Mr. Speaker, last week we learned that the Minister of Democratic Institutions will, at the cost of millions, be mailing out 13 million postcards asking feel-good questions about electoral reform, but this week she said that Canada cannot have a referendum on the very same subject because “we have...seen how expensive [referenda] can be.”
The Chief Electoral Officer has testified that a simple change that is under the minister's own direct control could cut the costs of a referendum in half. Given the minister's day-old enthusiasm for frugality, why will she not just take the CEO's advice and stop pretending that cost is an insurmountable barrier to democracy?