Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are five or six in headquarters and the rest are across Canada.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They work when we have a case for them.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I have with me, Johanne Gauthier, who is the new general counsel with our office. I appeared in front of the committee on February 8, 2007. Since then we have been busy, and I can give you a brief update on our activities. We've engaged Ms. Gauthier, who has a strong management background.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I feel I am constrained from providing you with an update, sir, in view of the fact that it's publicly known that it's with our office. This is not, in my view, the proper forum to do that. But we have heard from your executive assistant and we'll be responding.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd say soon.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My recollection is that it wasn't random. There was an effort made, in looking at the lists, to identify people who appeared to vote at a business address or those who looked like they voted at a business address, because it was the expectation that these were the people from outside.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's a very difficult question. In the ordinary criminal realm, police officers can't command somebody to give them a statement. They either give them a statement willingly or they don't. For a murder investigation, I don't have to give a statement; I'm a witness. It would be difficult to justify it in this area.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Our practice is to inform the complainant of the details of the investigation and the results. In both of these cases, the complainants got a lengthy letter advising them that there wasn't anything there. In these cases, there was a press release. In most cases, there isn't. If a person knows they are the subject of a complaint and nothing seems to happen with it, they may write and ask, “What happened with the complaint made against me?”

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, that's the conclusion of the matter. We don't give the investigation brief to the person who might have been the subject of the matter. If we find nothing there and conclude it, that's it, and that should be it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The complainant gets a much more fulsome description of what we have. If you look at these press releases, you'll see quite a bit of detail on these two cases. As I said, I felt there was that public concern that needed this sort of treatment. Essentially, though, this is what the complainants got back themselves, and perhaps more.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly not.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  According to this press release, which I wrote: ...21 electors of the 93 were from outside Edmonton Centre but had voted there. --in other words, we tried to identify people who appeared to have lived outside Edmonton Centre and voted within-- Almost all had received a voter information card listing a business address in Edmonton Centre.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't recall the investigation report in that kind of detail. The focus of the investigation was to try to identify outsiders voting within. They screened Elections Canada available documentation for that purpose, and that allowed them to then make an identification of what looked like people from outside the district voting inside.