I appreciate your candour, but again, let's be clear that it's only a perception, and you say the threshold of that perception is probably pretty low. Your appearance here today, I think, will go a long way to assuring Canadians who might have had that perception that there really, truly will be continued independence in both your office and the commissioner of elections.
Let me try to home in on something that you just mentioned, the ability to dismiss the commissioner of elections with cause. You mentioned incompetence. Obviously, I suppose in almost any job, if you were to dismiss someone on the basis of incompetence, that would be considered to be a fair and normal proceeding. But wouldn't the threshold to try to prove incompetence be extremely high in this case? The legislation proposes that the commissioner of elections be hired for a seven-year term and can only be dismissed with cause. The intent of the legislation is to assure Canadians, and to in fact give the commissioner of elections a solid measure of independence without interference from any government.
Could you explain exactly what in your mind the threshold of incompetence or cause for termination would be? How egregious would the actions of the commissioner of elections have to be before he could be dismissed?