Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would add that there's always a possibility as well regarding the staff who could be required to follow up on this initiative.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, in a very superficial manner.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We could certainly say that in all of those cases the context, the unique culture of each Parliament or country, was taken into account. It would be difficult just to apply very simply an approach from one Parliament to another. For instance, would you think that the U.K. example could be easily done here?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The process would be the following: an individual goes on the website, sees a petition that he or she would like to sign, and pushes the button “I would like to sign the petition”. After that you would get a form that you would need to fill out with your name, your phone number, and your address, and you would have to have your e-mail address as well so we could provide you with more information afterwards.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Our role as the administration would be to provide assistance and advice on the different projects that a committee and the House choose to support. The House adopted the motion recommending that this committee look at this issue. Clearly there was a decision of the House on that specific issue.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In fact, what's interesting with the system presented so far is that we would need a lot of information at the beginning. For instance, what I understood is that there would be follow up after a petition is being answered. We would send back to the individual who has signed the petition the government's response to the petition that the individual has signed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. I can also add as well that the information.... When there's a petition tabled in the House, it's given to the government for a response, as you can imagine. The information that would be provided to the government would not have the information we are talking about as well.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all we need to see what type of information is on the paper petitions. Most of the time you would not get very much detailed information on the individual. People can be identified through a general address, which would not be exactly useful for electoral purposes, if that's the concern you have.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will keep my remarks relatively brief. I am pleased to be here as part of your study on electronic petitions, emanating from Mr. Stewart's motion, M-428, which instructs the committee to "recommend changes to the Standing Orders and other conventions governing petitions so as to establish an electronic petitioning system".