Mr. Speaker, in the first of the member's remarks, she accused the government of being infused with scandal and fraud, and I would definitely agree. There was the in-and-out scandal, and the Conservatives paid a fine in that one; and there is the electoral robocalls scandal. That is just to name two.
However, the really serious part of the act relates to basically cutting the legs out from under Elections Canada itself, by separating the commissioner and putting it under public prosecutions. Let us not fool ourselves; that is really under the Attorney General.
To give an example of what could happen, a few years down the road it might be a different Attorney General. It could be somebody named Pierre, or something like that. Can members imagine the commissioner calling? He might say, “Yes, hello, Pierre; we have one of your members who sits three rows back behind you there, who we believe may be caught in election fraud. Should we press charges?”
Come on. What would happen here, under this, is that they would put the fox in charge of the chicken coop, if I could put it that way. The people who are involved in the wrongdoing would have a say as to whether there are charges laid. That is not the way to protect our election system in this country. Could the member confirm that?