Senator Woo: Thank you, Senator Dasko. No, I would not because if making an amendment to the current provision on the Canada Elections Act is already an excess of enthusiasm, I would say that removing that clause altogether would be even more so.

Senator Woo: If you’re referring to a delay of the vote on the BIA, I think the answer is unequivocally no, for all of the reasons you’ve heard from my colleagues, including Senator Shugart. However, if you’re talking about a delay in the sense of coming up with an alternative approach to deal with the substantive question of privacy in the Canada Elections Act, yes, I agree with that. I don’t know what that approach would be. Someone has talked about a motion, a study or a bill. There could be different options. That I would be in support of.

Senator C. Deacon: Would Senator Woo take a question?

Senator Woo: Yes, I did. Your question is about the substance of privacy considerations in the Canada Elections Act. The proper way to deal with that as the Senate, as we are reputed to do, is to study that issue in isolation and in its entirety rather than to tack on an amendment to an omnibus bill at the last minute.

I would suggest, Senator Deacon, that whatever favour we may gain with the 96% of Canadians who are pushing for changes, we would lose with an equally large percentage of Canadians who see us as not being principled in our approach to this question.

[Translation]

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Woo, I think I may have missed a little bit here getting the translation, but I believe the exchange you were having with Senator Dasko was about how this issue of removing the Canada Elections Act — or that it’s not an appropriate place to have this provision in a budget implementation act — and I believe there was some discussion to indicate that this hasn’t been discussed in the chamber prior to today.

I just wanted to bring to your attention, Senator Woo, in case you didn’t realize that, actually, is not correct. Senator Loffreda mentioned it in passing in his second reading speech about how the Legal Committee presented a report from our chair, Senator Cotter, which referenced this and Criminal Code amendments that were included in the budget implementation act. We made observations indicating it was not appropriate.

Then, after Senator Loffreda made that remark, I brought that to his attention to say specifically that these Criminal Code provisions and the Canada Elections Act should not be in here.

Do you recognize that perhaps you missed that because this has been a matter that we have raised in debate in this chamber?