Madam Speaker, my colleague made a number of points, some of which I found very interesting, and I look forward to the discussion on these items at the procedure and House affairs committee. I have a couple of comments in response to some of his direct suggestions.
While the e-petition idea is interesting, I would point out that this could also be abused very easily. In this day and age it would not be very difficult to get 50,000 signatures on any petition, whether it be partisan or something that is extremely relevant to Canadians. I note with interest that the NDP may have up to 100,000 members signed prior to its upcoming leadership convention. I say that because it would then be very easy to have all members sign up and any time the NDP wanted to create a petition for debate, it could get 50,000 signatures online very easily. The result would be that the hour of debate would use up valuable House time. I think we have to consider that very carefully.
I do find it interesting, and frankly on first blush I tend to agree with the member's comments on the Speaker elections. If it happened that there were only three candidates left on the ballot, two were tied and they both had to drop off, with the remaining candidate receiving less than 50% of the votes of the House, that would be a bit of a problem. I think we should examine that very carefully.
I appreciate the comments and suggestions. Hopefully, there will be many more of them from all parties that are forwarded to the procedure and House affairs committee for examination. I look forward to a very interesting series of discussions. I am quite sure that from time to time we will agree and from time to time we will agree to disagree. Nonetheless, I do believe that the Standing Orders as we now have them should be modernized.