Mr. Speaker, I am from British Columbia where there was a citizens' assembly process that was actually driven by the people. The premier announced the citizens' assembly which had two members from each of the ridings in British Columbia balanced off by some additional representation to ensure that gender and first nations were recognized in that process. That citizens' assembly did an incredible amount of work in terms of examining the various systems, looking at what was working, what was not, and hearing from scholars who were very well aware of the electoral system.
I would argue that the current process that is under way does not reflect that kind of citizen engagement. The proposal put forward by Ed Broadbent about a two-track system, where we would have meaningful citizens' engagement parallelled by a parliamentary process with the two of them coming together, would ensure that voices were heard from coast to coast to coast. We know that this is a diverse country. We are a very proud country in the fact that we have so many different voices that come from different perspectives.
I would suggest that a process that is controlled out of the PMO rather than driven by citizen engagement is absolutely the wrong way to go. It displays a fundamental lack of understanding around consultation. When we talk about consultation I come back to the fact that, for example, first nations people have been calling for a definition of an adequate consultation process. We just see it spilling out in so many different ways referring to electoral systems and first nations. When will we actually have a better understanding and more meaningful input into a meaningful consultation process?