What you have before you, Mr. Murphy, is a summary. In the full report, which is available on the Internet, and a copy of which was also sent to the Department of Justice, obvious solutions are proposed at the provincial level. We also ask the provincial government to take steps, to improve its elections act, to provide, for example, that membership in the health system be used so that it can be determined who, among health system beneficiaries, are Francophone, Anglophone or bilingual.
The suggestions submitted in the summary that you have are intended for Parliament, that is to say they concern the federal statutes that may be of some use in this regard. So there's the federal Elections Act, which also refers to the Income Tax Act. When a Canadian taxpayer completes his tax return, he answers the question whether he agrees to share certain information contained in his return with the Chief Electoral Officer. For example, you have to check a box to indicate whether you want to receive your correspondence in English or French. That's one way to achieve our ends. So the Elections Act, combined with taxpayers' annual tax returns, could help.
The second suggestion we've made concerns the Statistics Act. There's a census every five years, if I'm not mistaken. At the time of the census, certain information is gathered. On pages 8 and 9, we cite certain examples in which the Statistics Act permits the communication of information. Often there's a debate as to whether or not the information will be transmitted. The Statistics Act already contains exceptions in this regard, and what we're asking is that there also be an exception to make it possible to identify bilingual citizens and those who are strictly Anglophone or Francophone.