Bill C-50 (Historical)

Citizen Voting Act

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) eliminate the international register of electors and incorporate all of the information contained in it into the Register of Electors;
(b) require electors who are resident outside Canada to make an application for registration and special ballot after the issue of the writs at each election;
(c) stipulate that electors who are resident outside Canada may only receive a special ballot for the address at which they last resided in Canada;
(d) require that electors who are applying for a special ballot under Division 3 or 4 of Part 11 include in their application for registration and special ballot proof of identity and residence and, if they apply from outside Canada, proof of Canadian citizenship;
(e) require that an external auditor perform an audit and report on election workers’ compliance with special ballot voting procedures and requirements for every election;
(f) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information for the purpose of assisting the Chief Electoral Officer to, among other things, delete from the Register of Electors the names of persons who are not Canadian citizens; and
(g) add the offence of voting or attempting to vote by special ballot under Division 3 or 4 of Part 11 while knowing that one is not qualified as an elector and add offences under those Divisions of attesting to the residence of more than one elector and of acting as an attestor when one’s own residence has already been attested to.

Citizen Voting Act

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite referred to a question by his colleagues who are Liberals. I think the member for Ottawa—Vanier did ask a valid question in wanting to know what would happen if the former place or address of a Canadian citizen now living abroad was demolished. That person can submit an expired driver's licence showing that address, or any passports with that address, or they can scan any bill and submit it with their application online.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will share my time with my colleague from Chambly—Borduas, who will also talk to us about Bill C-50.

As the deputy critic for democratic and parliamentary reform, I am honoured to speak today and to have the opportunity to work with my esteemed colleague from Toronto—Danforth, supporting him on a number of files. I also thank the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent for all of the work she has done over the past few years as the deputy critic for democratic and parliamentary reform. I also thank her team, Jean-François and Myriam, who work extremely hard. I will have the opportunity to work with them again in the future.

It is an honour for me to rise to speak to Bill C-50, but it is also a disappointment. Instead of making it easier for people to exercise their right to vote in Canada, this bill attempts to make it more difficult. That is the opposite of what we should be doing as a country. The government should be encouraging people to vote and making it easier for them to vote, whether they reside in Canada or are Canadian citizens residing abroad. The bill before us today will make it even more difficult for Canadian citizens residing abroad to exercise their right to vote.

This is out of step with what other countries are doing. Some of my colleagues gave examples of countries where, rather than making it harder to vote, they are making voting easier and more enjoyable, especially for the younger generation, who are voting less and less. Voter turnout for young people aged 18 to 25 has been between 30% and 40% in some elections. That is very low, and it means that over half of young people do not go to the ballot box to exercise their right to vote. Instead of making it harder, the government should be working on making it easier and more appealing for all Canadians to exercise their right to vote.

Bill C-50, introduced by the federal Conservative government, follows the decision handed down recently by the Ontario Superior Court in the Frank et al. case. The bill we are debating here today is supposed to be the government's response to that court ruling. This response is unsatisfactory, to say the least. The bill claims to be a response to that decision, but it is definitely not the response that we were expecting. Anyone who has read the Superior Court ruling would have expected a very different response from the government. The Superior Court ruling struck down paragraph 11(d) of the Canada Elections Act, which deals with the right to vote for Canadian citizens living outside of Canada for less than five years.

We might have expected a response that extended the right to vote to all Canadian citizens living abroad. That is something our party has introduced before. My colleague from Halifax, whom I would like to thank, introduced a bill to extend the right to vote to all Canadian citizens living abroad and to make it easier for them to exercise that right. There are many Canadians—in fact, 2.8 million—who live outside Canada. Unfortunately, not all of them are going to vote. However, if we were being generous, we could say, and I am just picking a number, that an estimated 300,000, 400,000 or 500,000 might vote. It would make a lot of work for Elections Canada, which would have to review all these applications in the 35 days prior to the election.

