Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is, again, consistent with what was in Bill C-65. We want to improve the fairness and administrative efficiency by making the nomination window larger than it is in the current bill.
Just to reflect again.... Under the terms of the motion that was put forward, I can't enter into debate, so under those terms, I wasn't allowed to enter into discussion as to why it can be more difficult to collect 100 signatures in 2026 than it was in 1990.
What we discovered is that electors are extremely reticent and skeptical as to why they should provide information to a stranger on the street in ways that, in 2025 and 2026, aren't the same as in 2019. There's a large degree of resistance to providing personal information. You have to explain to someone on the street why you want their name and that it's not a scam. There's a lot more resistance and hostility in our current climate. It was to the point that volunteers were refusing to go back out, because they'd been harassed on the street for asking for information.
It matters, particularly in a snap election, to be able to collect the signatures. With this amendment—which, again, was in the framework of Bill C-65—we want to create the opportunity to start earlier, because collecting the signatures takes longer than it used to. You can run into a rainy day. We had electoral officers refusing signatures because they were smeared by the rain when they were brought to the electoral officer, having been collected on the street. People's electoral boundaries have changed, so sometimes they don't recognize the name across the top of the sheet.
All this is to say that this amendment, PV-2, is solely to ensure that you start collecting your nomination papers...that they can allow them to be filed from the first day of the pre-election period instead of only in the writ period.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.