MODERATOR: Hello. Welcome to the National Press Theatre.

Our guest this afternoon is Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Chief Electoral Officer of Canada.

Mr. Kingsley has a statement of about three minutes and then we'll go to questions.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Thank you very much. I am pleased to have this opportunity to meet with you this afternoon. We issued a press release on the 7th of December announcing the holding of the forum, which was held with the full support of the United Nations and the Iraqi independent electoral commission. It regrouped effectively the electoral management boards and other experts in the electoral field, especially those who had had experiences in difficult situations such as Afghanistan, the Philippines initially and diplomats from Ottawa principally who expressed an interest in attending.

I think we can say without reservation that it was a real success. There was what I would call consensus, and I would go even further than that and say that there was unanimous consent to organize an international mission on the electoral process in Iraq.

The emphasis will, of course, be on the process in Iraq, but also on the electoral process for a million or so Iraqi electors outside of Iraq, in 14 countries that were predetermined.

A steering committee of seven electoral management boards has been established to overview this process and, of course, I will leave to the questions and answers any other aspects that you wish to discuss, but I will conclude this part by saying that Elections Canada has agreed to establish the Secretariat that is going to go to work on this as soon as I leave this building to pursue all of the subjects that have to be pursued in light of the fact that the election is being held on the 30th of January.

What we're doing, by the way, applies to the three electoral events that are to occur in 2005, that is to say not only the election of January 30 but as well, the referendum in October and the subsequent election in mid-December in accordance with the game plan that exists now.

That's it.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Mr. Kingsley.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Thank you.

MODERATOR: We've only got 20 minutes, so we'll go to questions right away. David Ljunggren, Reuters.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, in the last week or so, you've made clear why in your opinion it's unlikely that a lot of international observers will be in (inaudible) of the January 30th vote. I know that in the release you say that the new IMIE will be based in the Middle East and Iraq. Are you foreseeing that there will be international observers monitoring the vote inside Iraq?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: At this stage, we haven't made a final conclusion with respect to the whole of the three events. The situation will evolve as the security of the country changes and to the extent possible, that is something that would take place.

For this first attempt, the 30th, the first event, the 30th of January, what the committee was discussing over the last two days was which are the bodies that exist now that can help us in forming the assessments that we will be forming and the judgments we will be forming or reaching in terms of the assessments? And there are between 5,000 to 10,000 Iraqi nationals in Iraq who have been trained or will have been trained by January 30th. Some 5,000 at the present time and the body which is forming them, several other bodies that are forming them, are expecting thousands of others to come forward. The minimum of 5,000 and thinking that it's going to be eight and hoping that it's going to be 10.

We would like to establish linkages as a committee, steering committee, with the porte-parole of these people, with their leaders to find out how they're regrouped, to find out what credibility they enjoy in the country and we think it's high based on the reports that we've received, and see how they can tie in to feed information to us as the process evolves. And that would, of course, involve polling day because they will be there during polling day and they will be deployed throughout the country.

To answer your question once again in a different way, that would pre-empt the necessity to have missions from people who are outside of Iraq go into Iraq for what we would call observation. This is why we're not calling this an observation mission. We are calling it an assessment mission.

MODERATOR: David, I'm sorry. I wonder if I might just ... we'll go through a first round and then maybe try and come back. Sorry.

Suzanne Ouellet.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, have you hesitated in light of the current dangers in Iraq, particularly the assassination of even election officers? Did this cause you to hesitate in this decision to send an international observation mission?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, as I've just explained in English, this is not an international observation mission that we're setting up. It's an assessment mission that's being organized. What's unique, in my opinion, in what we're doing is that it's a group of independent electoral bodies, very high-ranking officials from these bodies, who will be assessing a whole range of aspects leading up to the election and influencing the election, even without necessarily having people inside to do what is traditionally perceived as observation on polling day, which is where the emphasis is often placed during campaigns.

I have a dozen or so areas where we will assess the process.

QUESTION: Which are?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I can tell you what they are. The legal background, the legal documents, voter registration, registration of political parties and coalitions – because both can be registered – registration and certification of candidates on the lists. The procedures for dealing with complaints before the election, voter education systems on the process. Equal access to the media. Preparations for the election. Training, for instance, of election officers who will be managing polling stations. Election day itself as well, of course, and the tabulation of results. And lastly, the handling of post-election complaints.

