We'll call the meeting to order. This is meeting 27 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
We are talking today about our study on the Referendum Act. We have a special treat for all of you, because we have Jean-Pierre Kingsley with us today. He's an old friend of this committee; he used to spend his life sitting at that end of the table. At least some of us remember that time as we studied the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations each year.
It's great to see you back and it's great to see you looking well rested.
Many of the members sitting at the table today, Mr. Kingsley, are new to the fact that we're doing this study, even though many of us were here or some of us were here for the start of the study of the Referendum Act. The Chief Electoral Officer, Monsieur Mayrand, handed it to us and asked us to look at it and try to match it up with the Canada Elections Act. We've done a fair bit of work. After your testimony today, we'll be spending some time looking, for the newer members of the committee, at what we've already studied and see how close we are to reporting on it and if indeed that's where we'll go. So you're going to help us a little with that today. We're going to let you give an opening statement and then we're going to ask you questions in this hour. I want to remind members that we'll rotate questioning.
Some of the members may be having lunch while you're speaking. We're not trying to be rude; it's that time of day for us and we may not get a chance to stop if that's the case. As you know, we're always on these things. Again, it's not a matter of ignoring what you're saying; we've learned to multi-task.
Sir, I'll let you go ahead and start. Please pardon the dimness of the room today. I've found I can keep the members calmer if we keep it a little dark. If they start acting up it will get darker and darker in here. When we can't see each other we can no longer fight, so it sounds like the right way to go.
Mr. Kingsley, the floor is yours.