Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Bittle touched on raking over the coals. I'm not sure that's what we ended up doing, and I certainly don't feel that's what we ended up doing for the Canadian public with Bill C-76. I'm hearing from you and the government that you want to make a real commitment to protecting Canadians and our electoral processes from foreign interference and influence. But all we got out of Bill C-76 was an interference process where there's a tap on the hand if there is foreign funding. Again, we tried as Conservatives to legislate amendments that would make it impossible for this to happen, with segregated bank accounts and doing more than the tap on the hand.
In addition, with the platforms, all we ended up with was some lame registries. It concerns me very much. In addition, frankly, when you go to the mainstream media, Minister.... When you went on The West Block, you said that you expect social media platforms to do more to protect the 2019 federal election from foreign interference, and you asked them to take lessons learned from around the world and apply them in Canada. It is very disturbing to me that you are asking corporations, of their own goodwill, to try to protect Canadians and our electoral processes, rather than taking responsibility yourself, both as the minister and the government.
Given the weak outcomes of Bill C-76 and your comments in the media, can you please provide any more assurance to the committee here today and to all Canadians that the 2019 election will have the most assurances possible to be kept safe from foreign influence?