Chair, briefly, in reading this, I just wanted to underscore how troubling it is that the mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer is being limited from what it is now, bearing in mind that the Chief Electoral Officer is an officer of Parliament, not like any other bureaucrat or staff who ultimately answers to the government of the day. The Chief Electoral Officer answers to all members of Parliament as a single entity, yet one subset, meaning one party, the Conservative Party, that happens to have a majority, is changing the mandate.
I want to underscore how undemocratic and totally unacceptable the process was, where there was no consultation with the opposition parties at all. Yet the government feels that it's quite legitimate for them to use their majority, recognizing that they only got 39% of the some 60-odd per cent who turned out, and here they are unilaterally forcing the change to the Chief Electoral Officer's mandate when the hiring and firing of an officer of Parliament is the purview of Parliament and Parliament alone. Only Parliament can hire, and only Parliament can fire, yet the government feels it's legitimate for them to use their partisan majority to change the mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer.
I would just say this, Chair. They wouldn't dare do that to the Auditor General, but they think they can get away with it with the Chief Electoral Officer, and they are getting away with it. Both are officers of Parliament. This is so shameful.