Mr. Speaker, earlier this year I was impressed to watch President Obama deliver the state of the union address in the United States. I was impressed because one of his major themes was that certain elements of American society who cared about particular issues deserved at least a vote on those issues.
What he was addressing were the problems that have gripped the United States because of legislative gridlock. Legislative gridlock is not helpful to their economy and is not helpful to their democratic process, because an important part of the democratic process in a legislature is not just the talking but also the voting, the making of decisions, such as is done here in this House.
This is what I say to the hon. member who is complaining that we brought in measures to ensure that we actually vote as MPs on bills that are before us. I do not apologize for that; I am proud of it. I am proud to give the opportunity to all members of this House to vote on the legislative proposals in this House, to be accountable to their constituents for how they vote on those bills and to be able to make real, meaningful changes to the law in this country. We should all be proud to have the opportunity to do that here in this House.