Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Since you've already introduced my good friend and colleague Mr. Jacques Bernard, as well as my friend and colleague from Elections Canada, I'll proceed and get into my text. I will being in my mother tongue, and then I will switch to English

Foreign Affairs committee  With respect to documentation, we'll provide that comparison for you, to the extent that we can find it. The conseil electoral provisoire is provisional, as the word says, and it's supposed to become permanent through the elections. The elected local authorities are supposed to

Foreign Affairs committee  Certainly, I'll answer the first question, and obviously I'll allow my colleague to talk about endemic corruption. In my view, it would take perhaps one more year of partnering with the Haitian electoral authority—should one be established—to say there is no longer a need for a

Foreign Affairs committee  And there were no presidential candidates for the second round, and despite that there was still a 30%-plus turnout, which was double the previous score. It was recognized to be a very successful second round, frankly. I just thought I'd add that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm accompanied today by Mrs. Diane Davidson, deputy chief electoral officer and chief legal counsel; and Mr. Rennie Molnar, senior director of operations, register, and geography. Members of the committee may recall that when

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I think one has to take into account the differences between the American system, fundamentally, and the Canadian system. We don't have a system of primaries, and that triggers a lot of what they're doing. That's why they get involved a year ahead of time, or even m

Procedure and House Affairs committee  With respect to the Treasury Board directive, the committee could let it be known to Treasury Board that this is its view, and I suspect the Treasury Board will adopt that, if this were the committee's view. In terms of an interdiction for political parties to advertise, it is s

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, the Royal Commission that reported in 1992 looked at the possibility of holding elections on a Sunday but did not recommend it. It decided not to make that recommendation because of the reaction in various parts of the country where Sunday remains a religious day th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, if residency is the issue, whether the advance poll is held that day or not, when they're back home they can go and vote in the office of the returning officer at any time. That may not be as convenient, obviously, as an advance poll because of location, but that is

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, if most is 50% plus one, the answer is yes. We do know that it's several hundred thousand--I think it's around 300,000--youth we don't have because of that missing piece of information. There are also other Canadians, by the way, who fit in that category, but it's youth who

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of management, if you're not able to hold the election on the Monday and you're geared for that, I find it preferable to do it on the Tuesday, which is what the law would say now. And if that Tuesday, for some reason, were problematic, in light of the other criteria invo

Procedure and House Affairs committee  From my experience during the 17 years I have held this position, it depends upon the nature of the Bill and its substance. I'm going to answer the question directly...

Procedure and House Affairs committee  On this one, I was not consulted at all.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I believe you are sincere in your understanding of what you have read but I want to ensure the committee that we would obviously include all the changes that we would have received during the election year. We would make even more efforts to ensure that. The recommendation to ho

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. In other words, 5 days after the beginning of the election period we would send you the preliminary list of electors.