Madam Speaker, I often get some of my knowledge and points from the great and learned Yuroslav, who is an individual of impeccable knowledge. The great Yuroslav has often told me about the need to involve people in politics.
I want to make a couple of comments about the comments that were made. By and large, we all agree that we should do something with petitions, that they should not just come into the House and die here, that we should have a way of at least discussing the darn things.
One of my colleagues, the chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee, mentioned that we should discuss this issue at committee. I did table that idea about three years ago, so one has to ask where it is going to go.
The only disappointing comments I heard today were from the Progressive Conservative members, who said “If the majority of Canadians want it, that is not necessarily the right thing to do”. Is it any wonder people do not vote Progressive Conservative today. That is exactly the opposite of what I think most people are saying today in Canada. If the majority of people want it, that is necessarily the right thing to do, even though politicians in their rhetorical positioning in the House may not agree. That should be quite irrelevant. It is what the majority of Canadians think that matters.
The bottom line is that petitions are indicators in our society that people want change. People organize petitions and go through the exercise of getting a certain number of Canadians interested in an issue for the purpose of sending it to the House. No matter what the issue is, and it may not be palatable to the House, we should have the right to discuss it, to look at it, to provoke thought and to send something forward to move the government in some direction.
I would not ask for unanimous consent, but I would suggest to the chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee that the committee look at this issue. I would ask that it look at the issue and not exactly what I have put forward in my motion. Let us not get tangled up in whether there are opposing positions on certain petitions. Let us not get tangled up in whether it is 2% or 3%. Let us take this issue to the procedure and House affairs committee to see if there is anything that can be done with petitions to make the people of Canada feel that all the work they went through was worth it.