Mr. Speaker, the notion of increasing the votability of private members' bills would tremendously empower MPs as independent legislators. Yet again, because there is something of a convention of quasi free votes on those matters, I think we would see many good ideas coming forth.
However, I also think it is time for us to seriously consider complementing what is best about this institution and reviving it by taking power that exists in the Prime Minister's Office and giving it to people. I am a cynic. I am a pessimist. We could change the standing orders of this place, but the conventions exist. The centralization of power exists not because of the standing orders but because of politics and power and because of ambition and the desire of people to get into cabinet, to get parliamentary secretaryships or even to take trifling trips abroad. As long as those carrots and sticks exist in the Prime Minister's Office I am afraid that amendments to the standing orders such as those contemplated by this committee will not be sufficient.
For that reason I would like to empower directly the people through measures such as citizen initiated referenda, where the people could bring forward measures for the consideration of this parliament and the electorate as a whole which government or the legislature is unwilling or unable to consider itself. That, I think, would also be an effective check and balance against the increasing centralization of political power in the hands of the courts, a matter which is of grave concern to myself and my colleagues as well.