Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I see your opening remarks had indicated, in terms of changes to elections law, that the window of time was rapidly closing in which to implement anything prior to the next election and even mentioned that your predecessor, Mr. Mayrand, had said they should be enacted prior to April of 2018. I note that it is now April 24 of 2018.
However, in a news article—I think it was on March 8—the Office of the Minister of Democratic Institutions had indicated that there were some new rules coming to strengthen and clarify rules governing third party spending by foreign actors financing Canadian political advocacy:
We are concerned about the lack of transparency seen around many third parties on all sides of the political spectrum. Canada has robust finance rules governing political fundraising from foreign actors, but we will further strengthen and clarify these rules to ensure greater transparency in our political fundraising system and a stronger defence against foreign interference in our democratic process.
I'll beg to differ somewhat with the assertion there that there are robust rules currently that ensure that, but I certainly do agree there is a need to strengthen those, and there is a need to ensure that foreign influence is not influencing our elections as I think it currently can under the rules that exist now.
Because of the fact that it has been indicated that there is something coming to deal with this, can you give us any indication whether the minister or her office has been in contact with Elections Canada, with yourselves, to consult you on any proposed legislation that they're thinking about bringing forward?