Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 14th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's my understanding.

Mr. Proulx.

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

I object to this, and I'll explain why. In the national capital region, we have a problem with the government hiring people on a temporary basis. If you hire somebody for 90 days, it's really for a particular short-time job--you need an expert; you need somebody to fill in the void. When you are hiring for 175 days, that is close to six months, which is very similar to what departments are doing. This keeps them from having to give permanency to these employees. So they keep somebody in there six months, then kick them out, and two weeks later they hire somebody else. It's good internal administration, but it's pretty bad for employees. I'm more scared of this than removing the right to strike, if I look at it on the employee's side. I'm against this.

People he would hire for six months would not have the same type of responsibility or job as those you would hire for 90 days.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Godin.

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

In view of what Mr. Proulx just said, I think we need more information. He talks here about preparing an election. There is no suggestion he would be doing this for four years.

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

They are always preparing...

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm sorry, Mr. Proulx, could you please lean forward? It was inaudible.

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

My comment to Mr. Godin is that he can tell us that he's forever in preparation of an election. Whatever he does is in preparation for the next election. So he can use this to his advantage and to the disadvantage of employees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I appreciate your comment, but when an election is called, it seems there would be an increase in the number of employees he would need. Hence, the temporary nature of the request. It's just a thought.

Mr. Guimond.

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

The answer lies in the last sentence. It should say the same thing in English. It reads:

The Chief Electoral Officer proposes an amendment to section 20 of the Canada Elections Act by dividing it into two parts: one part for those temporary employees directly involved in the preparation for and the conduct of elections [...]

So it would be those who are involved in the intensive preparation for elections. So we are really talking about the preparation.

I do not fully agree with Mr. Proulx when he says that elections are being prepared--he forgets minority governments--over four years. Of course he does some work, but it is mainly during the fourth year of a Parliament that he starts to ask his returning officers to do an inventory of locals. The second part of section 20 would apply to other temporary employees he would need to carry out his duties.

You may ask for additional information but we, in the Bloc Québécois, support the proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Hill and then Ms. Brown.

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

I don't know what additional information we would need than the two pages here explaining, as I read through it, all possible questions, including the ones being addressed by Mr. Proulx. There's adequate defence of the recommendation. Without my reading it into the record, it's been circulated to us.

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

It has been. This is Mr. Kingsley's report on the 2004 election, which I just borrowed. To be honest, I hadn't read it until I borrowed his a second ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I want to see how many folks are in favour of this, as we now speak. At this stage of the game, how many people are in favour of this?

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

I'm not voting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You're not voting in favour of it?

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

No, I want to raise another question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I want to get a sense of how far we have to go.

Are you okay, Mr. Hill?

I'm going to go to Ms. Brown.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

If the Chief Electoral Officer has been restricted to 90 days, it seems to me that they may have lived under a certain amount of stress. So far I've been in five elections--six actually, because I lost the first one--and it seems to have gone pretty smoothly with the 90-day temporary employee hiring. If in fact they are feeling a lot of stress about it, I could understand extending it by 10 days or something, but he's almost doubling it.

For example, a usual election is about five weeks. At seven-day weeks with no break, he can hire people for 12 weeks plus six days. You'd take some of it before the election and some of it after. It seems to me there's lots of time in there to run an election. If he starts them off at five-day weeks--just supposing he worked out five-day weeks--at 90 days, it would be 18 weeks of employment to run a five-week election. I think probably the seven-day week is closer to the truth, because I know locally they work every day.

To go from 90 to 175 days means going from, say, 12 weeks and six days to 35 weeks. That seems to be an unreasonable extension.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Perhaps I could just comment, because I'm reading the act and I think this might answer a lot of the member's questions. It appears that the Public Service Employment Act changed in December 2005 whereby the minimum hiring for 90 days changed to 125 days.

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

No, it's the other way around; it's down from 125 to 90.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes, I'm sorry, and thank you.

In the previous elections, the Chief Electoral Officer was working with 125 days. That's been reduced to 90. Because of that he's asking now that he would like us to change it, not to the 125, as it used to be, but to 175. There lies the reason he's asking for the change.

Mr. Reid.

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

Does he actually ask you for 175? I'm looking at the actual report he gave.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes, he's asking that.

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

That's the paraphrase of what he said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

It's in there too.