I will spend a little bit of time talking about these changes because if Bill C-50 does pass in its current form, Canadian citizens living abroad will have to register for every election. When an election is called, they will have to send a form and supporting pieces of identification to Elections Canada. They will be able to vote in the election with a special ballot that they will then have to return to Elections Canada within 35 days, which is the time between the day the election is called and the day of the vote. This extremely short timeframe will make it practically impossible to vote.

In order to vote, the voter will have to prepare in advance and be very familiar with the procedure. When the election is called, the voter will have to immediately fill out forms and pay the requisite fees so that the mail arrives at its destination within the requisite period of time. Depending on where one lives in the world, it can be very difficult to send a document to Canada. These steps will sometimes be expensive for people who want to register to vote in a federal election. This will certainly not encourage them to exercise their right to vote.

If someone has the misfortune of having expired ID or ID that is not considered valid proof for Elections Canada under Bill C-50, then someone else will have to vouch for them. That is another aspect of the bill that makes things even more difficult. A person who was fortunate enough to have the required ID still had to go through a three-part mailing process in a very short time during the election period; but if a person has the misfortune of not having the ID requested by Elections Canada under Bill C-50, then they will have to go through an extra step. This is a complex step, since that person has to find someone to vouch for them who lives in the riding they lived in before leaving Canada. The voucher has to prove that the voter is a citizen of the riding in question and attest to the person's identity, citizenship, and right to vote.

This can take a lot of time if that person lives in a part of the world where postal services are limited, which makes it almost impossible to send the necessary correspondence to register on the voting list. This bill is the government's so-called answer to the Ontario Superior Court decision. However, instead of encouraging people to exercise their right to vote, it makes it almost impossible.

I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister whether the government had conducted any consultations before drafting this bill. He did not answer me, which I took as a no. It seems that Elections Canada was not consulted before this bill was drafted, even though this bill would have a huge impact on the agency. Indeed, Elections Canada will have to process hundreds of thousands of applications in 35 days so that these people can vote before the election date. That is a significant amount of work.

Furthermore, clause 20 of Bill C-50 states that the bill will come into force 60 days after the day on which it receives royal assent. It will be a huge amount of work for Elections Canada to do to implement such a system and to conform with the new legislation.

The government is imposing a huge burden on Elections Canada. It does not even seem to have consulted the agency before it introduced this bill in the House.

I would be happy to take questions from my colleagues.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am actually quite surprised to hear that today. It seems obvious to me that the government should actually be encouraging all Canadian citizens to vote, not making their lives more difficult. It should not make voting even more complicated than it already is.

However, I think we need to know what would happen after an election. Say everything goes smoothly: a citizen registers to vote in the next federal election, which will take place in October 2015. That person has to go through the whole process all over again for subsequent elections, which are supposed to take place every four years.

How can the government say that it is complying with the court's ruling to give all Canadians living abroad the right to vote when it is actually making their lives difficult, not just once but two or three times over? These people might have to move to another country where there might not be a Canadian embassy nearby.

What kind of government makes Canadians' lives even more complicated and prevents them from voting instead of encouraging them to vote?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is the irony of Bill C-50, which the government claims is a response to the court's ruling.

The court ruling indicated that all Canadians should have the right to vote. That right is protected by the charter. All Canadian citizens have a right to vote. The existing legislation bars Canadian citizens living abroad for more than five years from voting. That provision has been struck down.

However, there is a paradox here. The government wants to give all Canadians the right to vote, but it is discouraging them from doing so by making it extremely difficult or even impossible to exercise that right. That is hard to understand.

We had hoped for a much broader and much more satisfactory response in order to make things easier for Canadians who want to exercise their right to vote. Instead, we have before us today a bill that does quite the opposite.

Canadians will have to re-register every time an election is called and they cannot even pre-register. If we had a fixed election date, then at least Elections Canada could be given a timeframe. That would be the minium. However, that is not the case. The government decided to add a provision to the bill specifying that people cannot register until the day the election is called and they must register for each election.

