Madam Speaker, when my wife Jeanette Ashe, who is a political scientist, first brought the e-petitions notion to my attention, we started to do quite a lot of research on it. First and foremost, we went to the United Kingdom to look at this. It had a very long study, about five years, on e-petitions. The very concerns the member has brought up were raised. In fact, under a Conservative government, the U.K. decided to go forward with this notion and has found it to be very successful. It has found secure ways for the e-petitioning system. What it found was that it actually allows more accuracy in identifying signatures. In fact, to date, in the year this has been operating, it has only had about 11 petitions that have actually come forward.
In concern for the hour being taken away from House business, we propose that hour be added to what the House currently does so as not to disrupt proceedings.
Since we have started to talk about this motion this week, we have had considerable support from the public, all in electronic form so far.