Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, sir. I am deeply touched by those words. I can only say to the committee and to you that I've established bonds with parliamentarians through this committee. This was the committee through which I related to Parliament as Chief Electoral Officer, and I've al

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I will only add this comment, Mr. Chairman. Whenever I was asked, if time allowed, I accepted the challenge. Because I think, despite most circumstances, it's always worth another try, especially when you see the people, the situation they're in, and how they stand to benefit,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think, as I said in my earlier comments, that it will be up to Parliament to decide and then to review what will happen in those cases. I did bring forth the example of the only knowledge I had, which was the situation in Toronto and the numbers that came out of that situation.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the personal comments that you made. I really appreciate them. With respect to staggered voting hours, which is how we have come to refer to them, I can't remember having received a complaint from a Canadian asking why the polls are open from 7:30 to 7:30 in their

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What I've noticed since we've started to be involved on the international scene is that initially, countries were moving in that direction voluntarily. In other words, they were changing because of the fact that geopolitics were changing. Now what's happening is that more of the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To begin with, thank you very much for those comments about the international scene. I should mention, by the way, that NDI is the National Democratic Institute, which is also Washington-based. Probably half its staff is Canadian. There is a large contingent of Canadians. IFES

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, the selection criteria for evaluating the performance of returning officers and for determining whether they should keep their jobs or not were tabled with the Speaker of the House on December 12 or 13. I think that he recently made them public, because there was a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We received all the advice from each party. Each time a party asked us to put someone through a competition, we complied. Elections Canada also had a word in this, because the performance of some returning officers was not up to the normal expectations of Canadians. Ultimately,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I should like to thank the honourable member for his kind words. I'm touched by them, because I know that some of the meetings were not always much of a love-in. As a matter of fact, the thought ran through my mind that I should have left more often. With respect

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This kind of thing could get past the monitoring. Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Let me begin by explaining the reason why I resigned. I have been thinking of leaving my job for the past three or four years. There have been opportunities. As I thought them over, I was told that I could not leave. This time, I seized the opportunity. I did not ask for it, it

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is true.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm also touched by your comments about the fact that I was available to serve people. Sometimes people criticized us for being available on Friday and Sunday evening to do certain things. I learned when I was the CEO of a hospital that one has to be available to serve people at

Procedure and House Affairs committee  On my last appearance, I talked mainly about proof of identity. An address is shown for people on the registry. Now you are saying that that address is not adequate, that we need proof that the person actually lives at that address. It is true that changes could have been made t