Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for participating, particularly those of you who are participating via teleconference.
We've heard from a number of different witnesses over the last couple of meetings a number of different suggestions as to how effective representation by population should be enacted. We have certainly not found unanimity in the proposals we've heard. I would doubt that we're even close to getting a consensus. I'm not going to stray into that territory right now, but I want to ask all of you to comment on timelines.
What I mean by that is that regardless of what the final composition of Bill C-20 is, there will be boundary changes forthcoming. That in itself of course causes a lot of challenges to parties, because if seats are added, additional riding boundaries will have to be made. That poses problems such that the money that was held in one riding by an EDA will now have to be shared with another riding, because a portion of the one riding is now split. New EDAs will have to be formed; new boards of directors will have to be formed; candidate searches will have to be performed. I would suggest that once or twice we may even run into a situation in which an incumbent MP is actually going to be residing in a new riding. What happens then? Will the incumbent be considered to be grandfathered into the old riding in which he now no longer resides, or would he have to run in the new riding?
All of these are questions that individual parties will have to determine. It is they, of course, who will make the final recommendations to work out the logistics of boundary redistribution.
With all of that work in front of the parties, my question to all of the party representatives here today is, do you feel that if Bill C-20 is passed with the timeline recommended by both the Chief Electoral Officer and the former electoral officer, that is, to have legislation passed prior to February of next year, your parties will have adequate time to do the type of organizational work required?
Perhaps we will start with Madame Vallerand, and then we'll go to our guests via teleconference.