Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've listened to all the arguments and I was trying to figure out if there was anything new to say that hasn't already been said.

I also remember eight years ago, or nearly eight years ago, when we had this debate. I was very much in favour, at that time, of the leader, as the person was called at that time, doing the art -- because it is an art -- of putting a Cabinet together that could do all the work that needed to get done; but, there were only five people in support of it and four years later there were six, today there may be as many as seven.

I know that in politics, change doesn't come quickly. Parliamentary systems act cautiously and move along quietly, and you don't do things by revolution; things evolve.

I would speak a little bit about all these bogeymen that people pose about imposing party politics. This Legislature can't impose party politics, but that's what happens; people do that. And if people get so fed up, sick and tired about what goes on here because we can't solve our problems, or don't evolve fast enough, then it will happen. There is a bigger danger in not doing something to improve our system, than setting up the fear that we're imposing party politics on people by what we do. If we don't do things to fix the problems that people are always telling us we have -- and they have been referred to earlier -- then it's very simple to start party politics.

If I wanted to, from now until October, all I would have to do is get enough people -- and I think I need three people -- decide on a platform, register under the societies ordinance, call myself whatever I wanted -- the Equality Party, the Freedom Party -- I could sell memberships, and I can ask people if there are enough of them to share my ideas about where I want to go. It doesn't happen from the top, it happens from the grassroots. That's what's going on right now in our system.

The idea that we don't understand party politics, team politics or the ideology is just nonsense. We have Members of Parliament in Ottawa. We send people there, that's our government. We have two Members right now; we're Liberals. Everybody understands what they are, what they represent, we vote for them and we send them there. That's our government. So, to say that we don't understand is just not right. People do understand. The territories votes in federal elections and send people to Ottawa that we want to have there representing us. It's nonsense for people to say they don't understand what party politics is; they do. Whether they want it in our Chamber here is a different question. That's the question we have to ask.

And, as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Speaker, the problem we have now is this: we've made some token gestures. We decided that we don't want our leader to be called the Government Leader any more and we want that person to be called the Premier, because when that Premier goes to all the meetings with all the other Premiers, we want to show that we are the same as everybody else; for that purpose. Yet, it doesn't mean anything if the Premier is no more than a chairman of the board who makes sure everybody stays more or less decorous, follows the order of business and whatever rules are set down. But, really, there are seven governments here; you don't have one. Whatever a Minister wants to do, he will; as much as he can, decide to do that. Some people like the broken field play, that they have tremendous autonomy to do this, this and this, even though it doesn't seem to be consistent with what other people are doing.

Mr. Speaker, since I promised not to repeat what other people have said, I'll say the danger is this: if we don't improve our own system and do something to fix the problems people say we have, then we will get party politics. And, it will have nothing to do with what people do here, it will have to do with what people do out there. They will decide what will happen. It will only happen, though, if we fail to make our system better, to improve it so that the consensus system that we have will evolve in a way that is consistent with many of the things that have been said in this Chamber about our uniqueness, how different we are and how we solve our problem in a modern way, if you like. It's not only modern, it's a way that is consistent with the traditions that have been passed down over a long, long period of time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause