In the latest twist to its electoral reform narrative, the Trudeau government said Thursday that people who are not Canadian citizens — and therefore can’t vote — should have a say in the process of changing how it’s done.

Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureaux, parliamentary secretary to Government House Leader Bardish Chagger, argued in a debate in the House that non-Canadian citizens should be encouraged to use the government’s electoral reform consultation website, Mydemocracy.ca.

“Let me remind the member that there are roughly one and a half million people that are residents in Canada, for a wide variety of reasons do not have their citizenship. And I would argue, contrary to what the member might believe, Mr. Speaker, that they too have a vested interest in the democracy that we have here in Canada,” Lamoureux said.

He was answering a question from the NDP’s democratic reform critic, Nathan Cullen. Cullen had suggested that the website, by not asking users if they’re Canadian citizens and can actually vote in Canadian elections, had invited participation from non-citizens, undermining its credibility.

“My question to the member is, why does he or his party believe that individuals that are not citizens should not have their opinions taken into consideration?” Lamoureux challenged Cullen.

“With all due respect to my colleague, what the hell is he talking about?” Cullen said. “The survey they set up allows someone from anywhere in the world to answer the question as long as they can fill in a postal code that is connected to Canada. It makes the results of their survey utterly useless.”

The exchange came in a debate on an NDP motion to move concurrence in a committee report. In essence, the opposition were once again trying to get the government to have mydemocracy.ca, which launched Monday, use questions developed by the special committee electoral reform for its online consultation.

From August 19 to October 7, the committee’s own survey posed 36 multiple choice questions that all the opposition parties feel are superior to the ones being used on Mydemocracy.ca. It was completed by 22,247 Canadians.

Examples of the committee’s multiple choice statements include, “Voters should vote for political parties and the seats should be allocated based on percentage of votes” and “Voters should be able to rank the candidates and have the outcome determined based on preferences.”

But Lamoureux, likely foreshadowing a Liberal vote against the motion, argued it shouldn’t be MPs that come up with the questions.

“I know that I’m not the most ably-minded individual in developing questionnaires. There are professionals out there that can do the job that needs to get done,” he said.

“Would the member not agree that it … is important that we recognize that there might even be people that are better than some of the elected officials inside this chamber to develop a questionnaire that would derive the value that Canadians deserve on electoral reform?”

That’s what the committee did do, said Scott Reid, the Conservatives’ democratic reform critic.

“Those were developed by the experts at the Library of Parliament,” he said. “In general, we bowed to their expertise.”

As the end of the debate, a vote on the motion was deferred to next Tuesday.