I think legislation is necessary, but I also think that it requires some analysis. PIPEDA applies principally to commercial organizations. Political parties are not commercial organizations. There is an argument that at the moment when political parties are purchasing data on consumers commercially, they are indeed subject to PIPEDA to the extent that they are engaging in those transactions, but that might be contentious.
My point is that there are four ways to get here. There are at least four legislative regimes: the Canada Elections Act, the Privacy Act, PIPEDA, and stand-alone legislation. PIPEDA provides the principles, but I'd like to see the Privacy Commissioner do some analysis on this and come out with some recommendations, perhaps jointly with the Chief Electoral Officer. That's going to take some time. In advance of that, I would like to see the political parties declare publicly that they comply with the 10 privacy principles in the national standard. I think the NDP has already said that publicly, but I'm not entirely clear.
The final point I'd make is that when it was revealed that Mr. Wylie had worked with the Liberal Party, there was immediately a debate in the media about that. That led to responses from the different political parties about what they do and do not do. The process has already begun in terms of becoming more transparent, and I would like to see that extended so that every political party takes a good, hard look at what political data it captures on Canadians and how it captures it online and off-line, and do exactly the same kind of good due diligence privacy management that is expected of the commercial sector.