That means that if a person registers to vote in the 2015 election and another election is called in 2016, that individual will have to register again. The registration is good for only one single election. What is more, people have to register during the election period.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, right now, citizens of France living overseas can vote electronically, and Americans living abroad can vote by email.

Bill C-23, the unfair elections act, contains a provision that stipulates that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada must conduct a pilot project or test on electronic voting but that he must obtain the consent of the entire House of Commons and the Senate—not just one committee, but the entire Senate.

Does my colleague think that this is a coincidence?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank my colleague for his question, which ties in with what I said at the beginning of my speech.

Instead of making it easier for citizens to exercise their right to vote, as it is done in other countries, the government is making it even harder and cumbersome to vote.

It is completely unacceptable for the government to tie the Chief Electoral Officer's hands and prevent him from making suggestions to make it easier to vote. He cannot make suggestions without the consent of Parliament, even though he is the one with the necessary knowledge on how to get more Canadians to vote.

That is our goal on this side of the House. We want to increase voter participation, not decrease it, as the Conservatives are trying to do.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, members may have noticed that some of my colleagues and I are fighting a little cold. If we do not seem all there, it is not because we are not interested in this topic.

Bill C-50 obviously deals with an important issue. The government addresses the same problems and same visions of democracy that we saw in Bill C-23 on election reform—or electoral “deform”, as we nicknamed it.

There are a number of problems with this bill. Before I get into them, I want to give a brief background. This bill came about because of a ruling by the Ontario Superior Court stating that it was unconstitutional to prohibit Canadian citizens living abroad for more than five years from voting in a federal election.

This is an important issue, especially in 2015, in light of the global village phenomenon. We have increased access to other countries and opportunities—this is especially true for young people. I am thinking about young university grads who want to pursue opportunities abroad without ruling out the possibility of returning home. They remain invested in their home community even though they are abroad.

The right to vote has always been essential, because at the end of the day, it is the very essence of what it means to be a citizen. With how easy it is now to find information and follow the events leading up to an election, the right to vote is increasingly important for citizens living abroad, considering the global realities of today's world.

I would like to mention another very important point that also relates to the right to vote, which, as I said, is the very essence of citizenship. The number of Canadian citizens residing outside Canada translates into a lot of money for the public purse because those individuals pay taxes. We all know the famous slogan that served a certain American cause very well: No taxation without representation. This is another important factor that must not be overlooked, beyond the principles of citizenship. Those people pay taxes, and ultimately, they are entitled to have a say in how their tax dollars are used, that is, in the governance of their home country, where they are citizens.

There are a number of problems, but there is one that we already saw with Bill C-23. The government sees problems; some are legitimate, others do not even exist. They are scaremongers. Last time, the government talked about fraudsters, as though there were thousands of fraudsters across the country trying to steal the right to vote from other citizens. Obviously, there were some dubious findings there. The idea was that many non-citizens were trying to take advantage of the right to vote.

Earlier, I heard an hon. member allude to the fact that non-citizens were receiving ballots abroad, as though this happened frequently and there were wide-scale electoral fraud. That being said, some media reports indicated that it was hard to tell the extent to which citizens abroad were affected. If the journalists who were focusing on this issue were unable to dig up these numbers, I do not see how an hon. member can make this observation. What is more, when my colleague from Sherbrooke asked the hon. member whether there were any studies to back her comments, she was unable to provide an answer.

The point I am trying to make is that instead moving forward and finding progressive ways to improve our electoral system, the government always takes a step backward. Instead of moving forward, it takes two steps back. That must be extremely frustrating for the people who, like the NDP, want to see a higher voter turnout. That is the problem we saw with Bill C-23, which had negative consequences for seniors, aboriginal people, young people and students. We see the same problem here.

The thing that strikes me the most is the French example. In 2012, I went to France with my colleagues to observe the presidential election.

