Madam Speaker, I listened to the speech given by the hon. member. Certainly the government is prepared to justify the way it makes appointments. Nobody would criticize the government making appointments if the government did it fairly and squarely, and appointed people who were competent and had the trust of everybody else in the House. However we have seen what the government does. The Prime Minister said on July 19, 1997:
You appoint people of your party. I'm not going to name people who are not Liberals.
Many times we do not know who these people are. There are many qualified independent people out there who could serve on boards. The government should immediately place a moratorium on political appointments for a period of two months. In these two months we could establish the necessary parliamentary structures. Once these structures are in place then the candidates who are appointed to high office would be appointed not only with the consent of government, but with the support of the House and the people of the country.
I ask the member to comment on that because it is not my statement. It is from the government House leader in February 1985.