What's important to know here is that the government hasn't gone back to any general right for the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate by any means, including advertising, to encourage people to vote. It's about the mechanisms of voting. As long as people listening don't think that this “for greater certainty” clause has miraculously come in and allowed the Chief Electoral Officer to start doing what he did before, it won't, so that's clear.
That's something I really regret, because I thought on this clause this is where we were going to get a real coming together of the minister's perspective and civil society's and the opposition's perspective.
I said from the beginning, from the very first day, March 10—I think it was March 10 when the minister was here—can't we have these two things sitting side by side? Can't we have the old section 18 with the general mandate and the new section 18 with this very specific focus sitting side by side?
Unfortunately, the choice still has been made not to do that, with the limited exception of students in schools for a program and a general idea that you can advertise, but you can't do it on something called the exercise of democratic rights. Good luck to the courts figuring out that line on purposes.
Those are my real concerns.
I would ask the Privy Council guests one other question. This is definitely for the record. If a court ever were to look, I would hope that it would look at your answer.
In your view, is what Mr. Lukiwski said accurate in the sense of exactly the way the minister also said nothing in this affects the right of the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate about anything else? He can produce research and publish it. He can have press conferences. He can have news releases. Nothing in this will affect that. Is that correct?