Madam Speaker, first of all let me deal with the member's reference to the wishes of the constituents. Some ideas that I receive from my constituents frankly should not see the light of day as they are awful. I am elected as a member to exercise judgment. There are ideas, however, that should see the light of day and that I should be able to advocate.
For a government member the equation becomes somewhat more difficult because, first, we have to deal with the issue of confidence. When dealing with the issue of confidence clearly a government member cannot be seen to be voting against the government on a matter of budget or money bills. It is certainly within the narrow confines of a budget and possibly even extended to money bills.
The second difficulty is the area of platform. If my party or the member's party ran on a platform and a motion is inconsistent with the platform, I would say that government members would have difficulty.
The third is the throne speech. If an initiative is not consistent with the throne speech, I would say a government member would have some difficulty supporting the initiative. Having said all of that, we would have to argue a government member into having a whipped vote at that point.