Mr. Speaker, we just heard from the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona. Members will probably know him well because of his long service to the House, and in terms of a thermometer of earned respect he has certainly earned a great deal here.
He raised an issue about chairs of committees. I would like him to know, and I think most members in this place would agree, that all parliamentarians win when we have good, solid chairs in our committees. I tend to agree with his assessment.
He also postulated that delay is an important aspect of democracy. I agree with him there as well. Even though he is quite right that at this point that it looks like a process of fine tuning and tinkering with standing orders, with the hon. member participating on the committee I am sure important things can happen and I hope he will pursue them.
My question for the member has to do with the spirit. He started his speech by saying we should not be going through a process of tinkering. What he said we should instead be doing, and he was spot on, is talking about the issue of redistribution of power.
I believe the member is absolutely correct. That is exactly what is on the minds of opposition parliamentarians. They want to redistribute power, because in our parliamentary system, constitutional obligations, et cetera, the power is vested in a majority government elected to govern. The opposition has a role to play—and maybe the hon. member will comment—and the role of the opposition, in my view, is to deliver blows that would tenderize a turtle. I do not believe they have a mandate to govern, yet the member is quite right, and I know where he is coming from: redistribution of power is the issue.
If constitutionally a majority government is required to deliver on a mandate, would it in fact be in the best interests of our parliamentary system to structure its affairs in such a way that a government would be pre-empted in any way from delivering on a mandate, which it was democratically elected to do?