Mr. Speaker, first I would like to voice my support for the member's suggestion that Fridays should be dedicated to private members' hour. In fact, if the members so chose, I think the hours of sitting on Friday could be extended. If the members want to debate private members' business they should not be confined to 8 hours. They could do it for 10 hours or 12 hours so long as they wanted to carry on a discussion of private members' business. I think that would be a very progressive thing to do and might take some of the pressure off making all private members' bills votable.
I would like to ask the member opposite a very specific question, knowing that he has extensive knowledge of private members' business and the history of private members' business in the last couple of parliaments.
We used to have a 100 signature rule that enabled private members' bills to bypass the lottery. What it meant basically is that if a member could get all party support or the support of three parties in the House then a private member's bill would bypass the lottery and go directly onto the order of precedence. It did not work. We know it did not work. There is a variety of reasons why it did not work.
However, I wonder what the member thinks about a situation whereby if all bills are votable, rather than requiring the lottery only to determine whether these bills actually come forward, perhaps in this case the 100 signature rule might work in fast tracking bills of exceptional value to the House onto the order of precedence.