That's great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This motion, which I gave notice of, I'd now like to table and move:
That the Committee present a report to the House of Commons recommending that Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, be withdrawn.
The idea behind this is that the official opposition would like us to start fresh, albeit benefiting from the process that's occurred to date, which has had all kinds of learning elements in it. This is where we probably should have started with the bill in the House, given the nature of the Canada Elections Act, where much more extensive preparation, engagement with knowledgeable stakeholders from commissioners of Canada elections to chief electoral officers, and so on, should have occurred, not to mention a much more collegial, extensive process with the other parties in Parliament.
The government has backed down on a number of very important areas that have been resisted by the official opposition, by civil society, and I do suspect by Conservative MPs. With the amendments the government's been forced to agree to, this bill will be better than Bill C-23, that is, the unfair elections act, as tabled by the minister, but it will be still much worse than leaving the current Canada Elections Act in place.