If our witnesses are fine with continuing straight through to 12:45, then we shall do so. Let's carry on, then.
I wanted to simply chime in along with all of my other colleagues and say, Mr. Mayrand, and to your colleagues from Elections Canada, thank you for all of your work and for your service these past nine years as the Chief Electoral Officer. I think that this report and the other two reports you tabled are a testament to your service to our country, and I want to thank you as well.
As I went through this report, I was particularly heartened by the recommendations and suggestions. I think the report reflects the point you made that at the heart of it, it is about fairness for electors and for Canadian citizens. I personally have very little that I couldn't endorse in terms of moving forward.
I do have one very specific pet project related to electoral district associations, and it was referred to in your report. I just wanted to probe you briefly on that particular point.
I support the previous decision to bring EDAs under greater scrutiny under the Elections Act. I do have some problems with the way it's currently administered or the way in which sanctions are applied, and I just want your thoughts on that. I agree that there needs to be greater transparency, and the current system, I think, does achieve that, but my concern is that sometimes what actually goes on within EDAs and the sanctions that are potentially applied to them may not in fact match.
Let me give you a situation that happens within political parties, and I'm sure my colleagues can see that the situation could arise. Sometimes the transition between candidates or between riding associations is not an easy one, to put it diplomatically. Sometimes the requirement to actually file the EDA's returns is not within the control of the new riding association, yet the sanctions that are applied right now could include deregistration of the riding association—essentially penalizing the individuals currently in control of the riding association—or the loss of the ability to issue tax receipts. These sanctions apply to the riding association, as opposed to the individuals who were actually in control and who would have had information about the activities of, let's say, a previous riding association.
Do you think there is still a gap in terms of how that reporting takes place and how sanctions would be applied?