I was surprised because I did not know that France had elected representatives—senators and members of the National Assembly—who represent constituencies outside of France. They represent French citizens who live outside of France. I know one person in the area, in Gatineau, who is a French citizen. This is a well-established system because French citizens living outside of France even receive campaign material from political parties.

That says a lot about how important it is to the Republic that all French citizens be properly represented, not just French citizens residing in France. This relates to what I was talking about at the beginning of my speech: in the new global village, where more and more citizens are pursuing opportunities abroad but staying connected to and involved in their communities, the governing body should represent not just residents but all citizens, no matter where they live.

As pointed out by my colleague from Toronto—Danforth—who does an excellent job of developing our positions on democratic reform—the French system has another component: the right to vote by Internet. The Americans allow U.S. citizens living abroad to vote by email.

While other countries look for solutions that will make it easier for citizens living abroad to vote, our government seems to be stuck on making it more difficult. A fine example—and that is another problem with the bill—is the issue of people living abroad who serve the government. We think of course of members of the Canadian Forces who are deployed abroad. The government will say that they are still exempt from the five-week period proposed in Bill C-50.

Although the government is not saying as much, this is a step backwards from what was already in the act. I will explain. Previously, diplomats were also exempt because, after all, they also serve the country, Canadians and the government abroad. Now, diplomats will have to follow the same laborious process as all other Canadians living abroad. They do not get a break even though they are abroad to serve their country.

The same is true for military families. It is a good idea and it is important—and I am not being sarcastic here—to grant exemptions to members of our Canadian Forces. However, we also need to think about their families. Some of these members are undoubtedly accompanied by their 18-year-old children. Some have spouses who also have the right to vote. The government is forgetting to look at the big picture when it comes to people who are living abroad.

Today in his speech, the Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke about the team and the public servants who served him abroad. As my colleague from Sherbrooke mentioned, people like that, who are working for a minister and serving the Crown—it is important to point that out—are also not granted an exemption from this long and sometimes difficult process. As a result, they will have to use courier services, which Elections Canada has no legal obligation to use. They will have to turn to courier services that sometimes take a long time to deliver things and, in some countries, are difficult to use. There are many problems with this.

This once again shows, as Bill C-23 did, just how much difficulty the Conservatives have resolving problems, making it easier to access the electoral system and increasing voter turnout. They are once again introducing a bill that makes the process even more complex and forces Canadians to work even harder to exercise their right to vote. The right to vote should be an automatic part of citizenship. The government has the responsibility to make this process easier.

In closing, I would like to quickly mention one more thing, which I did not have time to really talk about. Once again, students are affected. When I was going to McGill, I saw how easy it was for American students to vote, even though they were living in Montreal. However, Bill C-50 contains an error that requires any lease used by a student as proof of residence to be for an official university residence.

Students who are going to school abroad and living off-campus as an individual and not in accommodation such as a university residence cannot use their lease as valid proof of identity.

It is because of these types of problems that we are forced to oppose yet another botched bill on an issue as fundamental as our democracy.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech, even though he said he was not feeling well. It is true; we have all been hit.

His speech really showed me the extent to which this bill creates nothing but outdated bureaucracy. As we heard earlier, a number of civilized countries, both western and eastern ones, use new communication technologies.

Why does he think that the government insists on using outdated methods? Is it because it does not trust technology, or is it because it is not interested in catering to the modern voters who would use these new platforms?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We do not want to buy into conspiracy theories, but the Conservatives' speeches seem to indicate some fear of the unknown, whether we are talking about Bill C-23 or Bill C-50, which is being debated today. They use scare tactics, claiming that people will cheat the system and that non-Canadians will try to vote in our elections. Last time we heard about people who would cheat and vote several times.

Like my colleague, I have to wonder why they are doing this. Perhaps this issue does not concern Conservative voters. I do not think that is the case, since everyone, regardless of their political beliefs, should be trying to make it easier for voters living in Canada or abroad.

