Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to respond to the Committee’s request to discuss its June 2006 report, Improving the Integrity of the Electoral Process: Recommendations for Legislative Change—the name you have given it—and the government’s recent response to that report.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, if I may respond very rapidly, it is an excellent idea. Consider it done, and I will table the report here as soon as I have it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Consider it done. As soon as I have it, I'll table the report here.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Do not hesitate to call on us. We're 15 minutes away.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Parties that field fewer than 308 candidates and parties that field fewer than 50 candidates in the last election were only entitled to receive lists for those ridings where they fielded candidates in the last election. They're not entitled to receive lists for where they want to field candidates at the next election.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sir, this is the kind of recommendation that usually doesn't receive much favourable consideration until there is a strike outside an election period, and the election is jeopardized, and people say why didn't we think of that. It's not with glee that I make this recommendation, because I've always favoured the right to strike of public service employees, and they would lose none of their rights under their collective agreements.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, but the point is that the election may be jeopardized in terms of its effectiveness, and that is the reason for the recommendation.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Don't forget that collective agreements which apply to Elections Canada employees are the same ones which apply to the entire public service, since my employees are public servants. There's no collective agreement between my employees and myself. These collective agreements therefore apply to the public service.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Obviously I'll do that, sir. This committee takes precedence.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Frankly, Mr. Chairman, we've not considered this. The matter has been brought up before, but it always dies. If the committee wishes to look into it in more detail, we'll be willing to look at it with the committee.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The first point is that one would have to identify a threshold beneath which volunteer labour would not have to be reported. This could be something like 40 hours a week. If someone were working less than 40 hours a week as a volunteer, there would be no report. If someone were working more than 40 hours a week as a volunteer, then there would be a report.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We already put up advertising in every poll that says, “To vote, you must be a Canadian and you must be 18 years of age”. Perhaps what we could do is add, “Severe penalties apply if this is not followed”, or something to that effect. I'll look into that immediately.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, that's the purpose. I run Elections Canada, and that's my purpose in recommending it. If you look at the date in September, it was just before the report, but we'd listened to the testimony. The purpose would allow that if someone was in effect providing volunteer labour that was not volunteer labour, it would be subject to public scrutiny.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The point here is that when it comes time to audit a candidate's return and you are a candidate, you know that you have to provide pieces of substantiating claims, vouchers, for your expenditures to vouch for what you have spent. I get no such documents from parties. From parties I only get headings and numbers.