Madam Speaker, I do not think that the House or Canadians would have a big problem with fixing dates. Certainly, there are some arguments that could be made that it may cause longer election periods because people, knowing when an election date was, would have a longer period in which to start gearing up and may extend that. It may be more costly, but that may be a minor point.
I want to ask the member with regard to the situation we are in currently. It has to do with the situation where the prime minister of the day stepped down and was replaced, and all of a sudden there was a new prime minister who was then in a situation where he was governing on the basis of a platform and subsequent throne speeches which another government had adopted.
Does the hon. member feel this would somehow interfere with the opportunity and maybe the requirement of a new leader to go to the people for a mandate so that the government is not encumbered, as it were, by a previous mandate and that it could get a mandate to govern on possibly new ideas and new directions from the prior government?