Tom Lukiwski

[Government Response to Petitions, June 19th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 21 petitions.

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 18th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Government Response to Petitions, June 18th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's responses to six petitions.

[Motions for Papers, June 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, if Questions Nos. 1259, 1260, 1262 to 1264, 1267 to 1272, 1274, 1275, 1277, 1278, 1280 to 1282, 1285, 1287, 1289, 1293, 1295, 1299, 1301, 1302, 1305, 1307, 1309, 1310, 1313, 1314, 1316, and 1320 to 1323 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the following question will be answered today: No. 1273.

[Government Response to Petitions, June 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's responses to 13 petitions.

[Committees of the House, June 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a problem with the current system when it comes to the disclosure of votes, because, quite frankly, I have sometimes seen one candidate receive a very small percentage of the votes and I would not want to see that candidate embarrassed by having the vote totals disclosed.

The current system, as my hon. colleague knows, is simply that if there not a 50%-plus-1 absolute outright winner, the candidate with the fewest votes is taken off the ballot. If memory serves me well, I believe that unless a candidate receives a minimum of 5% of the total votes cast, the name of that person is also taken off of the ballot. I think that is sufficient. I do not believe that there should be the added element of disclosing the exact vote totals.

However, in a preferential ballot, we would avoid all of that because one ballot, and only one ballot, would have to be filled out. After the counting has been completed, a candidate will have been elected. That is a far simpler, far more efficient, and far more beneficial system for this place to adopt.

[Committees of the House, June 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I tend to agree. I mentioned that the election of the Speaker is probably the most important decision that new parliamentarians will make in their parliamentary lifetime. Frankly, the process that we currently have does not encourage a lot of knowledge about candidates.

We have a system under which I believe each candidate for Speaker is allowed five minutes to address the House—no, it is four minutes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that correction.

It is a very brief period of time. Many new members will be listening to a candidate for the Speaker's chair for the very first time and will have only have four minutes to determine whether that candidate is worth their vote.

I would love to see a system similar to that in the U.K. An expanded timeframe would allow each candidate for the position of Speaker to reach out to all members and try to further explain to them why he or she is perhaps the most qualified to sit in that chair.

I appreciate my colleague's comments. Frankly, the systems in use over the course of the last few centuries in the U.K. are ones to be emulated more often that not. Perhaps this is a first step in reshaping exactly how we choose a Speaker in this place.