As I said in my opening remarks, the officers of Parliament really do play a very important role in our democracy. We don't take these jobs to win popularity contests. We do our work with objectivity. I know that there are certain audits that created—I don't quite know how to phrase it, but I'm sure I was not on the Christmas card list of certain people after certain audits. We do our work. We respect our mandates and we do so in an objective and fair way. It troubles me greatly and I would say it disturbs me greatly to see comments that were made—and I will be quite blunt—by the minister today in committee, attacking personally the Chief Electoral Officer. This serves none of us well. It undermines the credibility of these institutions, and at the end of the day, if this continues, we will all pay because no one will have faith in government, in chief electoral officers, or in a democratic system.
We can have differences of opinion. That's what a democracy is for, to be able to express freely our differences of opinion. The officers of Parliament should be able to come to Parliament and explain issues that they see in proposed legislation. I am sure that if the legislation goes through, the Chief Electoral Officer will respect and follow it. But to actually attack him for bringing forward his concerns, I think is totally inappropriate.