Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You have a minute and a half left.

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

But you said you'd give me another 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes, and still have another minute and a half, my friend.

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

Privacy is a consideration in the greater public good, but you say you want the democratic process to apply. I'm referring once again to Bill C-31, which provides that in future people will only be able to vouch for one other person. Not for a group of individuals, as was the case formerly.

I would like you to look into this as well and come back to the committee to discuss this matter. I would appreciate that. I do not know whether you understand what I mean. Let me give you an example.

[Marc Mayrand]

That is what I might call the cascade effect.

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

Exactly. For example, in the riding of Vancouver-East, a lawyer could prepare affidavits for a group of individuals and certify that they could all vote. In areas where there is a large homeless population, this gives these people an opportunity to vote. Otherwise, each person would have to find someone to vouch for them, because these people do not have a permanent address, and so on.

[Marc Mayrand]

I see; we will certainly be looking into that.

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

The other point—and I do not know whether you are aware of this—has to do with the list of electors. In the past, enumerators went to each residence to talk to the people there, and take down their address. Now, Elections Canada gets the information from all sorts of sources—from Statistics Canada or the provinces, which have data banks for drivers registration, and so on.

Do you have any views on this? Have you thought about—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I am sorry, but your time is up.

Colleagues, we are moving now to our second round of questions. We'll move to a five-minute round.

Monsieur Proulx, you are next.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Mayrand and welcome to the committee today.

Before I begin, I would just like to clarify one point. I would not want anyone to misunderstand: Mr. Guimond did not contaminate me and I did not contaminate him. Is that clear? I'm referring to the state of our health, of course.

Earlier you told Ms. Robillard, Mr. Mayrand, that you had never been a member of a political party and that you had never belonged to a political party in Canada. I assume that you are talking about both the provincial and federal level, but that is not important.

Are you familiar with the way in which political parties operate? Do you know how political parties are organized? Do you know how things work in the ridings, from the grassroots to the top of a political party, its leader? Are you familiar with all that or have you merely seen it in the newspapers, on television, at conventions or other similar events?

[Marc Mayrand]

I'm familiar with all that as a generally well-informed citizen, but I am not familiar with it in any detailed way.

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

I see. Does that mean that you will be relying on Elections Canada employees to explain to you quickly how things operate—

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, I will be relying on members of this committee and members of the various advisory groups to bring me up to speed quickly on these matters. I can assure you that I will commit myself fully to this task.

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

Very well.

Mr. Mayrand, as the Chief Electoral Officer, quite often—I would not say regularly—you will have to deal with situations where investigations and audits are required. This activity is not based just here in Ottawa, at the head office of Elections Canada. You will be the chief executive officer of an organization that covers the 308 ridings in this country. So you will not have a constant, daily eye on what is going on. You will hear about situations where allegations, accusations or complaints have been filed.

I have heard that your management style when you worked in the area of bankruptcy was to give people the benefit of the doubt. It would seem that in the case of personal bankruptcies, you always showed a great deal of generosity, you were not inclined to force investigations by the RCMP or other police forces—particularly the RCMP in the area of bankruptcy—even if you had complaints and allegations against the individuals who had gone bankrupt.

Do you intend to continue showing the same generosity—if I may use that word, Mr. Mayrand—as regards elections, or will you be more inclined to investigate and check into allegations to ensure that nothing criminal or irregular occurs under your watch?

[Marc Mayrand]

I am rather surprised at the reputation you are attributing to me here today.

We have a complaints processing system in our office. All complaints are reviewed on their merits. We have an internal complaint monitoring system and an internal complaint review system. No matter who is involved, if there are grounds for thinking that an offence may have been committed, an investigation is conducted. It is carried out by the RCMP, or occasionally by our own services that we established a few years ago.

I don't think that this is a matter of generosity. In this field, it is a matter of equity and justice. As I said earlier, we must be consistent and logical in the way in which we enforce the act. The system starts to break down when there are various standards for enforcing the act.

