Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I said, on an audit, unless there is a foreign address on the contribution, it's difficult to say on the face of it that it comes from a foreign source.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. It's true of many issues around the Canada Elections Act, but I don't disagree with you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are a number of elements. If you go back in time, you're under the current rules, not the bill.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll show you how the rules improve the catching of that type of transaction. Currently, a third party cannot seek funding from a foreign source for the purpose of third party regulated activities. Under the bill, they cannot use foreign funds for the purpose of their activitie

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. That would be doing an investigation. We would do an audit. We'd look at their contributions and they would say this is general revenue.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If there was suspicion that this is really money directed by a foreign entity, the commissioner could investigate that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was strictly a consultation between PCO officials and my officials, and specifically, Madam Lawson here.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It would be pure speculation on my part to go there. All I know is—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't know how to respond to that. It's not for me to answer that question.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the question, because I think there has been some misunderstanding with respect to my remarks in that area. When the bill was introduced, we began planning for implementation work, so that was very recent. We expect that we will do some preparation over the course

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think that's the word that I used the last time I was here. There sometimes is work that is done in terms of our resources with our own team, that kind of preparatory work. That's not unusual. If we need to contract, for example, to work on IT systems, that is more unusual.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll start with the second point and come back to the first one. I have made a recommendation. I do believe it would be preferable to have a clear anti-avoidance clause to deal with situations where an entity deliberately reaches out...or is offered money from a foreign source

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You do get the full list.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Correct, except administratively, this election will continue to operate—for the regular polls—in the same old way, by polling division, because we're not going to be able to go to the new voting model at the next general election for the regular polls.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Correct.