As my colleague mentioned in his question, as I said in my speech and as all of my colleagues have said, while other developed countries are using these technologies or using other means to make it easier for citizens, especially with respect to deadlines to register to vote, the Conservative government seems to want to make things harder.

Then we wonder why people are so cynical and why voter turnout is so low. The Conservatives need only look in the mirror.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I have noticed about the government is that it seems to have its own election reform thoughts and ideas and wants to impose, with its biases, new laws that would affect a person's ability to vote. Even if it contradicts what Elections Canada might recommend or if unified opposition parties are opposing what is being done, its way is the only way.

It is interesting that this legislation would make it more difficult for people to exercise their right to vote. The government will say that it is exempting the Canadian military, for example, but many members of the Canadian Forces who serve abroad have spouses or dependents with them who are over the age of 18. They are going to be subjected to these new rules. Let there be no doubt that these new rules will make it that much more difficult for individuals to vote.

Would my colleague from the New Democratic Party provide his thoughts with regard to this issue? Yes, Canadian Forces members appear to be excluded from this, but not their significant others or dependent children over the age of 18.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague: it is a problem. As I said in my speech, we have to consider the Canadian Forces, but we also have to consider their family members and all of the people who are serving their country and doing important work for governance abroad, people such as public servants and diplomats and their family members.

The Elections Act also included an exemption for members of the RCMP. Unless I am mistaken, that exemption no longer exists in Bill C-50. Once again, I do not mean to suggest that there is a conspiracy afoot, but I do not blame people for reacting to the government's measure with cynicism.

Earlier, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister accused us of disrespecting the Canadian Forces because we criticized that part of the bill. That statement was so ridiculous that it was a little hard to believe. It said a lot about the Conservatives' approach.

They grant exemptions for the Canadian Forces not out of respect for the Canadian Forces, but just because they want to hand out goodies in a show of support for the troops. That is the kind of thing we hear quite a lot. If they really supported the people who serve us abroad, they would make more of an effort to encourage them to participate fully in our democracy.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I should say first that I will be sharing my time with the Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification.

I am pleased to address the House with respect to Bill C-50, the Citizen Voting Act. The bill deals with electoral reform intended to strengthen the integrity and fairness of our electoral system.

Canada has one of the world’s most generous electoral systems with respect to the right to vote, and Canadians are proud of their democracy. That is why our government is taking measures to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. I will therefore explain how the citizen voting act, which we have the pleasure of discussing today, protects our electoral system.

Preserving the integrity of our electoral system is important. Elections Canada estimates that there are about 40,000 names of non-citizens currently listed in the national Register of Electors. This means that there are 40,000 non-citizens who could easily obtain a voter information card telling them where and how to vote, and could therefore go to a polling station and vote. As we know, that is in fact illegal.

That is why the citizen voting act will authorize Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with the name, gender, date of birth and addresses of non-citizens, so that Elections Canada can compare the data and remove non-citizens from the national register of electors.

The citizen voting act will make it a legal requirement for anyone voting outside Canada to provide proof of Canadian citizenship. The rule does not apply to members of the Canadian Armed Forces, of whom we are extremely proud. I would like to take this opportunity to mention the extraordinary work they are doing against the terrorist threat constituted by the Islamic State in Iraq.

Getting back to the citizen voting act, I would like to talk about another problem that affects the system as it currently exists. Canadians living abroad do not have to prove that they lived in the riding in which they vote. They can in fact vote in the riding of their choice, on the basis of unverified personal or family ties. Voters living in Canada, on the other hand, have to vote in the riding in which they are residing when the election is held. They cannot choose their riding. It is unfair to allow someone who has never lived in a community to vote for the person who will represent that community. That is why the citizen voting act will ensure that Canadians living abroad are bound by the same rules as those who live in Canada.

Canadians living abroad will have to provide proof of their identity and their most recent Canadian address with the same documentation required of voters who live in Canada, namely photo identification with their previous address or two of the 39 pieces of identification approved by the CEO of Elections Canada. If they do not have a piece of identification showing their previous address, voters living abroad may use an attestation as to their previous address produced by a voter in the same riding who has proven their identity.

