Madam Speaker, there we have it, a typical repetition of the mantra of the Speech from the Throne. I was talking about going beyond the banalities of a predictable throne speech and empowering Canadians so that they would be truly reflected here.
We need to have true participatory democracy. The throne speech vaguely alluded to parliamentary reform. We should continue to expand the bounds of democracy and that long tradition of great reform bills in England where it had the revolutionary idea of actually giving the vote to more citizens. We eventually gave the vote to women, but we continued to expand on those bounds of democracy by, believe it or not, giving aboriginal Canadians voting rights in 1960.
What I am talking about is the continuation of that tradition. Canadians should be empowered to participate and test what they want in a secret ballot box on national issues where a government has to be accountable on an ongoing basis to Canadians.
If we do not follow through on that vision, Canadians will not show up on national voting day because they know that they will have more of the same thin gruel for a nation that is starving for leadership and vision.
What we have been talking about in the House for a long time is empowering Canadians and expanding the bounds of democracy, not continuing to limit and not having top down control but bottom up liberation.