Procedure and House Affairs committee  I was not.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I was not consulted by the minister on the bill.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I do not, but what I would add is this: if the preoccupations about possible conflict of interest in our being within Elections Canada is one that is deemed to be requiring an adjustment or a fix, it seems to me that a much better approach would be to put into the Canada Elections Act the same kind of statutory guarantee to my office and to my tenure as would be made now if we were to move to the DPP.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Indeed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First, Mr. Chair, as I said, I will not comment on any investigations. However, in answer to the question that was put to me, I will state on the record that there have indeed been cases, a number of them, in which during the performance of our investigative work we have come across people who have had information that was relevant to our investigation and have simply refused to talk to us.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There is a lot in that question, Mr. Chair. I'll try to attack it in bits and pieces. The Chief Electoral Officer does appoint the commissioner, but in my sense he's not the boss. And an analogy to this would be that the government appoints judges but the government is not the boss of the judges.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  He could refer a file to me and direct to me that I should investigate it, but then how I do the investigation, how far I go with it, what I do with it, would be entirely within my purview.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  He would say to me, please look into this, investigate this. I would say, thank you very much, and then I would with my director of investigations decide how I was going to investigate that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The CEO is an agent of Parliament and my presumption would be that if he refers a file to me for investigation, he probably has good grounds to do that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, there's an act of Parliament that specifies the circumstances in which the Chief Electoral Officer may ask me to conduct an investigation. So Parliament has spoken and has said that this is the way it should be. Again, I think it's very important that, if the CEO does that, then I decide how I'm going to do that, in the same way that if Bill C-23 is passed as it is now, if our office were to move with the office of the DPP, I would decide how investigations are to be conducted.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think that there would be any conflict of interest. I'll tell you a couple of things—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd say at least two things on this. One is that I certainly would see any cases involving an electoral officer or an employee of Elections Canada where fraud or misbehaviour of some sort was alleged as being a very serious matter. I can assure you that, as commissioner, this is something that I would get to the bottom of with all the energy and all the tools that I have at my disposal.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The appointment is made by the CEO.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, indeed, pursuant to section 509 of the act.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It is not correct, Mr. Chair, in the following sense, that I am not an employee of Elections Canada. I have a special import appointment made pursuant to section 509 of the act, and the act calls for me, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, to see to the enforcement of the Canada Elections Act.