And we also asked the Minister of New Growth Affairs if he fears that the government will have to come up with money that they don't have to organize a referendum.
The man who once warned how expensive a referendum would be, flip flopped on the issue today when he told us that that is just a normal part of democracy and that he's interested in hearing the varying views of residents.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs & New Growth Industries
"We do have a democratic process in place under the referendum act which says that any issue whatsoever, so long as you secure 10% of the voting population for a particular petition, you can in fact trigger any referendum and so that is part of a good democracy so I am not in any way concerned. I believe that the process is almost over and once the requisite signatures in there, we should be having a referendum in August or September, if the signatures are met."
Reporter:
"Is that sufficient time for there to be an awareness campaign or some kind of push for public education ahead of the referendum itself?"
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs & New Growth Industries
"I think that this particular piece of legislation, if you recall, we introduced it a year ago, it went through modification, it now stands as a stand alone bill and in the last four or five months it was on the front burner and that is something that I truly appreciate to see the open discussion and the different views on this particular topic and so I won't say that we have exhausted the education process but certainly in my opinion, it's been on the front burner for quite sometime and an addition thirty days would definitely be some good room to have more discussion, more public education on this particular bill."
