If we receive a complaint about electoral fraud, we assume it is something major and relatively big. We begin with a preliminary review of the allegations and facts brought to our attention. If we confirm that there are sufficient grounds to proceed and launch an investigation, we would open a formal investigation and would then talk to the people we believe might have been involved.
The reason for recommendation A33 is that, in certain circumstances—and I have experienced this in the past four or five years since I have been in my position—we ask persons to appear because we strongly suspect and, in some cases, know with certainty that they are aware of certain things and have information. For their own reasons, they refuse to cooperate. They say they do not want to tell us anything.
You as members of Parliament are in a position to properly assess what I am going to say. In politics, loyalty to the party and the team is often considered a fundamental value. For these people, it is very difficult to cooperate and give information that could help us move forward with our investigation.
If, for example, after contacting all the individuals to whom we wanted to ask questions, no one wanted to cooperate, a provision such as the one suggested in recommendation A33 could be useful. We could go before a judge, an independent party, and explain what is going on, what the allegations are, how serious they are, and the fact that, unfortunately, we cannot convince anyone to talk. We would then ask the judge to issue an order compelling a particular person to talk to us.
There would of course be guarantees attached to this process if the judge agreed to issue the order. To begin, it would be clear that nothing said by the person compelled to speak to us could be used against them. The person would have the right to legal representation. The meeting would be private and not public.
It should be noted that such guarantees do not mean that we would use this power left and right to conduct investigations into all kinds of minor matters. It would be for circumstances that could seriously affect public confidence in the electoral system. Citizens need to be reassured that an investigation was conducted in order to obtain the information we need to move on to the next steps.
That is my opinion on recommendation A33. In five or six provinces in Canada, the commissioner or person in an equivalent position currently has this power. I am including officials from the office of the chief electoral officer of Quebec.
This is already the case federally since the head of the competition bureau has this power and may, under certain circumstances, ask a Federal Court judge to issue an order to compel someone to testify.
This is the main point I wanted to make with regard to recommendation A33.