Yes. If you review my testimony from the previous committee, I noted that I did not envision any changes in eligibility for who would run for chairs. That would mean that only government members would be eligible to run for what are now government-led standing committees, and opposition members would only be eligible for opposition-led standing committees.

Now, it's very possible.... One concern you were getting close to but didn't quite touch on is what would happen in a majority government when the opposition members' chairmanships could effectively be picked by the government members, or the reverse in a minority Parliament, where the opposition could gang up and effectively pick chairs from among those government members who are most friendly to the opposition. That's a possibility, but that would be the will of the House and not the will of the party leaders.

I would note, as implied in my statement on preferential ballots, that these votes would be secret. One thing I know about secret ballots around this place is that as much as the party leadership may have a preference, as soon as it's not holding up hands in the room, the votes are impossible to control. When they did this in the House of Commons in Great Britain, one of the candidates for one of the committee chairmanships noted that while they only have 650-odd members, among the candidates for committee chairmanship they had approaching 2,000 commitments. Politicians sometimes tell people what they want to hear, including other politicians.

I think a secret ballot would be very difficult for the leadership to try to manipulate, to try to cherry-pick opposition members, particularly in the new Parliament when you have new MPs and you have people who are manoeuvring back and forth. I think it's a theoretical problem. I don't think it would be a practical problem.

Bradley Trost