Please, yes.
Evidence of meeting #12 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was list.
Evidence of meeting #12 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was list.
12:30 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
There's a need for an audit at the candidate level in order to ensure that candidates benefit from professional advice. The system has always required that a professional auditor be responsible for the contents, and there are legal repercussions on both sides.
What my office does is verify that we received all the documentation that goes with those statements. That's what my people do when we receive them. It's when there are things that are lacking in the process—this is what the commissioner was alluding to earlier—for example, when a bank account was not opened, and so on, the auditor does not attest to that. He attests to the keeping of the books. When we get it, we make sure the law was complied with. If it wasn't, we refer the case to the commissioner.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Frankly, it's been suggested by almost everyone who's been before the committee about putting advertisement up, regarding the offences for fraudulent voting at polling stations, much like we do in airports, at the customs there.... Is there a brief comment from the panel on putting advertisements up?
12:35 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
We already put up advertising in every poll that says, “To vote, you must be a Canadian and you must be 18 years of age”.
Perhaps what we could do is add, “Severe penalties apply if this is not followed”, or something to that effect. I'll look into that immediately.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Frankly, Mr. Chairman, we've not considered this. The matter has been brought up before, but it always dies. If the committee wishes to look into it in more detail, we'll be willing to look at it with the committee.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Thank you very much.
I refer to recommendation 4.2, “Reports of Volunteer Labour”. The committee has questions as to the purpose of this. The concern is that it might decrease the number of volunteers we have, since some of them might not want their names presented to the Chief Electoral Officer.
12:35 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
The first point is that one would have to identify a threshold beneath which volunteer labour would not have to be reported. This could be something like 40 hours a week. If someone were working less than 40 hours a week as a volunteer, there would be no report. If someone were working more than 40 hours a week as a volunteer, then there would be a report. Forty hours a week is a lot of time. There are a lot who wouldn't be there.
The purpose behind this is Gomery. If we'd had reports on volunteer labour and they had been accurate, people would have had--
12:35 p.m.
An hon. member
[Inaudible--Editor]
12:35 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Well, that's the purpose. I run Elections Canada, and that's my purpose in recommending it. If you look at the date in September, it was just before the report, but we'd listened to the testimony. The purpose would allow that if someone was in effect providing volunteer labour that was not volunteer labour, it would be subject to public scrutiny. It's as clear as that.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Okay, thank you.
On recommendation 4.1, “Examination and Inquiry Powers for the Chief Electoral Officer”, would you have a comment on the purpose of that--any action related to such an audit?
12:35 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
The point here is that when it comes time to audit a candidate's return and you are a candidate, you know that you have to provide pieces of substantiating claims, vouchers, for your expenditures to vouch for what you have spent.
I get no such documents from parties. From parties I only get headings and numbers. I have no idea. There is no way to do any kind of review. This section would require that this be provided, and where it was not provided I could seek it out. But there would be protection for individuals, because only through a court order would that be permissible when it touched an individual. But if it touched a bank, for example, then the authority would be granted to the Chief Electoral Officer before prosecution, before an investigation, to look at the books.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Moving further up now, recommendations 2.20, 2.19, and 2.18 have to do with the elections list. For example, 2.20 is on sharing elector data with provincial electoral authorities for updating purposes.
Could you comment on that, please?
12:35 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Sometimes data on people are provided to us from various sources, and these data are not incorporated in the register of electors. We share our lists with provincial authorities more than we receive the provincial lists, because there are very few provincial lists in this country that are permanent. So if we share our lists, that will allow them to have better lists, and we're all striving to achieve better lists of electors. Simply put, that is the purpose.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
I suspect that same explanation overflows to recommendations 2.18 and 2.19. They just deal with updating lists during elections on the basis of information from the national register of electors and provincial use of data from the national register. These are really dealing with a bilateral agreement to upgrade the accuracy.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
On recommendation 2.12, “Distribution of Lists of Electors to Registered and Eligible Parties”, we wanted to know the rationale behind that with respect to the Figueroa case. Do you have any comments on that?
12:40 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Parties that field fewer than 308 candidates and parties that field fewer than 50 candidates in the last election were only entitled to receive lists for those ridings where they fielded candidates in the last election. They're not entitled to receive lists for where they want to field candidates at the next election.
The Green Party brought this to our attention and a few others. They intend to broaden their scope, but the statute prevents me from facilitating their task, which puts them at a disadvantage to those parties represented around this table that field 308 candidates. So it's a matter of equity. They would still be bound, in the use of the lists, to what is legal purpose.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
That's excellent. Thank you.
I think the last one we can get through today is recommendation 1.8, “The Right of Elections Canada Staff to Strike”. The comment brought up was, why would that not be restricted to an actual election campaign versus just removing the right to strike?
Any comment on that?
12:40 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Sir, this is the kind of recommendation that usually doesn't receive much favourable consideration until there is a strike outside an election period, and the election is jeopardized, and people say why didn't we think of that.
It's not with glee that I make this recommendation, because I've always favoured the right to strike of public service employees, and they would lose none of their rights under their collective agreements. The point is that everything is now so computerized you're working six months or one year ahead of time, and if the people who are setting up these systems walk out on a legal strike for three or six months--
12:40 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Yes, but the point is that the election may be jeopardized in terms of its effectiveness, and that is the reason for the recommendation.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Thank you.
I have one more point.
Mr. Guimond, please go ahead.
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Don't forget, Mr. Chairman, that we had suggested that there should be a dispute resolution mechanism similar to the mandatory arbitration which comes into play for firemen or the police.
12:40 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Don't forget that collective agreements which apply to Elections Canada employees are the same ones which apply to the entire public service, since my employees are public servants. There's no collective agreement between my employees and myself.
These collective agreements therefore apply to the public service. What I am proposing is that my employees not be allowed to go on strike, as opposed to their colleagues from other departments, who manage computers, for instance. Their right to strike would not be affected. It would only affect Elections Canada employees.
Everything would therefore be based on their rights contained in a collective agreement signed with the Treasury Board Secretariat. These collective agreements cover my employees.