Like the Canadian public, we believe it is reasonable to require that a person provide proof of their identity and their address in order to be entitled to vote. Canadian residents who happen to be abroad when an election is held, people like the snowbirds, have to apply for a special ballot at each election and produce pieces of identification and proof of residence. It is a different matter for citizens living abroad, who, once they have applied for a ballot for an election, automatically receive a ballot for every subsequent election at their overseas address, even though we do not know whether or not they still live there.

That is why the citizen voting act is so necessary. It will remove this inequality between Canadians by establishing a single set of rules for citizens who vote outside Canada.

The citizen voting act strengthens the rules that apply to special ballots to match the standards of integrity adopted when the Fair Elections Act was passed last June. It harmonizes the rules for voters whether they are temporarily or permanently residing outside Canada.

The Citizen Voting Act contains measures to safeguard the integrity of our electoral system.

To summarize, we will establish a single register, the National Register of Electors, which will be maintained by Elections Canada, for voters who reside in Canada or who are in Canada when an election is held.

The existing information on non-residents will be retained, and all of the information on voters will now be included in the national register. We will ensure that people living outside Canada—other than members of the Canadian Armed Forces—who want to to vote have to produce proof of citizenship.

Voters living abroad will no longer be able, as they were in the past, to choose the riding in which they want to vote without showing a connection to that community, and they will be able to obtain a ballot only for their most recent address in Canada. They will be subject to the same rules as other Canadian citizens with respect to identification and proof of residence.

Lastly, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will be authorized to provide Elections Canada with information about non-citizens so that their names can be removed from the voters list.

Canada has one of the world’s most generous electoral systems with respect to the right to vote. Many democracies like ours place restrictions on voting by non-residents. I am thinking of Ireland, for example, where non-residents cannot vote. Canada is much more generous with respect to the right to vote. It is therefore reasonable to expect citizens living abroad to meet the same identification requirements as those living in Canada.

Since our government came to power, it has worked tirelessly to reform the Canada Elections Act, so that our system remains one of the most respected in the world. Each of the government’s successive reforms have sought to maintain the integrity and fairness of our electoral system.

The Citizen Voting Act is part of that series of reforms and demonstrates once again our government’s commitment to strengthening the integrity and fairness of our electoral system.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague, who is also my neighbour, near Quebec City, Quebec. I would like to ask him a question.

I have been working on the issue of democratic reform for a long time. He mentioned how many changes his government has proposed to the Canada Elections Act to date. We know that the main changes were in Bill C-23, which was introduced last year and amended a number of things. With a lot of pressure from the official opposition, from our party, the Conservatives ultimately backed down on several fairly major points in Bill C-23, in particular vouching.

In the case of this bill as well, I would like to know whether he would be open to changing some elements of the bill to make it as effective as possible, in particular to improve access to the vote for Canadians living outside Canada, rather than restricting it as is being done here. Voting is being made more difficult for all Canadians, not just for those who have been outside Canada for more than five years. Could we find ways of facilitating it as much as possible, rather than making it more difficult?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I would note that it has always been a pleasure for us to work closely with the official opposition on various bills that enable our society to grow.

We think this bill is fair and equitable for non-residents of Canada. It is equivalent to what people who leave for brief periods have to do. People who vacation in Florida for two months have to provide proof of identity. We think that non-residents could do exactly the same thing: provide proof of identity and specify the electoral district where they lived and what their last address in Canada was. That is fair and equitable for all Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a specific question for the minister.

As I pointed out in a previous question, I am always somewhat suspicious of the government when it brings in changes to the Canada Elections Act.

Can the minister indicate which of the actions in the legislation are actually actions recommended by Elections Canada? In other words, is there anything in the current legislation, and if so, what were the actual recommendations that came from Elections Canada to the government in terms of requesting changes?