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I will not recommend adopting these rules to my party, as I believe them to be very questionable. I am particularly averse to the odious notion of a member being expelled from caucus by secret ballot rather than a show of hands.

With thresholds as low as 20% for calling a prime minister into question and 50% +1 for his/her removal, a prime minister could be blocked from making necessary decisions if they are unpopular with some members of the caucus. My personal view is that using tacit convention rather than a formal rule is a better way to go when expelling a leader, a momentous decision if there is one.

[np_storybar title=”John Pepall: The problem is not the leaders. It’s the parties” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/04/john-pepall-the-problem-is-not-the-leaders-its-the-parties/”]Michael Chong’s Reform Act has been hailed as an attempt to restore democracy. Alas, in the version that has lately been passed, it is a very feeble one. Its three main provisions are now effectively optional.

The statutory requirement that party leaders sign off on the nominations of their party’s candidates has been repealed but parties are free to decide who will certify a party’s candidates to Elections Canada. They could even decide it will be the party’s leader.

The provisions allowing party caucuses in the House of Commons to elect their chair and decide on caucus membership, and allowing 20% of a party’s caucus to trigger a leadership review, are now optional, to be adopted or not by each party’s caucus at the beginning of a new Parliament.