Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Yukon on his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
I was very interested in his comments about what kind of development will be taking place in the north. We hear all kinds of discussion about pipelines and the like. I have family who work up in the Inuvik area and it is all to do with oil and gas. Certainly that will be the future of the great north. There will be a significant need for that kind of development to make sure that we can tap those great resources in the north.
My question will not be so much on the north. My question is directed to the parliamentary secretary. I am interested in his comments. The parliamentary secretary used the word “delighted” I do not know how many times, perhaps a couple of dozen times over things that he observed, read or agreed with in the Speech from the Throne. However, he did not mention anything about how delighted he was when it comes to the democratic deficit. It is the issue that seems to be on the minds of so many people when it comes to dealing with parliamentarians and the way we do business here, or the way we do not do business here.
I will refer to the Speech from the Throne in a couple of places. The first place is on page 4 at the top of the page. The Prime Minister made note of this when he gave his comments on the speech:
We must re-engage citizens in Canada's political life. And this has to begin in the place where it should mean the most--in Parliament--by making Parliament work better. That means reconnecting citizens with their Members of Parliament.
I am sure the member is aware of the incident which took place in Switzerland. The Swiss people presented their parliament with a referendum. They declared to their parliament that they wanted to see a real crackdown on pedophiles in their community. In other words, the Swiss wanted to lock them up and throw away the key. That came from the people. Parliament was very reluctant to deal with the matter in that fashion. However, it had to go along with the Swiss people given the fact that it was through a referendum.
I ask the parliamentary secretary, how strong will he fight for the people in this country to make sure that they have the same kind of an opportunity and protection in law for such initiatives as referenda or citizens' initiatives?