Senator Cuzner: Minister, it is good to see you. Congratulations on your appointment as finance minister. I want to commend you. The aspects of Part 4 are really not in your straight-line responsibilities of the Elections Act and the Privacy Act, but I think your representations here this evening are much appreciated.

Could you expand a bit on why you think it’s important that these amendments received unanimous support in the other place? With regard to some of the concerns that have been shared, which are absolutely legitimate, we’re closer to the beginning of this Parliament than to the end, obviously. There is nothing in this bill that would preclude the government from moving to address some of the issues that have been raised so far this evening.

Mr. Champagne: Thank you, senator. It’s good to see you in the Senate and to answer your questions.

Your question is a very important one. It goes to the member. I want to be very forthcoming. There is an urgency for us to clarify what the uniform standard is across the country to avoid a patchwork of policies. I’m very sensitive to the questions asked and comments made by other senators.

One thing I hear a lot about as well is organizations, and here I’m not even referring to federal political parties, just organizations. As you know, senator, I’ve been wanting a federal standard, because when you have 10 provinces and you have to deal with that, the patchwork does not help us to achieve a common denominator or standard.

In this bill, senator, I won’t say there are improvements. I hear senators who say that one could have decided to go farther, but there is already improvement to where we are today. That is because the act will require that you publish the privacy policy, how you will deal with the information and what information you will collect. You have monetary penalties for the political parties. As I said, that could even lead to a deregistration. That’s a fairly strong remedy for people who would not address privacy concerns in line with their privacy policy. So we’re moving a step forward.

Now what I am hearing from the honourable senator is that in the future Parliament might decide to go farther. Perhaps, but what I’m saying to the honourable senator today is that it’s a step forward. It reflects the intent, because we need to clarify what the intent was because we need to provide guidance to the courts. As a lawyer, I would like nothing better than to have the House clearly saying that the intent back in 2000 was that this was a national regime that would be governed under the Canada Elections Act. With this act, we will provide the clarity to the court so that we can have one uniform national standard.