Mr. Speaker, it is not unusual that bills of this type attract a lot of attention in Parliament. After all, this is the one occasion when we can be guaranteed that every single decision-maker is both an expert, having been through the electoral process, and a stakeholder, who cares about the electoral process. That is why, through all of Canadian history, these types of bills have attracted a disproportionate amount of attention.
I go back to 1885, with the franchise bill, for example. Sir John A. Macdonald brought forward an electoral reform bill that proposed to extend the vote to women and aboriginals. The Liberals so fiercely opposed those changes, because they thought they were partisan and would aid the Conservatives, that they held up the bill for the better part of two years, because these kinds of devices were not available. Only did the bill pass once Sir John A. and the Conservatives reluctantly removed the provision for votes for women. As a result, it delayed the vote arriving for another quarter-century or more. Of course, the Liberals took away the vote for aboriginals when they won government in 1897, with Laurier's bill on the same subject matter.
Is it not unfortunate that these kinds of good progressive changes were actually blocked by the ability to debate unlimited by the opposition in those cases, and as a result, women were denied the vote?