Mr. Speaker, I gave a more narrowly technical legal answer to that in my opening remarks. The facts are before the Supreme Court of British Columbia. There is a challenge based on the issue that a referendum is not being held within British Columbia and it is based on the B.C. provincial constitution. My statement on that was that it was before the courts. The deference that we owe to a court as a co-ordinate institution of government does not allow us to hold a selective referendum in B.C. while that process is there.
I did pick up, though, the comments of the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas who quite rightly raised the issue with the Leader of the Opposition about going for a nation-wide referendum, and the Leader of the Opposition retreated.
On the large issue, I have been arguing for 20 years for basic changes in the constitutional system. If we want to go the Swiss way, Switzerland is a different society from ours—what was said—the country that built cuckoo clocks but what else. If we want an analogy there, let us do it, but let us do it as part of a comprehensive constitutional reform and not just pluck it out because it happens to suit us for a passing moment.