So, we are going to examine all these aspects. These are absolutely essential things that are often neglected when we send observers. Because of our expertise, we know that these things are essential parts of a real election. So, that is where we will make our unique contribution to the process.

MODERATOR: Thank you. We move on to Lina Dib, TVA.

QUESTION: Yes, Mr. Kingsley, I still don't really understand, when you talk about these 12 things you want to verify, how you can, even though it's not to observe, but to assess – how you can assess all these things without having people inside. There will still have to be people inside.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: There will certainly be people who will be inside, but I was asked if we would send large numbers of observers who would travel across the country.

QUESTION: The safety of these people is, I think, the big issue here, the safety of these people whom other countries would be sending to Iraq at this time.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: The small teams that would be deployed to Iraq, is that what you're talking about? Is that what you want me to comment on?

QUESTION: Yes, the issue of their safety.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Clearly, the safety issue will have to be taken into consideration, but these would be small groups that would be sent, thus much easier to protect. And secondly, if these small groups were to be sent, we would, of course, choose the safest locations. The Iraqi Ambassador who spoke with us told us that there were certain parts of the country that were, in fact, considered safe. As safe as and even sometimes a little safer than the situation in Afghanistan during the last election.

So, we'll obviously keep this in mind when making our choices. When we'll want to meet with political party representatives, we'll do so in places considered safer. Also, a security unit will be set up and security units already operational in the country will be used to ensure the safety of the people sent there.

Another thing to remember is that the people who would agree to go and do this type of work would do so voluntarily.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Howard Williams, Agence France-Presse.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, can you tell us why the United States is absent from this list and have you got the permission of the United States to basically do this? I mean, you need their approval.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I don't see how we need the approval of the United States on this and they're absent for the simple reason – I'm sorry, I'll let you come back, okay. They're absent from this list simply because they don't have an electoral management board that is independent, that functions at the national level, which is what this is, a listing of those bodies.

The one exception is the Association of Central and Eastern European Electoral Officials and their secretary general is coming. He regroups effectively 22 electoral management boards that are functioning in central and eastern Europe and he is the person from Hungary who does this, who holds this position.

We also have the Yemeni chair of the electoral council who has agreed in principle to participate and who will convey this recommendation to his council for final approval. But those are the people that are regrouped here. We're not regrouping other people. We're not regrouping other countries, other representatives of countries. We will be seeking to invite several other countries or electoral management boards of international reputation who could not make it to this meeting to ascertain their interest, so we may be adding two, three, four other electoral management boards to this list.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Jim Brown, Canadian Press.

QUESTION: Again, to go back to the question of how many people will be inside and how many outside, you referred to a small group who will be inside the country and most people outside. Can you put some numbers to this, how many people will be inside, how many outside? And isn't the fact that you're not putting more people inside simply a reflection of security? I can't see any other reason why you would ...

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I think that's a reasonable conclusion, you know. How many? When I said that we were establishing a secretariat that's going to go to work, we did not delve in detail over the last two days on this. What we were trying to do over the last two days was establish what is the situation in Iraq at this time and we had thorough briefings, some of which came by teleconference from the Iraqi electoral commission, from other intervenors in the process that are situated in Iraq, the United Nations representative on the Iraqi electoral commission, because there is a UN representative that sits on that very commission, with a right to speak.

So we had briefings from them. We did not get a chance to go into the details of all this. This is why they asked me to set up a secretariat to pursue all of this. But I can tell you what my orientation is going to be. It's going to be based on the logic which you have already exposed to minimize the number of people, reduced to the lowest possible. People who would be situated in Iraq under the present circumstances, change that when the situation changes and be situated elsewhere in the Middle East as a permanent base from which we can modify the numbers in accordance with the security situation as it improves in various places in Iraq with the passage of time, which it is bound to do.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Brian Laghi, Globe and Mail.

