Thanks, Mr. Brassard. I appreciate that intervention.
I think it was Mr. Richards who had a very long list of supplementary information that your party requested from many of the witnesses and was very adamant about collecting that information, and that is exactly when I received this. It is relevant information to this study, and it outlines the numerous tests that were done and evaluations of those tests. It speaks to many of the security and integrity concerns that are really relevant to addressing some of the concerns that have been brought forward by members of this committee. I believe it's relevant for this study. It should be referenced in the report. I feel strongly that it supports the recommendation in this section, and I want to go a little further here and give you a couple of other quotes.
There's a quote that says, “The integrity of the remote system depends on the care taken by each individual Member over authentication.”
There is another section that says, “Members have a personal responsibility to ensure the integrity of the system. It is highly likely that any action by a Member which led to an unauthorised person casting a vote in a division would constitute a contempt of the House and a breach of the Code of Conduct, and would be likely to be punished accordingly.”
I think this is key. It addresses some of the concerns that have been expressed by committee members.
Furthermore, it talks about mitigating the risks of missing a vote or system failures, which have been brought forward by members of this committee. I think what they have done at the U.K. Parliament is rapidly implement this with testing, so it's an incremental approach. It has been rapid, but it does sort of set a precedence, given the fact that they have 800 years or 900 years of history. We talk about defending our institutions, but if the U.K. Parliament can do this in a matter of weeks, why shouldn't we consider doing the same thing, especially given we are in the same global pandemic? They certainly have addressed some of the same concerns. They haven't gotten into party politics to delay things; they've embraced the change.
There is a strong rationale, and I have quite a bit more information that I've gathered that supports our moving forward on electronic and remote voting. It is consistent with the other recommendations we have already voted on and adopted, which are to move essentially to replicating some of the more formal proceedings of the House in a virtual environment. Obviously, we need to have a way for us to vote.
I'll leave it at that for the moment, but I welcome more discussion on this. I have quite a few more points.