation on my part but I do wonder. That is one of the reasons why many of us say let us go to the people of Newfoundland and ask them directly. We will not just ask the premier. We will get opinions from the people who are sending their children to these schools and we will take them at face value.