Mr. Chair, I apologize for interrupting.
It matters. I wholeheartedly agree, and to all extents possible, we want to make sure that every valid vote is reflected and is counted.
Now, if we find out some error after validation, it cannot be included in the official results. In the case of Coquitlam, a large percentage—and I can't remember exactly—of the affected ridings had done their validation when the issue arose, so that was not a possibility.
It was nevertheless important to be very transparent about the situation, because some of those ridings were fairly close—not so close that it would have made a difference, but perhaps sufficiently so in the case of a recount. It was critical that the candidates in those ridings be made aware of the number of votes that potentially would have affected their election, and should they have wished to do so, they could have raised this in the context of a recount.
After validation, if we find this situation, we need to be very quick to be transparent to make sure that these rights can be properly exercised.