Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the member would propose such a bill. This is a bill that actually passed in the Manitoba legislature.
There were individuals who presented in committee and raised a great deal of concerns. I was told by one individual, and we can do some research to find out if in fact it is the case, that Winston Churchill had crossed the floor on several occasions.
If the issue is to get people engaged and believe in politics, and re-establish this honourable profession as it is, we could probably do more by addressing the whole issue of, for example, negative advertising and the impact that has had. The way in which some campaigns rely on negative advertising in order to capture votes also discourages people from voting.
If we want to get individuals to go out and vote, we have give them a choice. Maybe we could put “none of the above” on the ballots. These are things that would increase the amount of voter participation.
My feeling is that, yes, we do need to get more people involved in the process. There are many other things that we could do that would have a very real impact in terms of voter turnout.
I am not too sure, and this is one of the issues that was raised in Manitoba, if this is constitutional. If we have members of Parliament who, in good faith, for whatever reasons, believe they cannot participate or believe it is in their constituents' best interests to take a certain action, like Sir Winston Churchill who many recognize as one of the greatest parliamentarians, do we deny them the opportunity to take an action that they feel is in fact appropriate?
I see them as two different issues, in terms of voter turnout versus something that--