Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. The ability of an hon. member to access this House in order to vote on a matter before the House is of utmost importance. Indeed, there is nothing more important in terms of the function of a member of Parliament than to stand up and vote on matters before the House on behalf of their constituents. That is what our constituents elect us to do. Unfortunately, in the case of the hon. member for Milton and the hon. member for Beauce, that privilege was infringed upon when they were prevented from getting here. That is why this debate is so important.
In terms of the consequences of what could have happened, one consequence was that two hon. members were not able to stand in their place on behalf of 100,000 or so constituents. That is a pretty significant consequence, but it could have been an even worse consequence if we had been talking about a vote of confidence. The inability of the members to access this House, to show up and vote, could have the consequence of literally resulting in a potential loss of confidence in the government. We are talking about very serious consequences that could flow from the privileges of members being infringed upon in terms of being able to access this place.