Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 14th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Godin, and then Mr. Proulx.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Why has this not been dealt with? In fact, he could be there for 30 years, but I am not sure a ten year term would be enough since we are talking about the Chief Electoral Officer and not an ethics commissioner who deals with events more on a day-to-day basis. There could be five years without an election and then a second one could take place at the end of the ten-year term. We would not want the Chief Electoral Officer to leave his position in the middle of an election, for example.

If we were to choose a fixed term, there could be a conflict with election dates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Proulx.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Out of curiosity, how long has Mr. Kingsley been there? And how many years are left to his mandate?

[James Robertson]

My recollection is that he was appointed by the Mulroney government in the late 1980s, I believe, and I believe he has a few more years before he reaches mandatory retirement.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I was told he's retiring in January 2008.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Chair, I knew on a personal basis the previous Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Hamel. I wasn't running then, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hamel was in the position for probably 15 years at the most. He came from the Quebec elections system. Mr. Kingsley would have been there roughly about 15 years, or 16 or 17 years. I'm not so sure that we do have to put a term on the mandate, in the sense that the government, I don't think, would appoint someone in his early thirties or mid-thirties for such an important mandate, for such an important responsibility.

If we were to put a term of 10 or 12 years, it might keep excellent candidates away from that particular job, because if you were to retire at age 57 or 58, or even 60, it might not necessarily be easy for somebody to reposition themselves on the market. Because we have to realize that this particular person, while in this mandate, is pretty much neutralized--if I can call it that--to just about anything public.

We wouldn't ask of a judge to be appointed for 12 years or 15 years. I'm not sure that we want to limit the term of Elections Canada's director general.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mrs. Redman.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was going to make a couple of observations. I think this is obviously a fairly significant departure from what has gone before and it sounds like Mr. Kingsley has a few years left in the role. I would tell you that I think the nature of elections has really shifted. I know somebody else was talking about maybe having them every two years. Over a course of 15 years, if we went every 4 or 5 years, you'd have a lot fewer elections. This is a mammoth task, and my sense is that the rhythm of how we come upon elections in Canada may well have changed and we may not revert back to, notwithstanding what the government would like to see, every four years. The Governor General could still call an election on the advice of the Prime Minister, so I don't think that brings any more assuredness to the process.

This is a huge departure, and I think Mr. Proulx has brought up a very good point. These are excellent people who require top-notch skill sets to do this. I know that my DROs have done international travel, and it's not just what they do domestically; it's what they do internationally.

So I almost think that it's an interesting concept, but I wouldn't want to jump to this in a void and just decide that we're going to pick 10 or 12 years because it might look like the right thing to do. I think I'd rather have a more informed debate at another time about this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's a very good point.

Mr. Reid, a final comment.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I think I agree with what Marcel was saying for two reasons.

One is that the Chief Electoral Officer does serve, to some degree, a judicial role. The commissioner of elections makes the final decisions. But if we actually look at how the act is written, the Chief Electoral Officer appoints the commissioner and has a large say as to what gets presented to the commissioner. So he is playing a kind of judicial role. We appoint judges to retirement--not to age 65 but to age 75--but the thing is that the point of choosing that date for them is that they don't have to worry about their future employment. They go on to pension. In the days when we didn't have pensions, you appointed them for life. So they stopped being in that role when they dropped dead, and the point was that no one had to worry about buttering up somebody to take care of their future income. So I think there's an advantage to that. That was the first thing.

The second thing is that if we choose a term of, let's say, 10 years, for the sake of argument, I think there would be a natural reluctance to choose somebody who is older for that role. But the fact is, if you think about it, the best people to choose for a role like this are people who have served in a distinguished capacity as a provincial chief returning officer, and they might very well be 60 years old. I would hate to see us put ourselves in the position where we find future parliamentarians reluctant to look at a 60-year-old person who has performed well as the chief electoral officer of, say, Quebec, or Ontario, or British Columbia, as the case might be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is the mood of the committee, then, to just leave this status quo? Okay. Then that's how we'll do it.

I'm inclined to make everybody stay until we finish chapter 1 before we get up for dinner. But they need a few more minutes to set up, so we'll move to recommendation 1.6. We'll deal with this; then we will take a break to get our food.

Recommendation 1.6 is the removal of the office of the assistant chief electoral officer.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Does anybody disagree?

Are there any comments?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Yes. Is this the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

It is.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I'll start by asking a question. What is Diane Davidson's official title?

[James Robertson]

She is the assistant chief electoral officer. She has been appointed by Mr. Kingsley to that position.

I'm sorry; she is the deputy chief electoral officer. The office of assistant chief electoral officer is currently not filled. It has not been filled for a number of years. It is filled by the Governor in Council.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

My understanding of this is that Mr. Kingsley would like Mrs. Davidson to become his replacement and has created this post, which doesn't actually exist. He's made it very difficult for anyone to enter into the role of assistant chief returning officer by essentially assigning them no duties. This has been a problem for a number of years.

I don't think we should formalize his attempt to take over this role, which is not his role.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Can we force him to fill it, though?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

The Prime Minister fills it, doesn't he?

[Voices]

Yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

And I can tell you, that's not just a problem for this government; the previous government had similar concerns.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Guimond.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

I have a comment. I do not want to take anything away from Ms. Davidson and I know her abilities. We have known her for several years and we know she is a very credible and competent lady. But I would pick up on what my colleague, Mr. Scott, said. Even if Mr. Kingsley believes she will succeed him--he may as well dream in technicolor and believe he will win 10 million dollars in the lottery--it is the House of Commons that will decide who his replacement will be. Mr. Kingsley and Ms. Davidson are listening and I do not want to minimize Ms. Davidson's abilities. On the contrary, she is extremely competent.