Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. We could, and probably should, go to an election. The House of Commons has a kind of tenuous confidence in the government right now, so it would seem. It should be understood that “confidence”, used in the parliamentary sense, does not mean robust confidence; it means unwillingness to trigger an election. Certainly, in this party, we are willing to go to an election and we would very much like to do so. My sense is that there is a willingness in the Bloc. The NDP is wavering, in the hopes the government will see the light.
However, in terms of where Canadians are, it is abundantly clear. There has never been a prime minister, since polling started, who has been as unpopular as the current Prime Minister, who has been opposed by more people. The people of Canada deserve to have a say, regardless of what our rules are here. We can all agree that, morally, that ought to happen. I am not suggesting that somehow we should override the rules with respect to the confidence convention, but clearly it is well past the time for the Prime Minister and his tired party of incompetent ministers to move aside.