Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 7th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Kingsley. I just wanted to establish here that, from your presentation and certainly from the previous witnesses we've heard, what we have in front of us could be construed as a barrier to people voting, the way it's presented presently, simply because they have to present photo ID where it wasn't required before.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I don't wish to characterize it like that. I wish to alert the committee to what I've found in terms of what you've requested.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm just establishing from the data you provided that where we have photo ID in what's required, there's an imbalance; I'll put it that way.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

There is without a doubt something that will be asked that is not being asked now. That of course will impose a form of burden on electors.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, that's fair. So we have a burden on voters to provide more than they had to before, we can say.

I'll say this, because I think it should be put on the record: we should be eliminating barriers for voters and citizens to vote, be it in validating who they are or in physical barriers. We've talked about those as well, in terms of people who are disabled. But we should be eliminating barriers for people to vote.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

And this is what I am attempting to do through the recommendations I've made. I'm also trying to reconcile that with the objective, which I think is understandable, of maintaining the integrity of the electoral process by ensuring that only the people who can vote do vote, and that they can only vote once.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Exactly. With that in mind, we established that we want universal suffrage for people who are eligible. Would it not follow along those lines that we should have universal enumeration to ensure that universal suffrage is going to take place? The argument would be that if you don't have universal enumeration.... I won't get into the details of that, but conceptually speaking it's absolutely critical to have universal enumeration so that we can have universal suffrage. Can you agree to that?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I think it's very important to have every possible elector on the list of electors. How that is achieved is very important as well. What I've told the committee before, and through the statistics we provide, is that some 94% to 95% of the people are on the lists that we provide. Through the door-to-door enumeration that used to exist, we never achieved more than 95% of electors on the list—never. There were always 5% who were unreachable, even though we knocked on doors. This is throughout the history, and I've mentioned this before.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Right. But that's as of 2000, I guess. Didn't we do door-to-door up to 2000?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

The last time we did door-to-door was 1997, and that's how we established the register; it started from there.

But perhaps I can answer further by saying that in my view it would be worthwhile, if there were an opportunity to check, perhaps at the same time as we do the census in Canada....

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Gee, you stole my question. Dang!

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

It's called being ahead of the game.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, and we require people, legally speaking, to fill out the census. I would like you to turn your attention to it--and you already have--because I personally believe that in terms of this bill, the first thing we need to do is make sure we tighten up the enumeration. I know you have been working on that in your directorate, but we need to provide resources. We have two bills in front of us that will touch you. They are Bill C-2, in terms of people being appointed based on merit, and Bill C-16, on fixed-date elections. That will hopefully give you more structure to get to that ultimate goal of universal enumeration.

There is also technology and ways of doing that. I believe everyone should have to be enumerated. We shouldn't assume anything, even if they live in a suburban middle-class neighbourhood, in terms of universality of the most fundamental aspect of our democracy, the right to vote and the access to the vote. Every citizen should be treated the same; we should have a universal enumeration, and it should be done, while certainly acknowledging that we have different ways of doing it--the census component or their experience.

On technology, I know people who work in this town. We are ahead of any country, any jurisdiction, in terms of using technology and secure e-mails and that kind of thing. There are ways to do it for people in areas where you know there is not a lot of movement; you establish who they are and where they are.

I will just lead to the point where you mentioned the census data. That's important.

You said “perceived instances of fraud”. Do we have voter fraud in our country right now, as far as you know, in federal elections?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I'm not aware.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You have the public notice here. It states that a person who votes when not entitled or who votes more than once is committing an offence and is subject to a fine of up to $5,000, to imprisonment for up to five years. Has anyone been charged under the act in the last three elections for voter fraud?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

For voter fraud--if you include voting twice, a number of people have voted twice. They've signed compliance agreements with the commissioner to that effect. I can't remember the numbers offhand, but we pursue that at every election. We do checks because of what you just said. Everything is electronic. We can check the lists of electors and those who voted at advance polls and signed documents to that effect. We can pursue that, and we do, through analysis of signatures with the RCMP. That is something we do.

The numbers are not very high, but we do the checks. In some instances the commissioner may decide to prosecute because he feels there was real intent to fraudulently vote twice, as opposed to erroneously voting twice.

I just want to add one thing, Mr. Chairman. We have an agreement with StatsCan to test the consent question for the 2001 census already, so we are working to improve the system.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I only have 30 seconds; I am sorry to interrupt.

I presented to committee another option, which is to have a statutory declaration for a person. I'm concerned about the one person, one voucher idea. Something to bring to your attention is that I've submitted to committee that it would be very easy to just declare who you are, where you live, that you meet all the requirements, and sign off. That is just an idea. I don't need comment. That is just something I'm sure you're aware of.

I have ten seconds.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm going to give you a little bit more time because everybody else got some, so you go ahead.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That is equitable, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

Voter cards seem to be a problem; you're been addressing that, and your report certainly addresses it. What about the idea of having the voter cards in envelopes addressed to people, bearing in mind the cost? If a piece of mail comes to my door and it's not for me, then it's sent back. One of the problems is that these cards are just sitting there, and all the information is public. I could just scoop it up if I wanted to, and take it and use it. That's part of the dilemma for people here. Has the idea of a secure piece of mail been looked at or entertained?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I'm expecting a report on this presently to see exactly what the advantages would be, because we are thinking of doing that as well. As soon as I have a reply, I could inform this committee, either through an appearance or through correspondence or both, Mr. Chairman.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That would be helpful. Thank you.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

It is fundamentally a good idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes; in fact, I remember we discussed this issue at one of your other visits to the committee. Thank you very much. We will wait for that report.

Madam Jennings is next.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you.

I'll be splitting my time, so I'll take one minute and give the rest of my time to Ms. Redman.