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

So you think you have always acted properly in this regard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Excusez-moi, Mr. Proulx, your time is up.

We are down to five-minute rounds. I know that cuts things a little short. Perhaps we can keep our questions short so we can get more answers.

Mr. Lukiwski, please.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Mayrand.

I want to follow up on a line of questioning that I think was first introduced by Madame Robillard, and that's to talk a bit about your managerial and administrative experience.

Elections Canada, particularly at elections time, is a huge organization. I think there are a few hundred permanent employees during non-elections, which swells to hundreds of thousands of employees, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, during an election period.

I'd like you to talk about the experience and skill set you possess that could comfort us, as committee members, as to how you would be able manage this huge organization. What skills do you possess? What experience do you have in dealing with this type of organization? This is a huge human resources challenge you would have, and a huge financial administration challenge.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, I'm aware of the challenges that exist in such an organization.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, I have had the chance to manage a very diverse organization over the last 10 years. It's a decentralized organization that relies heavily on partnerships. These are partnerships with licensees, which are an extension of the office of the superintendent and carry out the administration of hundreds of thousands of estates.

You should know that in 2006, $1 billion in funds were distributed under the insolvency legislation in Canada. All of those funds were subjected to the scrutiny and the taxation of my office.

So there has been some experience in terms of financial resources and ensuring that there's rigorous stewardship with respect to the management of those financial resources.

I did manage an organization that has grown significantly over the last decade, almost doubling in size and more than doubling in budgets. We successfully managed that growth. We also made sure that value was brought for the service provided to our stakeholders.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you. I'm not sure I got a sense of your comfort level, which is what I'm trying to get at. Again, you will be dealing with literally hundreds of thousands of employees in a very compressed period of time. I'm wondering exactly how comfortable you are--relating back to your personal and professional experiences--working in that kind of environment.

[Marc Mayrand]

From the information I've had so far, Elections Canada is a robust organization. They've gone through the process of growing to 160,000 people and downsizing afterwards. They have done that repeatedly over the last 10 years. I can assure you that I will rely on their expertise in managing those kinds of events. I will be relying on the quality of the management team and the people at Elections Canada.

I haven't gone through this process before, so I'm sure I will learn. But whatever the complexity, I think the value and the approach you bring to your job make a difference to people in that organization.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Whenever I have been in a position of hiring, I've always asked this question of prospective employees, and I would ask you the same question. How do you rate yourself on a scale of one to five, with one being the lowest and five being the highest, in terms of being an administrator and particularly in terms of being a manager of human relations?

[Marc Mayrand]

I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer the question, but I think you would find that I rate rather highly on that scale.

I think I've had excellent relationships with staff. I've been able to engage them and to generate their commitment to a vision over the last 10 years. I also work hard on maintaining constructive business relationships with stakeholders.

I live in an environment that is also very conflictive. Bankruptcy is about people losing, and you can expect that it generates a fair bit of dispute. I put great effort into building relationships with people, with all people in the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

Ms. Picard, for five minutes, please.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Mayrand, and welcome to the committee.

I would like to follow up on a question Mr. Proulx asked about the way in which complaints are dealt with. I think the appointment of returning officers through a competition, which will take into account merit, will probably eliminate some of the complaints Elections Canada receives.

I would like you to give me some reassurance about one aspect of the way in which complaints are handled. When the Chief Electoral Officer receives complaints from candidates or returning officers, I would like some reassurance that they will actually be investigated. At one point, the former Chief Electoral Officer told this committee that he no longer made any recommendations about the way the complaints service should manage the complaints, because it was of absolutely no use to do that.

I hope that as Chief Electoral Officer, these investigations will be pursued, so that these complaints which recur from one election to the next in some ridings will be settled once and for all.

I know that we have to give you a chance, because you are just about to assume this position. A number of amendments have been made to the Canada Elections Act through various pieces of legislation, such as Bill C-31.

Have you heard about the introduction of a voter number? If so, how would you plan to implement that, if an election were to be called tomorrow, for example?