bzr access to https://code.l.n redirects to http

I am behind a firewall whereby I can punch through for https, and then have to use a finicky windows domain integrated proxy for http. I elect not to use that proxy as much as possible, and try to "prefer" https when it is availab.e

I have tried to do this with a bzr branch, and have been met with this error:

ubuntu:~/workarea$ bzr branch --verbose https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/binutils/pkg-ubuntu binutils-pkg-ubuntu
bzr: ERROR: Connection error: while sending POST /~ubuntu-core-dev/binutils/pkg-ubuntu/.bzr/smart: [Errno 110] Connection timed out

strace shows that there was an attempt to connect to the http, instead of the https server:

afro-ubuntu:~$ sudo strace -fp 8432
Process 8432 attached - interrupt to quit
connect(6, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(80), sin_addr=inet_addr("91.189.90.11")}, 16^C <unfinished ...>
Process 8432 detached

To me this is a bug. I've specified a https method, so I would expect bzr not to stray. I don't have an ftp methoded URL to try, but I wonder if this would happen for ftp as well.