Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. We are engaged in a very important debate which has to do with thinking about how this place runs. The way we run it, both the standing orders and the customs, have evolved over generations and are very important. We should constantly look at them and change them with care.
He mentioned that he has many private member's bills tabled and that he makes a practice of doing that. One of the things we are engaged in very directly at the moment is a change in the way we deal with private member's bills. Part of the objective is to make more of them votable.
However, I found it very useful to have private member's bills, to use them to publicize issues and I did once have one drawn. I was disappointed that it was not votable but we had a debate about it in the House of Commons. I found that very useful. I have used that debate since to press different corporations and various groups on the issue that was raised in my private member's bill. Although I would have liked it to have been votable, I found it very useful to have private member's bills, and I have used them to the limit of my capacity.
I wonder if my colleague could give us some idea of why it is that he continually reintroduces and introduces new private member's bills, knowing that many of them will not become votable?