Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's comments on this issue, which I consider to be quite an important one. I, like him, share the importance of having a fixed election date. I think it is the right move for Canada to be pursuing.
We in the House all follow the Westminster tradition, but there are times when we want to be more Westminster than Westminster itself and think nothing can ever be changed here without changing some fundamental part of the Constitution or creating a crisis within the country. Although it is not technically for a fixed date because the Governor General still has powers and if the prime minister wishes to mandate a call for a confidence vote, he or she can do so in the House and then we could have an election, the principle is the right one. If we talk about the amount of money that is spent on election dates, it is--