Madam Speaker, my colleague's question is very important. I was at a home fair in Sechelt this weekend, which thousand of people attended. I spoke with hundreds of people and a lot of them brought up the subject of fixed election dates. They see time being wasted in the House. Yesterday, there were hardly any ministers in the House at all.
As most members of the House know, there are fixed election dates at the municipal level now, and it works well. Everyone knows exactly when the election will be held, and they prepare for it. The province of British Columbia now has fixed election dates. The new Liberal Premier of Ontario has talked about bringing in fixed election dates in that province. Other premiers across Canada are doing the same.
It is time we modernized this institution. The Prime Minister has talked about the democratic deficit. This is one way. We, like most Canadians, would like to see fixed election dates. It has worked well in British Columbia. The Premier of British Columbia not only said that he would bring in fixed election dates, but he promised electoral reform. He won 77 out of 79 seats on those issues. Right now a commission in British Columbia is looking at electoral reform. People want that and they will see it.
These are the kinds of things we need to modernize our Parliament to get people back voting again. The voting level has gone down. We have to change things so people will vote and will not be frustrated with the system. This is a good start. We hope all parties will vote for this motion.