Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague speaks so fast, he has so many ideas in his head. He is certainly one of the smartest people in the House of Commons. Some would say that is faint praise, but I mean it sincerely. He is a genuinely intelligent person. I enjoy serving on committee with him and hearing his well conserved remarks. It is always nice when we hear someone we know writes his own remarks.
Having said all of that, I want to posit a situation for the member. There has been talk coming from the government of a need to find consensus, broad buy-in is the term it used at one time. In order to actually achieve a change, a government has to take an initiative, and then in the case of something that is too important to leave to the politicians, the government should put it to the people. A model that looked like it stood a reasonable chance of getting support versus the status quo was what the committee proposed. That would allowed the majority to decide whether the new system that was proposed would be superior to the existing system, or the reverse, an argument I could imagine being presented on both sides for any system.
However, the point is that our system is actually based on the majority. In this place, we do not look for consensus. It is 50% of the members, plus one. Likewise, that is how it works in a referendum. Does he agree with me that if we want to move forward on this issue, the politicians will always have self interest if in the end a referendum is not the only way of moving from this system to any other system?