Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments. First of all, I must say that I tend to agree with her last comment regarding the intrinsic merits of parliamentary reform, of electoral reform or of reform of our democratic institutions in general and of its impact on the public good.
I would, however, like to make two points with respect to my comment on freedom of expression. For the benefit of the Canadian Alliance member, I did indeed understand that the point she was making was simply that there is not much use raising an issue in the House if it is not put to a vote. I have already said that I agreed with this point of view.
Nonetheless, and contrary to what she said, I am far from thinking that what we are doing here today is a pointless waste of time. In this regard, I pointed out that, if we took logic to its ultimate extreme, we could conclude that freedom of expression is a waste of time.
As for the issue of quotas, I do not know if she was referring to my own speech, but I did not advance the suggestion that there should be quotas for youth, the disabled, cultural minorities and women, far from it.
I merely said that, in a system of proportional representation, political parties could increase the representation of women, youth, the disabled or cultural minorities simply by selecting those whose competence is beyond reproach and who also meet these other criteria, if I may say so, by putting them on their lists for proportional representation.
To reply to my colleague's question with respect to quotas, that was what I was talking about.