Mr. Speaker, it is very important for the citizens of the country to be able to rely on fixed election dates. It gives us a sense of when elections will happen. It is a commitment of Parliament to say that it will work for a four year period and not play games.
Unfortunately, we saw this in Ontario with a Liberal government in 1990. The premier of the day thought he could avoid the recession and played around with the timing of the election. He lost that election, but it was clearly a very cynical kind of behaviour. We have seen enough cynicism in Parliaments and legislatures across the country. We need to be very clear with people who are depending on clarity. We need this manipulation to go away. Fixed election dates would do a great deal in terms of remedying that.