Procedure and House Affairs committee  —and they don't have staff afterwards. Really, the burden on them was what inspired us to seek that this only be done centrally.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If it didn't, the law will definitely ask us to do it. I can assure you of that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My understanding is that there was a discussion before we attended, about adding an additional amendment bringing back the requirement of the returning officers to provide, upon request, bingo sheets in their paper form after the election. Just going back, in terms of our general recommendation, what existed in the past was that on polling day, every hour, the bingo sheets were given out to representatives.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Unfortunately, I don't know off the top of my head what they are.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Because the commissioner of Canada Elections is a separate body and is independent, it would deal with the evidence and have rules, as Jean-François mentioned, with respect to how long it has to retain documents. All public bodies have agreements with Library and Archives Canada for that sort of thing.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I just want to get back to Mr. Nater's question. There are I guess formal separations in terms of the different roles. The discretion to institute prosecutions and to conduct investigations is with the commissioner as an office as opposed to with the Chief Electoral Officer. There are also new formal requirements respecting independence in proposed section 509.21 of the bill.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I could be under investigation as well as Mr. Morin, maybe.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It does not exist in the act. I guess the consequence—I haven't studied this too closely—would probably be that then they cease to have obligations under the act. One unintended consequence of this might be that they couldn't be found guilty of the offences that we....

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it would cover a lot of the stuff.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think our concern wasn't really the attempt that's dealt with in Lib-41. Our concern was with respect to the intention of the person who is affecting the election.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. The current provision in Bill C-76 talks about intending to affect the results of the election.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We felt that was too narrow, because it could be a leadership or a nomination contestant, not just an election.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We also feel that it might just not be to affect the results of the election, but also to bring the process into disrepute or generally cause mischief. They don't care who wins, just as long as—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. That wouldn't be our intent.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I've been at Elections Canada since 2002. I'm not aware of its being used, certainly in the time I've been there. I don't recall of any cases being noted.