Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. I'm sorry I didn't quite have time. There was too much to get to, and maybe I'll get there.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I know.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Again, I honestly have not been too active on the CAPP forum lately, and certainly the idea is to just to keep people discussing. We don't want to be putting out the idea of a coalition with the intent of hopefully propping up any parties or anything like that. But I think it is quite interesting that we have sort of this confusion and that some people would perhaps try to exploit that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Realistically, nothing short of a constitutional amendment will have any weight to it. But part of the reason I started the group in the first place was to put a stop to it, not having this become routine. Because it happened twice in two years, it was very dangerous. If this becomes the new attitude--and I'm thinking beyond the current government--some day we will have the Liberals in government again, and for them to take what has happened before and keep going with it....

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This is going beyond my expertise as to knowing actual procedure and that sort of thing, but I do know in regard to prorogation that once the time has been set it can actually be recalled earlier, but again that power resides with the Governor General. So that's this idea of talking about changing the Standing Orders, or introducing legislation to perhaps put in some sort of mechanism, some way to either recall earlier or something.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was quite interesting. There were a couple of surveys done. One graduate student in Lethbridge is currently doing her master's thesis on the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group. She circulated a survey. There was another one. I can't remember the organization that had done it, but I think they had around 350 participants.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  May I answer in English? I really have no hope of sitting on the Supreme Court.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd actually been working on that joke. I think what's really interesting about what's happened is that a lot of people are starting to really think and reflect—I'm speaking personally, as well, here—about the different actors in Parliament. Again, it's correct, the opposition is not simply there; they're as critical to the proper functioning of the Government of Canada as the governing party.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Balloon boy.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I get that a lot, actually. I look like Brad, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was actually December 30, the day—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it was the same day it happened. I believe by January 3 our numbers were at 11,000, on January 7 we were at 100,000, and on January 14 it was 200,000. That puts it into perspective there.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think there were many people who were just as upset in 2008 as in 2009 but didn't have it as an outlet. I think there were quite a few people like that as well. We had some people who had come on and for whatever reason they had told me that.... I have gotten a lot of e-mail and correspondence over the last several months.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I can talk personally and that will give you some perspective on it. Again, I'm politically aware. I follow politics and read the news and everything like that. So back in 2008 I was aware when Mr. Harper had asked to prorogue in face of the coalition attempt. Honestly, at that point, in regard to all the actors in that situation, I wasn't very impressed with what was going on, so I didn't choose to get involved.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Again, I've heard the discussion, it's the Standing Orders, legislation, or both. I think the whole point of it is to try to establish a convention. And as I said in my presentation, you can't simply create a convention and expect it to be a convention. Conventions are created through routine use, that sort of thing.