Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and ideas behind the speech, however inherent in what the hon. member has said lies the danger. He has said petitions must not be frivolous. He said that the British House had 33,000 in one year and obviously things got out of hand.
Unfortunately most petitions are generated by special interest groups. I put one example to my hon. friend for his comment. He mentioned a petition of 1,000 signatures concerning abortion which took a great deal of effort. I trust the hon. member knows the latest poll with respect to abortion shows that 70 per cent to 80 per cent of Canadians do not want abortion made illegal. In other words in the vernacular they are pro choice. Therefore if we paid too much attention to a special interest petition of one million signatures we would be getting ourselves into a great deal of trouble.
All members in this House represent people in their ridings. If we are doing our jobs we know largely what most of them think. We should be in touch with the silent majority and we should not be swayed too rapidly by special interest groups.