Mr. Speaker, I will begin by answering the last question. It is clear to me that, if members can vote by secret ballot, they will have more latitude to make the choices they feel are best.
The hon. member is very well aware that, in practice, the way things work is that members have to support the candidate hand-picked by the PMO. Consequently, it is not true that the choice is a free one when voting is held in committee. He knows that very well. I cannot believe he does not. It is possible in theory at this time for a member to vote freely for a chair, but in practice that is not the way it happens. We know very well that everyone can be identified and so they will have to live with the pressure that goes along with that, afterward.
I want to be clear, so I will take a typical committee as an example. It normally has sixteen members: nine from government, three from the official opposition, two from the Bloc Quebecois, one from the NDP and one from the Conservatives. So nine of the sixteen are Liberals. One of these is for the chair, which leaves eight Liberal members, and seven all together for the opposition. We are not talking about destabilizing the government in the formation of committees. If the Liberals remain united on the policies their party defends in committee proceedings,they are still in the majority. These proportions reflect the results at the polls.
There is no major change except that the person who will head the committee will do so with increased dependence on the committee members, not on someone from outside the committee who has chosen him. This will have an impact on the agenda, on the way the work is carried out, on the way the committees can express their opinions on government policies.
It is obvious to me that this is a positive step. It is the hon. member's prerogative to wish that we continue to vote by a show of hands, even to elect the Speaker of the House, or that we vote by rising one after the other. At least, the hon. member is consistent. Most of his colleagues are saying, “No, it is somewhat different for the position of Speaker of the House”. The hon. member is showing a degree of consistency. He does not want the Speaker of the House to be elected through a secret ballot.
The hon. member fears that a secret ballot—that is what he claims, but I cannot believe that he thinks that—will result in a loss of voters' confidence. I do not agree. Confidence is already eroding, and this goes for all parties, because voters feel that we do not have enough impact and influence on the government, that we must all follow party lines, with the result that we cannot represent their interests. The proposal before us would ensure greater independence for everyone, including opposition members, when the time would come to choose committee chairs.
It is not true that the seven members from four different parties are always going to choose the same person. Pending further study of the matter, we agreed to still have Liberals for chair, but it would not be the end of the world if more committees were chaired by opposition MPs. This does not prevent government members, being the majority, from still maintaining a certain consistency with their election commitments, if they feel a committee is headed in a direction that is not desirable for the public and not in keeping with their commitments. There will always be that freedom, but there would be someone in charge with greater independence.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts does not have a Liberal as chair. I have not heard from them that it works any less well than the others, despite not having someone from the governing party in power. Are some of the hon. members questioning that approach as well, saying that it should not be done that way? We feel there should be more committees and that overall they should be less partisan. That should be the next step: make them more independent and less partisan.
The first step, as proposed today, is to ensure that the person who chairs a committee is chosen by the membership and that the selection is by secret ballot.
What is there here that does not make sense? What is there in it that is so harmful? Everything will continue to operate, but many of the MPs on the committees will be able to take part. The ones who spend the most time in committee are not the ministers. The ones who are so fiercely opposed to the measure proposed today are not the ones who are generally in attendance.
I am sure that, if the vote involved only members who are on a committee, the outcome would be different than if the ministers or the Prime Minister voted, because the latter is going to twist a lot of arms to keep the change from happening. To those who really work on committees, this is a step in the right direction if the way the institution works is to be improved.
Once that has been done, we will start working on the next step.