Mr. Speaker, the first bill standing in the name of the member for Ottawa West—Nepean amends the names of certain ridings at the request of the members of parliament. In general it is to reflect more accurately certain community factors in terms of how the communities wish to be identified by name. That bill deals with changes to the names of 19 federal electoral districts.
The second bill standing in the name of the member for Gander—Grand Falls amends the Canada Elections Act to allow the Chief Electoral Officer to administratively handle certain minor changes to candidates' expense returns that now need to be handled through the courts.
The bill relates specifically to the fact that under the current provisions of the legislation, if a bill arrives in the hands of a member or a candidate following the election, if it was not received within the required time period in which a candidate or his or her official agent may pay the bill, the only process available now to the member to be able to pay that bill is to get a court order allowing that to happen.
This is clearly a cumbersome process currently affecting 172 members of parliament, the majority of the House of Commons, simply because somebody failed to send in a bill to their campaign in the required time period. It seems appropriate to allow the chief electoral officer to judge that this is an administrative problem that can be corrected with his approval.