Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Boyer, for appearing. I appreciate your comments very much. In fact, I tend to agree with a lot of your observations. My personal assessment, after being involved with the discussions at this committee for the last several meetings, is that we need a separate referendum act. We need a legislative framework separate and apart from what we have now, and it needs to be more highly defined.
I have a lot of questions and only a short period of time, so I will focus on one right now, which is financing. I've put this question to other witnesses who have come forward. Currently there are no limits on the amount of money that a referendum committee or committees can receive. There are limits on the expenses. It would be conceivable, because we've seen this before in other provincial jurisdictions, that the same referendum question could be asked in successive years. In British Columbia, for example, they've had the same question on the method of voting held several years apart.
My question is, if there is no limit on how much a referendum committee or committees can receive in terms of contributions, what is your view if, say, the pro side of a question received $10 million in contributions and their initiative was defeated, if the no side actually won? Would that pro side committee or committees, in your opinion, be allowed--could they be allowed, should they be allowed--to spend whatever is left from the $10 million over the course of succeeding years to try to continue to promote their position in the hope that that question would come back at a future date?