Mr. Speaker, the member brought up really good questions and I thank him very much for that. He knows very well that most of us, except for one, ran on a platform associated with a party. So the people who voted for us supported the general principles of that party platform.
He also knows very well that his constituents do not support every single plank of that platform. He is far too arrogant to suggest that therefore he has permission to vote a certain way on every single issue that comes up in this House.
There is another problem because, as he also well knows having been here before, there are many issues that come before this House that were never in a party platform and were never part of any policy material. Those especially are the types of issues where he should be very sensitive to the will of those who are paying his salary I remind him.
He says he is actually afraid that I may be serious. I certainly am serious. He is also very concerned that I am using the example of New Zealand for referendums. Of course he completely ignored the fact that the Harris government in Ontario is introducing similar legislation.
In addition to that, we have as a very good example the country of Switzerland which conducts most of its business, at what we would call the equivalent of the federal level, through citizens initiated referendum. Nobody could say that the Swiss are not smart, that their country does not have a high standard of living and that they do not conduct themselves in a civilized manner, but the difference there is that those people who want input to the government truly have input.
Finally I would like to mention that of course many of the issues that come before this House are not issues that all of the constituents are interested in. Many of them are housekeeping items and minor changes and amendments that affect very few people. It is unrealistic to expect people to take part in a referendum process for such issues.
Nevertheless there are many major things, like the Young Offenders Act, capital punishment and various bills that came through here last year on sentencing reforms on which the public should have had more meaningful input. If the committees of this House genuinely reflected the will of the people instead of the political agenda, most of those bills never would have gone through last year.
All I can say again to the member is to please open his eyes and begin reflecting the will of the constituents because the writing is on the wall: the times they are a changing.