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

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Perfect.

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

I gave notice of motion to the committee asking that you be invited to come and talk about the costs of changes to riding names--how you arrive at the figures, a detailed breakdown. Given that you're here today, I'm asking you the question directly so that the committee doesn't have to deal with the motion. If you do not have the figures with you, I've heard a figure of $50,000 being floated around. If in fact that's accurate, I'd like to know how you arrived at that--the actual detail, what the costs are, how it breaks down, etc. If you don't have it with you now, please provide it in writing through the clerk to the chair.

Thank you.

Ms. Redman, you have the rest of my time.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I have two numbers to give to this committee. It's approximately $150,000 to replicate all of the related documents, and to replicate them everywhere on the website, when there are a number of name changes to ridings. On top of that, if the name change involves more than 50 characters, including blank spaces, that flips it into half a million dollars, because we have to rewrite programs. We had not foreseen more than 50 characters for the names of ridings, and that was the longest name at the time. The creativity of people knows no bounds, so I thought I'd mention it.

In terms of the details for the costing, if the committee wishes, I will provide you with detailed costing so that you will know where every penny goes for those estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm kind of convinced that Madam Jennings would like the detailed copies--

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

Yes.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I will provide them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Madam Redman, please.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have other questions too, but I will pick up on one piece of information that I would find helpful in your costing. Can you do a breakdown between whether it was riding-by-riding costing? I'm assuming this is changing maps and relabelling them. If we were looking at bundling six to eight, I would be interested in the cost per riding versus a bundling when, granted, there will be other changes, but there will be some economies of scale. If you can make that part of your report, I think all House leadership on all sides would find that very helpful.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I'd be more than pleased to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Ms. Redman, I'm not going to interrupt your time; I promise I'll give you the time back.

Madam Jennings, are you officially withdrawing your motion before--

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

Yes, I am.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Redman.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Jennings is so succinct.

I would like to pick up on one of the things my NDP colleague talked about. I know we've talked about your undertaking to do some investigation in Parkdale—High Park and Trinity—Spadina, and it was very much anecdotal information. Whether or not people are charged or whether or not you found bona fide fraud, is part of the investigation looking at refinements that could deal with some of the perceived abuse? Is that part of what you do when you do an investigation?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Part of what we're doing is examining the whole process, especially for polling-day registrants, which you identified you would like more information about. That's where I committed. As part of that, if there is any indication of a problem, we've not found it so far, but we've not terminated our review. We're effectively trying to trace every person who registered on polling day to find where they resided on polling day. That's going on now. If there is any indication of any pattern or anything, obviously I will want to look at how we can prevent this from recurring, but there is no indication so far that this is the case. I've committed to reporting back to you on the findings once they're complete. Obviously, if there is anything there, I will also tell you what we intend to do, or what I would recommend if there is a need for a legal change to the statute--what we would be proposing so that this could be prevented. I do want to emphasize that we have found nothing like that so far.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you have any sense of when you will conclude those investigations?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

At this stage, we're aiming for the end of January to complete the review.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You're also investigating convention fees. Do you have any sense of when that will conclude and we will have the results of that investigation?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Mr. Chairman, that is a matter for the commissioner, not for the Chief Electoral Officer.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

How does the commissioner report back? Does he report through you, to you, or to Parliament?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

The commissioner does not report to me. The commissioner decides whether to lay charges or whether there's been an infraction about signing an agreement or whether there's a need to amend the report that has been produced. These are decisions that can flow from his investigation into any matter.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

How does that become public?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Well, if there's a charge before the courts, that becomes public. If there is an amended report, that becomes public. It's posted on our website as well.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Next, Mr. Hill and Mr. Lukiwski. You can decide who goes first.

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

I think my name was on the list well ahead, so if that's all right with you, I will.