Procedure and House Affairs committee  Indeed, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to testify today regarding the changes proposed by Bill C-23 and their impact on my role as commissioner of Canada Elections. I am accompanied today by Audrey Nowack, senior counsel, who provides us with legal counsel.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The appointment is made by the CEO.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, indeed, pursuant to section 509 of the act.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It is not correct, Mr. Chair, in the following sense, that I am not an employee of Elections Canada. I have a special import appointment made pursuant to section 509 of the act, and the act calls for me, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, to see to the enforcement of the Canada Elections Act.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think the general principles of law that would apply would be that he who has the power to appoint has the power to dismiss.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. It is absolutely clear in my mind—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There is a lot in that question, Mr. Chair. I'll try to attack it in bits and pieces. The Chief Electoral Officer does appoint the commissioner, but in my sense he's not the boss. And an analogy to this would be that the government appoints judges but the government is not the boss of the judges.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  He could refer a file to me and direct to me that I should investigate it, but then how I do the investigation, how far I go with it, what I do with it, would be entirely within my purview.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  He would say to me, please look into this, investigate this. I would say, thank you very much, and then I would with my director of investigations decide how I was going to investigate that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The CEO is an agent of Parliament and my presumption would be that if he refers a file to me for investigation, he probably has good grounds to do that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, there's an act of Parliament that specifies the circumstances in which the Chief Electoral Officer may ask me to conduct an investigation. So Parliament has spoken and has said that this is the way it should be. Again, I think it's very important that, if the CEO does that, then I decide how I'm going to do that, in the same way that if Bill C-23 is passed as it is now, if our office were to move with the office of the DPP, I would decide how investigations are to be conducted.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think that there would be any conflict of interest. I'll tell you a couple of things—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd say at least two things on this. One is that I certainly would see any cases involving an electoral officer or an employee of Elections Canada where fraud or misbehaviour of some sort was alleged as being a very serious matter. I can assure you that, as commissioner, this is something that I would get to the bottom of with all the energy and all the tools that I have at my disposal.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I was not.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I was not consulted by the minister on the bill.