Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for inviting me.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Hi. For those of you who are unaware, I've been a journalist on Parliament Hill for almost 12 years now. I also am the author of a book called The Unbroken Machine: Canada's Democracy in Action, which is a primer on civic literacy and responsible government and Westminster parlia

Procedure and House Affairs committee  All right. I will try to remember to do that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That would be a concern of mine. I would also just colour Mr. Deveaux's mention of New Zealand with the fact that they also have proportional representation, so—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Most modernization has wound up being worse than what was before.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Not at all.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say that there have been unintended consequences from CPAC as well.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I mean, anything is possible, but—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My comment was more.... It's the general rule that when the time limit of 20 minutes on speeches was first implemented, that's what created the impetus for reading 20-minute speeches instead of actually engaging in a back-and-forth debate.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My comment about not letting a crisis go to waste is because a lot of these suggestions mirror some that were made in previous Parliaments this committee was studying, which were ultimately rejected. That's my concern there.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I've been accused of that; so be it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That has nothing to do with what we're discussing or the operation of Parliament.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm more opposed to the notion that e-petitions would trigger debates.