Madam Speaker, I apologize if the hon. member is offended. I do not know if she sits on that committee or not. If she is offended, I am sorry for that. The purpose is certainly not to insult members, either personally or collectively, who sit on that committee. That is not the point and I think I have explained it to all hon. members. The point is that should we have rule changes when they do not form the broad consensus of this House, at the very least we should arrange them in a way such that they are not permanent. Those have been part of our longstanding conventions.
I am sure that if the hon. member sits on that committee she knows that. Actually, whether she sits on the committee or not, being the well reasoned and well versed person that she is I am sure she already knows that. Given that the knowledge was already there on the part of the hon. member, I do not see how she can possibly be insulted. I am advancing to her reasonable thoughts in looking at this thing, I believe, and if they are not reasonable, in 15 days the committee will tell us that too. I do not think they are wrong.
The hon. member said that every single member who voted for this knew that from here on in that every single election of committee chairs would always be in secret even if 100% of members wanted otherwise. Maybe. I am sure there are some members who do not sit on the committee who do not know that. Did every single member of the committee know that? If she does sit on that committee, maybe she knows that.
Nonetheless, I invite members to think about what is being proposed, about the business of changing the method of election that has been there from time immemorial, of voting on a motion for the one of putting the names seriatim. Is it better? It is a drastic change and is certainly one that I think comes at us very quickly.
I dealt with the modernization committee with the hon. member's colleague, someone who has been around here even longer than I have. We did hours and hours of work on these things. We adopted rules. We made some of them temporary where we were unsure, those permanent when they formed a broad consensus, all of these things. We did it several times. I know that is how we did them. We did them often enough so that I can remember. That is what I am inviting the member and others to think about. I am in no way trying to insult her skills or her ability, or those of anyone else, to do these things.