Mr. Speaker, I will be brief as well. I would simply like to speak to the House about the matter before us, the adoption of the 21st report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

If the report is adopted, the committee will instruct the clerk to amend the Standing Orders accordingly. I therefore invite all my colleagues to read the 21st report of the committee, which explains in detail the changes to the Standing Orders that will be made if the report is adopted.

It is fundamental to Parliament that we discuss the election of our Speaker. After all, that person acts on behalf of the House of Commons outside Canada and receives dignitaries here. Thus, it is a very important role. That person also makes important decisions about the debates in the House. Thus, I take this debate very seriously.

The change to the Standing Orders proposed in this committee report is nonetheless significant. Although the changes to the way we vote are not fundamental, they are substantial.

As many of my colleagues know, under the current system, a candidate must obtain 50% of the votes in order to be elected. Thus, in 2011, it took several rounds to elect a Speaker. With the proposed change, we would simply use a ballot and indicate our preferences by ranking them in numerical order.

It is nevertheless an important change because, under the current rules, members can reconsider their choice after every ballot. With the system proposed today, our selection would be made as soon as we write it down on the ballot and we could not make any changes after that.

I only hope that this change will eliminate as much partisanship as possible from the election of the Speaker. The ultimate goal that we must try to achieve is to elect a Speaker who has the largest number of votes and whose election is not influenced by partisan considerations. Personally, as an MP who has a great deal of respect for the role of Speaker, I hope that we can reduce the influence of partisanship on the election of the Speaker as much as possible.

Will this new system improve our current voting process? It will be up to all of us to decide that tomorrow when it comes time to vote.

I also wanted to thank the committee members for their work. They held two meetings on this topic, on June 3 and October 2, 2014. They obviously heard from the sponsor of the motion, who brought this issue to the committee, as well as from a U.K. expert who represented the House of Lords. The committee assessed the pros and cons of the proposed system, the current system, as well as other systems that exist around the world.

I wanted to talk about the work that the committee did. In conclusion, I remind members of the House that tomorrow's vote is very important. If the report from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is adopted, consequential amendments will be made to the Standing Orders that govern this House. This vote should not be taken lightly. Before the vote, I urge all members to carefully read the report and the proposed change to the Standing Orders, so that they are fully informed before making this decision. I hope history will show that the House made the right decision.

Pierre-Luc Dusseault

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