I think you're absolutely right that we have to look at prorogation in a bigger context. It's a symptom of a wider malaise, perhaps both within this institution and in the perception of this institution by the Canadian population. This is another reason why the fix is the rules. We might fix prorogation.... Sean Avery can't wave his arms in front of Martin Brodeur any more, because now there's a Sean Avery rule, but he can do other stuff that's just as obnoxious. If we don't change the culture that creates the Sean Averys, then we have a problem.
I'll say one thing about the media, and this goes back to the discussion we were just having. It might feel to you, because they talk about you, that they are all-powerful, but the traditional media are in a state of extreme vulnerability. How many newspapers will there be in this country in ten years? I don't know--not that many. The kids aren't reading the papers any more. Even television.... Traditional media are in a state of crisis. I think what we have to look towards is not so much how we change the media we have; we should look at how we can exploit, and I use that term in a positive sense, the new media that are arising to set them up from the very beginning in ways that are more productive, more non-partisan than they might previously have been.
This is the third or fourth time I've appeared in a committee like this in my life. There's a world of difference between the sound bites you get on the news about what happens in the House and what happens here. Here there are people working together. I mean, everybody should be able to come into one of these meetings to have their sense of the health of our democracy strengthened, but that's not what is going to be reported.
I think we're living through a generational shift in the way in which people in this country, the young people, consume information. They're not consuming information through the traditional media; they are consuming information on the Internet. And I think we have a challenge as a society to make sure that this new channel of information gets set up in a way that is less toxic, less gotcha journalism, and more deep down, going after....