Mr. Speaker,I thank the member for his congratulations.
I am delighted the member has asked the question, because I can talk on a couple of points. I did not mention the democratic deficit in my speech because I actually talked about it at length yesterday. Therefore I did not repeat it.
Regarding the citizens' referendum, what I have done to fight for it in Canada is very interesting. In my previous life I was involved in rewriting the municipal act in the Yukon. We brought exactly that format into the municipal act in the Yukon, one of the places in Canada, and there are a couple of others, with all the controls. It is very complex legislation but it certainly performs quite well in that level of government.
Talking about the democratic deficit here, I can comment on the government's initiatives. I am quite excited at the proposals for addressing the democratic deficit and the results so far.
The three-line vote will allow far more votes by individual members. It is going to change the whole nature of Parliament. Ministers will have to sell their ideas to parliamentarians.
I certainly hope people on our side will not think that if we have a vote and a law is defeated, that it is a defeat for the government. I certainly would not consider it to be that. I would consider that a victory for democracy because if the proposed law was not good then we would defeat it in Parliament. I am very excited about that and I hope that all the opposition parties will vote in a similar spirit.
I do not want to take up all the time on this topic, but the other thing I am most excited about is the sending of most bills to committee before second reading, the ones that are going to be on one and two-line votes. If a bill goes to committee after second reading, the members on the committee really cannot touch the general nature of the bill, the whole intent, the general principles. When a bill is sent to committee before second reading, as was done with the assisted human reproduction bill, members of Parliament will have broad latitude in shaping that bill. Especially important is they are going to be able to select the committee chairs by secret ballot. The scrutiny of appointments is good as well.
I have one last thing to say on the democratic deficit and what has happened since this broad vision was made. I am very excited that the government is proceeding very seriously with this issue. People may not know this, but it was developed with our caucus. It was not just dropped on us. We had many meetings to put in ideas and as members can see, the government is serious.
Our first votes were two-line votes right near the beginning. I will be really excited to see how it works when we get into legislative votes. I will try to be accountable to the member to make sure that what we have promised is working as it should. I hope everyone works in that spirit and I hope this will be a much more interesting House for that reason.