I think this is a real issue for your committee to try to piece out. Building on Dr. Fox's comments, I think it may be to your advantage to think about the flexibility for you as parliamentarians to decide how to deal with a petition. My point was that in part right now...if the motion is implemented as it is suggested, you'll be creating two parallel systems, one for written petitions and one for electronic petitions, which are treated quite differently. For a citizen who's signing something, whether it's by hand or online, what they're doing is expressing their support for the issue. They don't necessarily see why that support should be funnelled through two different sets of rules and processes, one where you only need one MP to support it in order to get some response from government, and another system that would require five MPs.
On November 25th, 2014. See this statement in context.