Madam Speaker, the answer is no. I want the election of the Speaker. I supported that change, but if I had my way I would have one nominee for Speaker from my party because who has chosen the Speaker since we have elected Speakers in the last 10 to 15 years? It has been the opposition.
I have been around here for 14 years. There was more than one candidate for Speaker from the Liberal side in one election. I was in support of one of the minority candidates and he won. Why did he win? For reasons beyond my comprehension, the opposition decided to coalesce and they supported my minority candidate from the Liberal side. Naturally the other side would favour a secret ballot so that they could perhaps do a little bit of coalescing or whatever so that they could get their choice.
We have an adversarial political system and it works quite well. In the last election, Canadians decided they would vote for a majority Liberal government. That means there is a majority of Liberal members on this side. What they said was for us to follow our agenda and leave the opposition to the opposition. I support that system. I support that system also when it comes to the election of chairs.