Reform party founder Preston Manning, one of the most respected voices in the Canadian conservative movement, is endorsing B.C. New Democratic Party MP Kennedy Stewart's motion to be voted on before the summer break.
He joins former NDP leader Ed Broadbent as well as 20 MPs, including two Conservatives, who have formally endorsed the motion.
The two political elders head up Canada's principal rightwing and left-wing political think-tanks - the Manning Centre for Building Democracy and the Broadbent Institute.
"To be able to petition one's elected representatives, and to have such petitions addressed, is one of the oldest and most basic of democratic rights," Manning said in a statement sent to Stewart Monday.
"Affirming and re-establishing this right in the 21st century through electronic petitioning is an idea well worth pursuing."
Broadbent, the NDP's leader from 1975 to 1989, echoed that sentiment.
"Bringing electronic petitioning to the House of Commons is a 21st century idea and one I fully endorse," he said.
"Empowering Canadians to come together and help set the parliamentary agenda will breathe fresh air into our democracy."
Stewart, a rookie MP on leave from his post as a political scientist at Simon Fraser University, wants to modernize the petition process that dates back to the origins of British parliamentary democracy.
MPs, if they receive 25 or more signatures on a written petition about an issue, can rise and table the document in the House of Commons. The federal government then has 45 days to respond.
Stewart's motion proposes that a parliamentary committee come up with a concrete proposal during a one-year study to let Canadians who care passionately about an issue sign an online petition demanding action from the federal government.
If there are enough likeminded citizens prepared to join the campaign - say, 50,000 - they could even force a Commons debate on the matter.
But a petition's motion, according to Stewart's plan, couldn't be debated unless five MPs endorse it. That's one of the safeguards to prevent frivolous petitions.
Manning, an icon of the Conservative movement, has long championed populist initiatives to encourage grassroots political activism. His Reform party, which pulled off a stunning breakthrough in the 1993 election, supported measures to allow referendums on important issues and the recall of unpopular MPs.
Reform's emergence during that era crippled the NDP, which in Western Canada and especially B.C. traditionally played the role of the populist anti-establishment party.
Manning left federal politics in 2002, just under two years after losing the leadership of the Canadian Alliance, a party he created to replace Reform.
"These important endorsements from two of the Canada's most respected political elders shows my effort to bring e-petitions to the House of Commons should be embraced by both sides of the House," Stewart said in a statement emailed to The Vancouver Sun.
"That Mr. Broadbent and Mr. Manning both support my motion really gives me hope that it might pass and that e-petitioning might become a reality before the next election."
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Peter O'Neil
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