QUESTION: Yes, I'm sorry for being a little obtuse about this, but I just want to get a handle on it. I take it what we're talking about here is Canada leading a multinational effort that would essentially evaluate the various mechanisms that are being put in place for the three votes that are coming in Iraq. Is that it in a nutshell?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I will have to modify that somewhat and say that to a certain extent that is true, but there is also the fact that in Canada, we're in a minority government situation and the Chief Electoral Officer has to be cognizant of this, and it is not guaranteed that the Chief Electoral Officer would be leading this effort, that I would be leading this effort throughout the whole of the period. My first priority remains the Canadian elector and I will have to judge that in accordance with the situation, the political situation as it evolves in this country.

QUESTION: Will you monitor the election, the January 30th election from the outside? Like will you be looking at, did you talk with the media organizations, what have you?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: What we're going to be doing is from that Middle Eastern position determining who needs to go into different places in Iraq to meet with political party representatives. We think that's very important. Establish linkages so that they can share information with us on a regular basis. Do the same thing with those national observer groups that I mentioned a little bit earlier. Establish permanent linkages with them. Establish permanent linkages with the Iraqi electoral commission so that we continue to receive information from them, as well as with the UN people who sit on that commission, the principal actors in this.

And as well, monitor the media because we think that's important. The media in Iraq is doing a very good job and we think they'll continue to do that and it will be a good feed for us for information. So that's how we intend to evaluate the various, the 12 or 13 items that I've mentioned to you before.

I want to mention, by the way, the Iraq electoral commission. Not many people know this, its independence is very strong. It's in the text of laws that have been approved. As well, these are eight people who were selected by the United Nations. The United Nations put out an open competition and said who wants to be an Iraqi electoral commissioner? They had almost 2,000 applicants. They filtered through to find the most appropriate people and they were appointed on this commission and the United Nations has also got one member of the United Nations team, the head of the United Nations team who sits with voice but without vote and therefore, he's present whenever a decision is being made or considered by the Iraqi electoral commission.

So I think it's important to realize that the basis that exists there is a very solid one in terms of being launched in the right direction, you know. There are no doubts that have been expressed about that commission, exactly the opposite.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Chris Hall, CBC Radio.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, just quickly, first of all, I take it the bulk of the work you're talking about would be in the run-up to the actual vote on the 30th and from that point afterwards, for the further election campaigns?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Yes, we're trying to do as much as we can within the six weeks that remain, realizing that we won't be able to do as much if we had had six months' preparation.

QUESTION: My main question is I know you're an independent body, but the Prime Minister did indicate interviews and so the President of the United States felt Canada could play a role in this election campaign. Is that what you are doing primarily here? Is that meeting the kind of commitment the Prime Minister made or is that something that's distinct from what you're doing here today?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, I think that there's a meeting of the minds going on here. Elections Canada would not be undertaking this if the Prime Minister of the country said you cannot undertake this. We're an independent body in terms of what we decide in Canada, but how, if we get involved outside of Canada, this has to meet with the approval of the Canadian authorities, okay? But, I should also say, perhaps uselessly, that if the government wants us to do something and we are unable or unwilling to do it, we're not bound to do it either. That's the other side of the equation, because we are independent.

At a moment in time, there has to be a meeting of the minds between that independence and how it's reflected on the international scene.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you. Graham Fraser, Toronto Star.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, do you have a time frame in terms and will you be drawing these volunteers from within Elections Canada or are you opening up this to volunteers who have experience in elections from other provinces or from civil society? Where would they be going if they're not going to Iraq and how will this secretariat be put together?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, in terms of the secretariat, we're going to start with a core number of people from Elections Canada to start the work from home here, you know. Since Internet has been invented, there's a lot that we can do with Internet. We want to get in touch with the security people, for example, over there, sensitize them to that. We want to start identifying places where we could go get initial work done in respect of that. Very basic type of stuff.

Then we will be hiring electoral experts either designating people from our service or from other electoral services from around the world, people who will have contributed this, people who will be identified. And with respect to accepting to go, we may send someone knowing that the person will not be interested in going into Iraq. That's not going to be a condition before they're accepted necessarily because it'll depend on individuals, it'll depend on the positions of countries because we will wish participants to respect the wish of their countries in respect of this. And a number of countries have no problem with their citizens going into Iraq, even for prolonged periods of time.

