Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Motion No. 428, sponsored by the member for Burnaby—Douglas, which would instruct the procedure and House affairs committee to recommend changes to the Standing Orders to establish an electronic petitioning system.

The motion would prescribe changes to our convention governing petitions so as to establish an electric petition system. It would also require the committee to consider, among other things, the possibility of a debate in the House outside of sitting hours when a threshold of signatures was reached.

I heard my friend from the Liberal Party, probably the finest weatherman in the House, give all of his reasons why we should support the motion. When I listened to some of his comments with respect to frivolous petitions that he could picture, it gave that whole background on why electronic petitions may or may not be all that effective when it came to changing people's names or seceding parts of the country by electronic petition unless we had some other means to deal with these things. I would suggest that the House would be terribly tied up in dealing with those.

I will begin by noting the unusual nature of the motion, namely, that it would seek to predetermine the study of the procedure and House affairs committee.

The motion would prescribe a resolution to a study the committee had not conducted. Rather than asking the procedure and House affairs committee to undertake an examination of our petition system, the motion would dictate to the committee that it must recommend changes to the Standing Orders to implement an electronic petition system. In other words, the motion would require that the committee report lead to the implementation of an electronic petition system for the House.

I find that an affront to the members of the committee and, more fundamental, to the principle that committees are masters of their own affairs. Instead, the committee should have the ability to review the effectiveness of our petition system under review of the Standing Orders and decide on its on terms whether changes are needed.

While the House provides the standing committees with the powers to examine and enquire into all such matters as may be referred to them, our standing committees have broad powers to undertake studies relating to their mandates.

The procedure and House affairs committee has already undertaken a study on the Standing Orders. It would seem reasonable that a proposal to modernize the petition system could be studied within that context. Should the committee study this issue as part of the Standing Order study, it would certainly want to develop recommendations based upon witness testimony and other research.

The member for Burnaby—Douglas has an academic background. Prior to being elected, he was a professor at the Simon Fraser University. I find it strange that the member is trying to undermine the principle of evidence-based research by reading the text of the motion:

That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to recommend changes to the Standing Orders... to establish an electronic petitioning system....

As opposed to evidence-based decision-making, the member has proposed decision-based evidence-making.

While I am willing to support a study to investigate initiatives to modernize our petitioning system as part of the procedure and House affairs committee study on the Standing Orders, I will not support the motion. If the committee chooses to conduct this review, as a member of the committee, I would hope we would have the ability to hold meetings, hear from witnesses and come up with recommendations, as opposed to having the outcome dictated by the motion.

I will now turn to the important democratic role that petitions play in the House of Commons.

This is where more of my concerns with this motion rest. The presenting of petitions by members of Parliament is a key feature in the democratic representation of the views of constituents in this House. Not only are petitions a key feature of democratic representation, but they are also a long-standing feature of the House.

The House has also provided for the presentation of petitions by members. At the time of Confederation, the rule allowed members to make a statement identifying from whom the petition came, the number of signatures attached to it, and the material allegations it contained.

While the rules governing petitions have changed, namely by providing a rubric in routine proceedings specifically for this purpose, the presentation of petitions in the House has largely stayed intact. One could assume that the system has worked and continues to work, in that petitions create a clear link between constituents and the members who represent them.

The motion before us seeks to alter that relationship. We should all tread very carefully with changes to our rules that could seek to undermine the connection between members and their constituents.

Unfortunately, despite this caution, we are asked by this motion to simply accept its terms without meetings. I would not support that.

Our current rules allow members to table over 2,000 petitions each year on a wide range of issues of concern to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Most jurisdictions share the same approach we have with respect to petitions. The jury is still out on the long-term effect of electronic petitions; however, the experiences of the United Kingdom and the United States indicates that electronic petitions can have very negative consequences for citizen engagement and parliamentary operations and can empower special interest groups to advance their issues.

That is why I am going to oppose Motion No. 428, and I call on all members to do likewise.

Dave MacKenzie

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