Chair, throughout this process we haven't had much opportunity to really make improvements, in our opinion. Most of our time has been spent fighting against changes that we believe to be undemocratic. This is one area that is new. My understanding is that when we come to the central poll supervisor the government has heard loud and clear that's unacceptable, so we're expecting that appropriate voting reflecting that will happen in due course.
This has been in place since I got in politics. A similar thing exists provincially. It was based on exactly what Mr. Scott said. If you have two appointees, they cancel each other out. They're watching each other, and it creates a situation where the public's concerns.... We felt, as political people, and those who are with us, that it satisfied that need.
Canadians have spoken clearly on this one. I appreciate Ms. May reading that, because I think that more accurately reflects where we are. This is one, possibly the only one, where we're not pointing fingers and we're not saying the sky is falling, as it is with most other aspects of this bill. In this case it really is, let's take that principle of no, you're not going to add one more person appointed in a polling station to the mix of officers who are presiding in that location. It's good that we're stopping this new role, but let's take the full step and remove the political process completely, the partisan process, from the appointment of these officers.
Canadians have spoken loud and clear. Regardless of how we feel about the idea that they cancel each other out, they don't buy it, they don't like it, and we have a chance to change it. We in the NDP are agreeing that making that change would be a good move. We would hope the government would see their way clear to following through on their notion that the central poll supervisor shouldn't be added as an appointee. Let's do the whole job properly and go all the way and remove political appointments. Keep it under the purview of the CEO. Make sure everybody is trained to the same standard, is held to the same standard of accountability.
In my view, Canadians got it right this time, the parties got it wrong, and we have a chance to fix it right now. Hopefully, the government will be listening.