Sure. Thank you, Chair.
Just one quick comment, perhaps, and a question. The comment, just to underscore what Monsieur Godin was saying in response to Mr. Guimond with respect to your not being consulted, I would suggest that the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer certainly was consulted extensively, because your predecessor had written a report in January 2007, which Madame Robillard has requested.
The minister and the government took a lot of advice from that report into construction of this bill, so there was extensive consultation with your office, and I'd just like that to be on the record.
I want to bring to your attention a situation my colleague had raised in his interventions with the minister. The minister wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, so I'd ask your opinion. A situation that could occur with this right now is if you guarantee or put your name down as a guarantor on a bank loan, your limit would be $1,100 because it would be viewed with the same limits as a contribution.
Let's hypothetically assume a situation occurred where I guaranteed $1,100 for a loan for another candidate, for Joe, my good friend Joe, because Joe is, of course, penniless. Then his riding association goes out and does a lot of fundraising. They raise a lot of funds and they pay off the loan. In other words, my guarantee of $1,100 has been expunged because the loan has been paid off.
Would I then be prevented from contributing another $1,100 to either my campaign or someone else's campaign in the same year?