Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Commissioner, you have provided an exceptionally clear and profound description of the fundamental role of privacy in a democracy. You've used terms like “crisis point”. You've said that the lack of protection puts the public trust at risk; that citizens' personal information has been weaponized; that this leaves our elections open to manipulation and it jeopardizes the fairness of elections. You have said that parties are at the centre of data collection. Of course, you've also mentioned that 92% of Canadians want political parties subject to privacy laws as the prime actors using that information, yet this government has refused to apply privacy laws to political parties.
Have you heard of any persuasive reason offered by government for why privacy laws would not be properly applied to political parties, in terms of protecting the privacy of the information they have?