Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Fraser Valley-West for his remarks. I have listened carefully to the different speakers, and more specifically the one who just talked about the subject in front of us this morning.
The first point I would like to stress-and I am going to pay them a compliment, even though they belong to a different party-has to do with the fact that the aim of their motion is to increase democracy and get Canadians interested in what is going on, in other words, in their own fate. For that, hats off to them.
But, where I have some reservations, as some of my colleagues may have, is with the vehicle they want to use. Today, we are talking about making greater use of petitions in the House. I am not opposed to the idea, in principle, but as any theoretician would, I want to know how it is going to work.
For example, on our side, different petitions carry more or less weight. What I mean is that not everybody has the same understanding of how to use petitions. Some clever people, good at manipulating public opinion, might see how to make use of them for their own purposes and apply financial leverage to that end. Therefore, in a spirit of fairness for all, it might be important to define clearly the new framework for petitions and set limits for financial contributions.