And I know that for very short periods of time and designated areas, Canada has said that it would look at that as well, okay?

QUESTION: It says to Iraq and the IMIE will be based in the Middle East and Iraq. Are you talking Imman? Where else in the Middle East might the IMIE be based?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: You've come about as close as I can to identifying it without identifying it, so I'm not going to identify it, okay? Thank you.

MODERATOR: Great. I've got three more questions.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, how about that?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I've got more time than that.

MODERATOR: Okay, Brian, all right, fine.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Let people relax. This is the big opportunity here and I'm in full flight.

MODERATOR: We move on to the lady here. Excuse me, I don't know your name.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Miss?

QUESTION: Nathalie Morissette, from La Presse.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Hello.

QUESTION: I want to know, will Canada have a specific role compared to other countries in this mission?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, Canada will be a full-fledged member. In addition, everyone, that is, all the participating organizations, agreed that Canada should establish the initial secretariat, that it should do the initial work and then, of course, that it should begin establishing the offices that will be set up in cities in the Middle East and possibly Iraq.

And then, I was asked to give all of this some direction until a future event where I could revisit the subject on the basis of the situation in Canada and the parliamentary situation in Canada, because I have to take them into account. Charity begins at home.

MODERATOR: Carolyn Dunn, CBC Television.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, can you talk a little bit about your security concerns, about sending teams or observers into Iraq, expand on that a little bit, and also explain how this ranks in effectiveness compared to what you would, sort of your ideal situation would be and going in to help with the elections in Iraq?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: This is much closer to my ideal situation than the model that traditionally prevails around the world, which is why I'm so proud and so pleased with the results. We will be looking at the things where a difference can really be made, the 12 or 13 items I listed. And even though there is value to electoral observation in the visual sense of visiting polls and so on and so forth, it's been demonstrated in some instances. I've always said if I had my druthers, I'd rather be doing this type of thing than doing the observation itself on polling day. This is where you delve into the very woof and fabric of what an election system is all about. This is where someone who knows elections, runs elections, wants to dig deep. It's here, okay?

But we'll never get away from the fact that people attribute importance to sending in people to do observation of a specific polling station where you go in for 20 minutes and you look at the process and you come to a conclusion on that and then you walk out and go and do another poll, which is the traditional way of doing electoral observation on polling day. My preference is this.

With respect to security concerns, I think I've expressed we will be exceedingly careful. We will not wish to expose any member of the team to anything which is considered a relatively risky enterprise. And where it will occur we will provide the necessary security for those team members who will go. And the members who will go will either be the senior support staff that we will wish to hire because we will wish to do that. We will wish that these people maintain the linkages because the electoral management boards that we're talking about will not be spending their time fully for the full year there. They will be flying in and flying out and we want them to do things which are their specialty, get reports that delve into and then pass judgment on those.

But there will also be need for some of those members in small teams to go into several cities and meet with political party representatives, meet with the local observers who are doing work pre-electoral. And we will be concerned about the security, there's no doubt about that.

MODERATOR: Doug Struck, Washington Post.

QUESTION: Thank you. Was there an American attendee at your meetings today, and if not, why not and how do you expect to coordinate with the U.S. forces that are in effect going to be providing what security there is there?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: With respect to relating to U.S. forces, we covered that off by establishing and getting a presentation from the American military during our two days and there is no doubt that to the extent that it is required, there would be the full co-operation. With respect to attendees at the session, there must have been three or four Americans in attendance at these sessions. I had mainly several representatives from IFES, the International Foundation on Electoral Systems, which is based in Washington, and one or two representatives of U.S. Foreign Service.

QUESTION: From the U.S. government?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Foreign Service of the U.S. government, yes.

MODERATOR: Okay, that's the end of the first round. We still have some time for another round of questions.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Oh, yes. Let's do the second round because I'm not going to give one more interview on this topic, what goes in the box. That's it. I'm exhausted. I want to go to bed. Well, relatively soon.

MODERATOR: Okay, excellent. I just wonder, if I might, I'm also covering this, to ask a quick question here myself.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Oh, I see!

