Mr. Speaker, I believe the member who just spoke is too modest. She has a good reputation in the House, and it is well earned, for being prepared and doing the best that she can with the resources available. I think all members would agree.
Let us not be too full of ourselves, though, because we all know that 99.99% of the people in this place could never get elected as an independent. Therefore, we cannot consider ourselves to be members of parliament elected to come here to do a bunch of things as members of parliament.
I believe the member would concede that we are elected primarily as members of a parliamentary or political team. We run under a banner with a leader, with policy. In fact, what the people are voting for is a parliament. They are voting for members as members of a team. If their team forms the government, they expect them to work very hard to implement the platform they brought to the House with them. If their team is not elected to government, their role will be the role of the opposition.
We have the official opposition. We have the other parties of the opposition. Their role is not to govern. It is to be the opposition and to do it very well. It is to seek accountability where there is none, to seek clarification where there is none, to seek information where there is none, and to point out deficiencies where there are deficiencies. It is a very difficult job. Many backbenchers in a majority government would say the opposition members have a better job because they have an opportunity to become national figures. They ask the questions they want to ask during question period.
Opposition MPs are different. Government MPs have a responsibility to support the team and the platform on which they ran and on which they were elected. They have a constitutional obligation to follow through on the things they ran for. If as a member of the government team I cannot support the government platform, if I cannot stand here to vote in favour of it, I should not be a member of that caucus. I should withdraw from the caucus and sit as an independent or maybe even resign.
Perhaps the member would like to comment on anything I have said. In fairness, it is how I feel about the different roles of opposition members and government members.