Mr. Speaker, it is true that since the early 1990s we have changed the way Parliament handles question period. It is more of a convention now than any hard and fast rule and could be altered. I know in other parliaments throughout the world, questions can sometimes be as long as two or three minutes, and there can be a lot of substantive information in an answer of two or three minutes as well.
That is a suggestion I have heard before, which I think is worth examining, but I do not know whether opposition members would agree to that, because it would limit the number of questions they would have each day. Questions may be longer, may be more substantive, and it may ultimately be the best thing for Canadians, but I sense there would be continuing opposition from whoever is in the opposition benches just because they would be reducing the number of questions their own members would be allowed to pose to the government.
The member makes a very good point that there are more ways to look at question period than the process and protocols we are observing today.