MODERATOR: I just want to make sure I understand from a previous question that it's not clear yet if the Prime Minister will go along with this. There is a chance, I believe, that he said today that he might not send Canadians, allow Canadians to attend the elections in any way. So you're still going to obviously conjunct or work with the PMO on this?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, I haven't heard that and I'm going on the basis of my understanding of the situation as I went into the meetings.

MODERATOR: All right.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: So I would have to read and understand anything that he has said before I would say that there's any kind of contradiction. I'm not expecting that there is any. Okay? Let's keep in mind we're not thinking of sending Canadians into Iraq.

MODERATOR: Right.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I've been very careful about my choice of words here, okay?

MODERATOR: All right then, the second round begins with Lina Dib.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, given all your constraints, time first of all, then the issue of security, the scarcity of places in Iraq that you can really go to, you say you will send people to certain places where it's rather safe. To what extent will you be able to, on January 31, give a fair assessment of what happened on the 30th, to determine whether these elections were fair and meaningful?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I think it's important to realize that with the picture I've painted during this presentation – I've talked about the independence of the Iraqi electoral body, the presence of the United Nations as an administrator – the judgment that will be made will be based on our assessment of the 12 or 13 areas I listed earlier. And then, of course, on the opinions that will have been expressed in the media by the media and by national observers, who will certainly be contacted by journalists there on polling day, if I know you well.

So, it'll be based on that, but I think that it's important to realize that the main goal will not be to declare a final verdict on the process. To the extent possible, we will be able to say that, in our opinion, the system worked well in such and such areas and that, in our opinion, there are improvements that could be made here and there.

I'll stop there. I don't know if you have other questions. I'll try to answer as best I can.

QUESTION: Yes, you talked about the security you will have. That'll inevitably be ensured by the Americans who are there, by American soldiers. Given the ... it won't? Do you have other options apart from American soldiers to provide security to your people in Iraq?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Yes.

QUESTION: What are they?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Yes, we intend to use the services of firms that specialize in security services because they can do it in a way that's closer to individuals, while the American forces could deploy only in groups of 12 or 20, I think, and provide more of a secure perimeter around the groups.

QUESTION: Hire personal bodyguards?

MODERATOR: I'm sorry, hang on. Very quickly.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I will answer yes to that and that's it for that question. I cannot (inaudible). I'm sorry.

MODERATOR: No, we're fine.

QUESTION: What are you referring to? Bodyguards?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Security services are provided to everyone coming to Iraq from outside, a type of bodyguard in safe places.

MODERATOR: Okay, Suzanne Ouellet, Radio-Canada.

QUESTION: But nevertheless, since you said that you had a presentation from the American army and that you had obtained the army's co-operation if it was necessary, it is the American army that will nonetheless do the protecting.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I mentioned their role, yes, and I also just mentioned security services available on a commercial basis as another service to which we would refer and which we would use.

QUESTION: Okay. My question ...

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: It would be a combination of the two.

QUESTION: My question pertains to national observers. You say between 5,000 and 10,000 people. What exactly do you expect from them?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, I expect that they will do the preparatory work, that is to say, check how the registration went, what complaints there are regarding the registration, what solutions the electoral commission has for these complaints, check if there is a follow-up or not, and if not, let us know, provided we can establish some links.

And if they let us know about the problems, we can bring them to the commission's attention. The commission will tell us why it can or cannot handle the problem.

And that's where I find that this is a model, this type of assessment, that is more useful for an electoral process; we wish to establish links with people because we're trying to resolve problems, rather than simply going there and making proclamations ex cathedra.

MODERATOR: Brian Laghi, Globe and Mail.

QUESTION: That was kind of my question, but you'll be evaluating in the run-up to the vote, I take it. Will you make recommendations to rectify potential problems before the vote takes place or do you issue a report after the vote takes place, that sort of articulates the various problems?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: We will intervene in the sense of letting the commission know that a particular problem has come to our attention of this ilk and the commission will then, in my view, feel obligated to come back and say I appreciate this and here's what we're doing about this, or here is what the real situation is and that's why we're not going to be able to do anything about it.

