Madam Speaker, that was a great presentation which outlined not only what is happening in our country but also what is happening across the planet.
We know many things are changing in our society now, not just the issues around our community, being the local things we do, but also in our economic development and social policy. The whole world is changing in many ways, and this is about that.
By no means is this an attack on our current system. It is an identification that we have a weakness, that we need to start to address the fact that we are being left behind. We are not even discussing the possibilities of growing our democracy to ensure it will be viable for Canadians who come forth and who feel disenchanted from it. Quite frankly, we have had people basically die for the privilege to have a democracy. At the same time, we are watching the numbers go down for a lot of reasons, and we need to address that.
I would like to ask a simple question which relates to the start of the hon. member's speech. It is the issue of whether we should send this to committee or a referendum, which obviously causes a little more complication to the referendum. It is important to highlight that we are asking Canadians if they would like to change. If they do, then we would reach out to them in terms of the study, how we want to develop the system and where we would go. It is simple to ask them if they would like to be involved with us, their elected representatives, to address democracy.
Does the member think that is important and is it a good way of describing the pros and cons of that strategy? We do not want to come through as saying it has to be exactly this way. We believe that is unfair. We want to reach out to Canadians say, “Participate with us in renewing our democracy”. This is about that.