They're confusing to everybody. You could do a great service to the nation if you actually could define it in the act.
You know, this is Canada. What we call a “taxicab” is called a “taxi” in Britain and a “cab” in New York. We say “tin can” in Canada. In Britain they say “tin of fish”. In America they say “can of beans”. We're so used to mangling words and putting them together. We can't quite decide what they should be.
In Newfoundland, where it's the Referendum Act, all that ever happened under that was plebiscites. In the Loi référendaire du Québec, those were non-binding. They're both the same. They're questions on a ballot answered by a yes or a no, given to citizens who are qualified to vote.
The process is all the same, but what's the legal significance? If you go back in law, originally a plebiscite was a non-binding vote and a referendum was a binding one. However, not only in practice and terminology but also in the actual statutes of our country, three of the jurisdictions have now used the opposite meanings.
That's why I think it's easier, generally, to refer to a ballot “question”--it's just more generic in terms of what the process is--rather than define whether you prefer the Greek word, “plebiscite”, or the Roman word, “referendum”, to describe something that's very Canadian.
In my act, which I had drafted and presented to Parliament, I referred to “public consultation”. I referred to it largely as that.
To answer Marlene Jennings' question, there's a third thing I would change. I would refer to it as “citizens' consultation”, not “public consultation”--