Mr. Speaker, I will concede points in a debate. The hon. member makes a good point. Some Liberal members of Parliament are not keen on patronage appointments. For example, when the list is drawn up of who should be appointed to positions in Elections Canada, they do not submit a name. They do not submit the name of their campaign manager or someone they have known for a long time. They say: "I am not going to get into that. That is a neutral position. It should not be partisan".
I share the member's concern. I do not put forward names for enumerators. I do not put forward names for appointments to Elections Canada.
As a matter of fact, when Mr. Kingsley was before the procedure and House affairs committee I asked him a question. We give advice to countries around the world on how to run fair elections. I asked Mr. Kingsley: "When we go to other countries to help them run their election campaigns, for example, do we tell them that the government should appoint all of the returning officers or should it be a neutral process?" His response was: "When we are overseas we do not want the government involved because the government has to be at arm's length from the elections". I thought that was a good idea. If we could follow that in Canada we would be much better off.