On the same point, before the 1920s when Mackenzie King brought in the change to have a party convention to choose the leader, the leader was always chosen by the caucus. In a parliamentary system that was considered standard and normal with nothing particularly wrong with it. He went to this system of a party conference. I attended several of them in my younger days and enjoyed having the chance to choose the leader. That was fun.

I stress that each constituency chose a group of delegates to go to that conference. They heard all the candidates and voted on it. It was a very democratic process in my view. They recently decided that everybody gets the vote and forgot about the conference.

We've shifted away even more from a system where it was a smaller group that made the choice. The group would clearly be influenced if you had a big caucus. If you happened to be the governing party, and had the majority in the House, you'd have a fairly large caucus and the ridings of the members of the caucus would be influenced by the views of their MP. They would say, “I'm supporting John Doe for the leadership. I hope you guys will too. Talk to your friends at the conference and see if we can generate enthusiasm and interest”. There was a process there that is gone with the current system of having a national vote. It's reduced because with the national vote you have trouble getting in touch with all these people.

It has changed things and I don't find it offensive that a caucus could say, “No, this person who's been chosen is unacceptable to us. We have to work together in Parliament and this person has to work with us in Parliament and do stuff in Parliament, and we don't think he or she is the best person for the job. We think there are better people. We want someone else”.

That's the reason I'm pushing this. We've moved away from a system that in my view was very parliamentary. This one is less so.

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