And that, I'm glad you're raising the question. We're not going to wait until the end of the process and say we found out that this was going on two weeks before. We never told you about it, but you lost 10 points right there. That's now what we're going to do. If they can do something about this when it's brought to their attention, this falls more into line with an assessment mission as you proceed with all of these things.

QUESTION: The term "watchdog," is that a fair comment?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Oh, the term "watchdog" means too many things in Canada. I'm not going to answer that one, okay.

MODERATOR: Chris Hall.

QUESTION: Mr. Kingsley, just quickly, how many Canadians do you expect ultimately would be involved in this process, particularly from Elections Canada? And do you have a budget or a cost idea in mind yet of what it will cost Canadians for this?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, we're establishing a budget right now. I've heard mentioned, you know, 500,000, 700,000, maybe a bit more money for what I've described so far. How many Canadians, it's hard to say at this time because I'm interested in bringing in the expertise from Indonesia, the expertise from Mexico, perhaps some from Panama, some from the Eastern European countries. The Yemeni may have people because they've got an independent commission that could also be seconded to this, to this team. I'm going to try to make this as multi-country as possible, as multi-country as the composition of the steering committee itself and get their participation at that level as well.

So long as we get the right skills mix in order to be able to delve into these things into the kind of knowledgeable detail that I'm interested in, that we're interested in, then we'll take the person that comes along from any country in that respect, but favouring those countries that are participating from the electoral management boards that are members of this.

MODERATOR: Carolyn Dunn, CBC.

QUESTION: Sorry for asking you to repeat this in English, but can you talk about the size of the overall core in English and also the security measures which will be taken to protect whatever teams will be going into (inaudible)?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Do you mean the overall core of Canadians or the overall core?

QUESTION: Both, if you can.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Okay, well, in terms of numbers, we're going to go with a minimal number. We may be thinking in terms of, you know, a core of 6, 7, 12 people to do the professional work that needs to be done in terms of linkages, being situated in the Middle East and Iraq, okay. Iraq is in the Middle East. And I don't know what proportion of that will be Canadians. We will want to make a contribution, of course, with expertise, but I'm also expecting other electoral management boards to do that and they've agreed that they would do that. And so part of the work that we're going to start doing tomorrow morning is identifying whom have they got available, what is the skill set, how do we match that in order to be able to go after this? Who's best to get the legal framework behind us? Who's best on registration of voters and political parties? Who can delve into these things and come out with a real meat that an electoral expert knows how to get into?

In terms of security measures, I'll risk to repeat myself if I said it in English, but I'll repeat it because I may not have. We're going to take the necessary measures, both with commercial security firms, private security firms when the risk requires that and we will also notify members of the multinational force and to the extent that they can whenever the risk warrants it, they will make people available to us.

MODERATOR: Doug Struck, Washington Post.

QUESTION: Did your group come up with any sort of a general feeling or general consensus about whether or not it is likely that this election can be held in any sort of a reasonably free and effective way, given the security problems?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Certainly based on the testimony that we got from Dr. al-Hindawi, who is the chair of the Iraqi electoral commission, his progress report clearly indicated that the 30th of January remains polling day for the election in Iraq and he was quite clear about that and I don't think that there was skepticism in the room based on all the facets that he has covered so far, realizing that it's a tight calendar but you know, when you're talking to electoral administrators and you're talking about a tight calendar, that's what we live with every election.

QUESTION: If I might just follow up on that, the 30th is on as a date but how many people do experts such as yourself expect to really come to the poll, given the threat to their safety?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: I suppose that that'll depend on the nature, the immediacy of that threat on polling day as it is perceived. I think it's important to remember that they've dispersed the polling places and I was impressed with the numbers. I think it's over 30,000 polling places and for the number of electors, this meant that there's not going to be a lot of waiting time in those polls and people will feel more secure. I'm able to go in and out, you know. The numbers matched Canada favourably in terms of numbers at the polls and processing.

And I think most Canadians live a reasonable experience at the polls. It takes you between 15, 20 minutes and you're done. If that's the kind of logic, maybe you know, they will be able to get a large attendance. There may be pockets where this will not be possible but the dispersal of the polls was certainly a very impressive idea with me and how they structured it to lower the number of people that will be attending the polls.

