Good afternoon, and welcome back to the 123rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
This afternoon we'll begin clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make certain consequential amendments.
I would like to again note the presence of the officials from the Privy Council Office: Manon Paquet, Senior Policy Advisor, and Jean-François Morin, Senior Policy Advisor. They will attend our meetings to provide assistance to the committee should members have questions about the bill. Thank you both for being here.
Before we begin, I would like provide members with some general information about how we will proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
The committee will consider each of the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. Once I have called a clause, it is subject to debate and vote.
If there are amendments to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing the amendment, who will explain it in around a minute or so. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on.
I would like to remind members to ensure that clause-by-clause consideration proceeds in an efficient, orderly fashion.
I may limit debate to five minutes per party per clause. As I said earlier, I'll be flexible as long as people don't spend a lot of time on minor clauses where things are obvious, etc. If I do enforce the five minutes, it's per clause, not per amendment. There is the odd clause that has 10 or 20 amendments, but there are still only five minutes, so keep—
Yes?