Mr. Speaker, our system comes out of the British parliamentary system and we sort of formed a history of the Canadian government under some of the rules from there and are hybrids of them.
Other nations have had other rules. Australia is an example of a British Commonwealth country that has hybrids of the British parliamentary system. I would say that the Australian parliamentary system is much more reflective of a democracy. Some of the changes there are much better than we have. We could learn a lot from the Australian model.
The United States has a four year term. Everyone knows exactly when the election is in the United States. In other democratic countries and free countries around the world, they get around this idea that it is up to the prime minister, or actually a prime minister's wife, to call an election. That is absolutely ridiculous. It is nonsense. This is about governing the country and we should stop the partisan politics of it and try to stop the opportunity for one party to get the upper hand because of the economy, employment rates and manipulation of events as to whether that party thinks it is going to be a good winter or bad winter as far as the economy goes.
That is something we should get around. There is absolutely no question that we should have legislation in place so that everyone in Canada knows the date and time of the election at the beginning of the term of a new government.