From what I know about that issue, which is based on media reporting, it appears to be an extremely cavalier use of the Elections Act and what would constitute at the federal level under current law an extremely serious breach of the provisions of the Canada Elections Act. Voters lists are pretty sacred. That's why Parliament in its wisdom has decided to govern their management very carefully and provide for serious offences for breaches of those provisions.
In this bill, we significantly tighten up even further the privacy provisions that govern all political parties at the federal level. The Alberta incident is something all members should take extremely seriously. Provincial electoral lists aren't much different from federal electoral lists. It is up to elections authorities in all jurisdictions to make sure that the provisions governing the confidentiality of that information be held extremely tightly and, when they're not held extremely tightly, to deal with it in a very serious way.
