Let me do that then. What's being called amendment NDP-7.2 I'd like to move, and it's with the chair. It's very short and I'll read it. The amendment would add a subclause to section 18, which now has three subsections. It would add proposed subsection (4), which says:
(4) For greater certainty, the Chief Electoral Officer may communicate with Parliament or the public on any matter that she or he considers to be relevant to her or his mandate using any media or other means that she or he considers appropriate.
I'm hoping that in doing it this way we can get early agreement on something that was of great concern to the Chief Electoral Officer. It's only one of the many concerns with respect to section 18. The way clause 7 dealing with section 18 is currently written—it's important to know this in order to know why this amendment is needed—proposed section 18 is written in the way that says:
18(1) The Chief Electoral Officer may provide the public, both inside and outside Canada, with information on the following topics only:
“May only” ends up creating the danger that this can be interpreted and indeed ultimately may be enforced in the courts as prohibiting the Chief Electoral Officer from communicating with the public, providing the public with information outside of that closed list.
As such, the Chief Electoral Officer presented his concerns about that.
The minister said on Friday—and he said this before—that there's nothing in the original section 18, even before the government amendments that we're going to see, that's intended to prohibit the Chief Electoral Officer from speaking, communicating publicly as he sees fit. In fact, the minister on Friday said that in terms of the Chief Electoral Officer's ability to speak publicly, he can say ”anything he wants”. In light of the concern, and indeed in light of even how the amendment about to be proposed by the government goes, I just want to have the clarity that what the minister said on Friday is exactly what everybody understands. That's why I'm framing it. It's for greater certainty.
Let me read it again because in the end we are circulating it.
Sorry, but I wrote the document just before the meeting. So I didn't have time to have it translated.
Again, it reads:
(4) For greater certainty, the Chief Electoral Officer may communicate with Parliament or the public on any matter that she or he considers to be relevant to her or his mandate using any media or other means that she or he considers appropriate.
I am hoping this is completely non-controversial. Given what the minister said quite early on whenever he reacted to the Chief Electoral Officer's concerns that he would be muzzled by saying, no, that's not the intention, that's not the effect, the minister has confirmed that in the statement on Friday that I just read to you, and so therefore, I simply want, for the sake of the institution and the sake of clarity, to have this “for greater certainty” clause.