When we're drawing up legislation, we're always measuring risk. This is a case where we're tyring to prevent bad things from happening. On the other side, there is the consequence we couldn't have understood before it happens. Every piece of legislation tries to anticipate this and tries to think about it.
To Chris's point, the idea that a volunteer going home with a poll sheet being the type of breach that the Chief Electoral Officer is concerned about versus the things that we know are present dangers.... There's no conspiracy or mythological thinking about this. The concerns have been demonstrated to us in functioning old democracies that we rely on for all sorts of lessons. We built our parliamentary system off of one of them. In the measurement of the risks, if we see this being conducted right now and we know it's getting worse and, instead, we talk about it more and not change anything until maybe some time later because we're concerned that a volunteer going home with a poll sheet is somehow going to be subjected to some arbitrary penalty, that is of course not the breach that the Privacy Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer are concerned about. They're really not.
For a government that loves consultation—sometimes you don't listen, but whatever; you hit the consultation button a lot—to say you're not into consultation now with people who we trust, Elections Canada, the Chief Electoral Officer, the Privacy Commissioner, on millions of decisions that affect the way that our democracy.... We trust these guys.
In that weighing of risks, I can't see how the perversion of an election from inside or outside forces, which is everything, versus a volunteer getting caught out with a poll sheet, imagining the day that the Privacy Commissioner is going to hammer that volunteer—they are incomparable to me.
You can tell I'm pleading with my colleagues to say this is a prudent step forward. We have 10 or 11 months until the writ drops. What are we able to put in place before 2019? We have somewhat limited scope in these consultations because they have to go to this committee, as is referenced in the amendment.
Let me anticipate. The parties will not be jumping over themselves to slam down and agree to PIPEDA for 2019. Let me guess at that right now. They've been so reluctant every step of the way. We have to weigh the partisan interest versus public interest. This is one of those times.