My understanding is that even if there were a referendum, any change would have to be legislative, which means.... It strikes me as a bit silly to suggest that Parliament can't do it, because Parliament certainly can. Parliament has the legislative power to do what it would like to do in a representative democracy, as my colleague Dr. Massicotte has noted.
That said, I think what people are trying to tap into is the process by which the reforms are informed, and that's a different question. That's a much more fundamental question. It speaks to who we are as Canadians, what we want, and how we're talking about the scope of the problem. If we're talking about that, this is less about Parliament's legitimacy to write a law to change an institution, because Parliament certainly has the power, and that's that. Fair enough.
The thing that concerns me is that the definition of the problem seems to be rather limited in scope, which restricts the conversation we're having. I think there is also this populist element that comes through. Coming from western Canada, our politics is defined very much by populism, and that's going to colour how any decisions, recommendations, or processes transpire in a regional and a geographical kind of way.
These are things to be sensitive to, certainly. However, I'm not surprised that there are critiques of the process, because there are now norms and there is historical precedent for Canadians to be much more active in processes like these that have been conducted in the past.