Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of the mandatory elements of the bill, not those elements that provide the CEO some discretion—the third party regime is a mandatory element—I'm quite confident that the bill will be implemented. What I said the other day and what I can repeat today is that the manner in

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, I think we will be meeting the expectations of the legislation. As I said, for the transparency side, it can be improved, but otherwise, we will be meeting the expectations. There may be some discretionary capabilities that I would have liked to leverage, and I don't know at

Procedure and House Affairs committee  On the issue, perhaps Madam Lawson can respond.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If the legislation passes, my intention would be to authorize it after I've consulted the political parties, through the advisory committee of the political parties, to see whether there are ways we can alleviate, perhaps, some concerns that parties may have. I do want to engage

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly, the amendment is not difficult. I think the point was made, and I agree, that there's a limit to the enforceability of that. It's an expression of intention. The fact that someone does intend is hard to verify. Whether they do or don't return is a fact that is irreleva

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have a few comments. First, I think the point made earlier today was that to the extent there's an imbalance, it's on the advertising side, because there is no limit pre-writ on the parties' or MPs' travel. On the advertising side, this is something that is captured, as you kn

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly, to me it would be sensible. I think it's one of the benefits of having a relatively short pre-writ limit. It allows that form of harmonization. If you were to have a much longer pre-writ spending limit, apart from the charter issues it would raise, it would also make i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We certainly have looked into this. There is no silver bullet there. We have made some recommendations, not necessarily endorsed either by this committee or followed through in this legislation. For example, we recommended for years not to have a requirement to have a bank accoun

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sure.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly we can compile them from the last two reports we made. This committee did endorse the subsidy for official agents. I certainly remember that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  A provision in the current legislation deals with impersonation. The commissioner felt that the wording of that provision could be reinforced to deal with fake communication material, but this was not as clear. We supported that and made that recommendation.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It is in Bill C-76. However, what we did not recommend and should have and what we're recommending today is that it be tweaked to include documents that are presented to be from Elections Canada, not just fake partisan material but also fake—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll try to be clearer. The current provisions in the Canada Elections Act, not this bill, covers impersonation in general. They include impersonation of an Elections Canada official as well as a partisan impersonation. Bill C-76, pursuant to recommendations made by us, would c

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Exactly. That came from the commissioner.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  According to the commissioner, it wasn't clear enough, and we're quite happy to support reinforcing those provisions but we should include Elections Canada in the mix.