The best person, all right. I just heard a member from across the way talk about the best person. Of course that would be one of the criteria. Competence is very important.
The country has had federal governments since 1867. Since 1867 prime ministers have been making up their cabinets. One of the prime criteria for prime ministers is to take into account regional representation.
God forbid, if the day ever came that the opposition formed the government, I would bet that Saskatchewan Alliance MPs or Alberta MPs would want to be represented in cabinet. Does anyone think they would not want their provinces represented in cabinet? I do not think they would say, “Oh, no. We will just rely on competence. If it turns out that all of the competent members come from Quebec, that is fine. We do not care if we have a cabinet voice from Saskatchewan. We do not care if we have a voice from British Columbia”.
Who are they trying to kid? Whose leg are they trying to pull? That is an absolutely cruel joke. It is a fact of life that in our political life regional representation is extremely important. I happen to think that if we are going to have the election of chairs, we have to take that into account.
It is not surprising that I come from a region that is not as densely populated as the province of Ontario or the province of Quebec. All I want is my share.
What I want is a little more time to study this matter. If we have waited 135 years, I suspect we could wait another 15 sitting days so that we have a couple of opportunities to get this right. Once we make this change, it will be made for a long time. Sure we can fine-tune it down the road. In fact, I would not mind this kind of approach being tested for perhaps a year or two. I want to make sure in the early days of this that we do our homework, that we address the questions and concerns that have to be addressed.
I support the amendment to the motion. Let us take a little more time and get this right.