Mr. Speaker, I want to take my colleague from the Liberals back to the issue of the oath. I look at the composition of Canada now and I must admit I am having some difficulty, if I understand him, with his position that the oath should be comprised of swearing allegiance both to God, and I assume he is referring to a Christian God, and to the Queen of England and of Canada, when we have so many in our population who do not have those types of relations with either the Queen, in terms of historical association, or Christianity.
I think of my experience in the courtroom, where we have over the last several decades become much more flexible on administering the oath for witnesses in that setting. We always have at least the Christian Bible, the Torah, the Koran and other religious documents on which people can swear an oath in the religion with which they are affiliated. In addition to that, we have an oath or an affirmation that can be made for those people who do not believe in a god at all.
I am asking my colleague, if we had a flexible oath would he be comfortable with that?