Thank you, Chair.
I think this is a good motion for us to be pursuing, for a number of reasons. First, as was mentioned by Mr. Hill, there has been previous work done on this by this committee, before the last election, which really responded to the September 2004 Speech from the Throne, which was amended to put the question of electoral reform into it. So things are under way, and we would be picking up the work that had been left out.
I have a couple of other observations. First, in the spring of 2004, the Law Commission of Canada put out a massive report on electoral reform and on different electoral systems in the Commonwealth, in particular, but also in the European and American systems, and it came up with a whole set of recommendations. The Law Commission of Canada Act requires that they do extensive public consultation, which they did, and deep research--social research--which was done. So we have a tremendous body of work to consider.
While it's important that this committee continue with this work, that it not interfere with the consultation and polling process that the government announced two weeks ago, I think it's equally important that we make sure that they're complementary and that Parliament continues to have a role in it. We've begun, and this independent law commission has reported. I just think we should take advantage of all the information that's necessary.
Having gone through the B.C. process and having watched their Citizens' Assembly for a year and a half really deliberate, and seeing both how valuable that was and how confusing it can be with different electoral systems, I think we should draw on all this work that has been done. I would suggest that this is the appropriate committee, rather than a special committee, because it does have overlapping relationships with a lot else that we deal with.