MODERATOR: Back to Brian Laghi, from Globe and Mail.

QUESTION: Mr. al-Hindawi was there today, I think. The chair of the Iraqi commission, Mr. al-Hindawi was in the room today, was he?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: No, no, he was there yesterday by teleconference, yes. We were beamed in by teleconference from Baghdad because of the fact that he cannot be absent. It's like when an election is on in Canada, I don't leave the country. You can't afford that. I don't even leave the city.

QUESTION: This plan was accessible to him?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: He welcomed this very idea. I would have to say he warmed to it. Over time, he sees the advantages and I think he's going to be doubly pleased with the kind of mandate that we are establishing for ourselves and we're going to ask him to review that mandate and tell us if there are things he would like to add or modify because we want to take that into account. But he understands what it is we are striving to achieve here and I was very pleased that he welcomed that quite openly.

MODERATOR: The last question to Lina Dib.

QUESTION: I apologize for taking up your time, Mr. Kingsley, but if I understand correctly, you told my colleague earlier that you were talking about, what, six, seven or a dozen people doing this work? I'm looking at the mission Canada is sending, Canada alone is sending 400 observers to the Ukraine. This is not a country with an occupying force. This is not a country where bombs are exploding right now. And yet there are 400 of them, and that's just the Canadians. So, I don't really understand how this is going to work with a dozen or so people in the situation that Iraq is in right now.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: It's because it's necessary to, there's a fundamental difference that has to be understood and which I tried to elaborate on earlier. We're going to look at the aspects we can examine without deploying a large number of personnel to the country in question or even outside. This is intelligence work that will be done through contacts that are established. Of course, these people work 8, 10, 12 hours a day. When personnel is deployed in an observation mission, it's a more massive operation and it requires a tremendous amount of energy. That's why we can talk about 300, 400, 500 people going to do the observing. These people have to go from one polling station to another, spend 20 minutes at each one, then 10, 15, 20 minutes in transit to the next polling station. At the end of the day, they will have visited 15 polling stations each, and they go there in groups.

That takes a tremendous amount of resources. The logistics involved – one day I will ask about this logistical effort that Elections Canada had nothing to do with. I'm going to have to understand how this could have been organized because it fascinates me. But it's clear that it required a lot more resources than what we need and I repeat the word "intelligence." I think we are doing this with intelligence to get a whole new approach that's just as valid, if not more so, than the visual approach, which is what is done when polling stations are observed.

QUESTION: Aren't you afraid (inaudible) of what will happen on January 30th given that there's Canada's seal of approval, a mission that is evaluating even at a distance and that serves as a guarantee for elections taking place in an occupied country?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Canada's approval will not be given alone; if approval is given, it is to be expected that it will not be a verdict such as entirely in favour or entirely against. This will obviously be an assessment qualified on the basis of things that were successful and on the basis of things that have been less successful.

MODERATOR: And can we just go over to a quick question, Brian Laghi?

QUESTION: It's related but it's on the Ukraine. I just wanted to ask you, Mr. Kingsley, a CIDA-sponsored group is sending 500 Canadians overseas and the Ukrainian Canadian Commissioner is sending another 500. That's a lot of people and I'm wondering if they can be trained adequately in such a short period of time, a). And b), do you have any concerns about the potential neutrality of the UCC group given that they're not sponsored by the Canadian government?

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Well, with the latter question, I don't know who's been chosen, so I cannot comment on that. I have no idea of the individuals who compose those 500. At a moment in time, I even heard 1,000 persons. And so I cannot comment on that.

With respect to the other 500, I know specifically that they're undergoing and have undergone very serious training. One of my people was presenting this afternoon or this morning to that very group about what neutrality means, what it is that people are looking for when they're doing international observations, the visual stuff.

So with respect to those, you know, they will have received the necessary training to make the right decisions and concerns the very basic factors of what you do in a polling station, okay?

MODERATOR: Thank you very much to all, to Mr. Kingsley.

JEAN-PIERRE KINGSLEY: Thank you for your patience. You've been very kind. See you later. Perhaps at the next general election.