Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're certainly at your disposal if you need to have more details than what we've already mentioned. I think the different items that I and the Clerk mentioned clearly serve as a basis for the committee if it wants to modify or increase the number of participants in e-petitions while maintaining the integrity of these petitions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I wouldn't use the word “recommendations”. From our perspective, it would probably be more like issues you would want to explore, and that would bring you to a decision, or not, on the different—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The good thing about it is that at that point in the process, it's not yet public. It is still a discussion.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If you want to talk about the threats, if there were any, the threats were exactly the same ones as for the rest of the websites. That would answer that part. In terms of being able to sign the same petition twice, we have systems in place to identify either the email address or the IP address.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's where you need to find a balance between the tools you have and the information you gather, in terms of making sure that those electronic signatures are valid. Clearly, if you go through both processes, the paper and electronic process, you could probably end up concluding that the electronic process is much more sophisticated and authentic than the paper petitions were.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That certainly has come out. A lot of members, as you're probably aware, try to present petitions regarding a bill that will be debated in the House for second reading. If there are petitions coming to the House at that time, being tabled in the House, and your e-petition is stuck in that 120 days, you won't be able to table that petition with good timing.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First, there is more information gathered for e-petitions, since we have to send the information back to the different signatories. There is information there regarding email address, the actual address of the individual, and the phone number. There's a lot of information that you usually don't find on paper petitions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think we would have the tools now to answer that question.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If we refer to the petitioner, that is the person who organizes the petition. That person would have access only to the names of the supporters. The five supporters they need to identify, but that's the information they give out themselves. They don't have access at all to the, let's say, 2,000 signatories to the petition.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The only thing they would have is the information on the website as of now, which is to indicate how many signatories come from each of the provinces and territories. That's it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. As for the member of Parliament who is the eventual sponsor of a petition, that person gets the basic information of the petitioner, the person who initiates it. As you can imagine, in some cases the member of Parliament would like to get in contact and talk on the phone with this individual to see what the motivations are behind that, the story behind all of those things, and to get more information.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.