Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the speech just given by my colleague. It brought to mind a number of serious breaches of the democratic process both in committee and also in the House where members are not given the freedom to vote the way they believe they should on a number of occasions. The one example that I am thinking of was the election of the chair.
Yesterday, this same member stood up in debate when a motion was proposed to appoint the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole. She went to some length in arguing that democracy would be better served if that were done by secret ballot similar to the election of the Speaker.
I went through that fiasco in the finance committee where there was a whipped vote in the committee on the selection of the chair. Would the member tell us why is it that there is an advantage to the secret ballot? What is the reason behind it? What is wrong with standing up? We have had this debate about whether or not members should always vote in secret ballot and yet the other argument is, “No. I want my MP to stand up and show the world where he stands on these issues”. In that case there is the argument against voting in secret so that we can be held accountable. How does the member reconcile those two conflicting points of view?