Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2007

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

No. I mean was a study carried out by the Secretariat? I understand there was a number of... No?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

They were able to rely on—The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada—I don't know if you'd call that the Government of Canada or not.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

So the answer is no.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I tend to rely on them more than on having some of these very smart guys in an office doing a study. They have more information and access.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, minister. Is there an impact study by the government or by Elections Canada on the results of allowing people in urban, rural or mixed ridings to vote at the returning officer's office anywhere? That is a relatively recent possibility. Could we have some statistics on the impact of this measure?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

There have been increasing participation rates at all of the advance polling options. That includes the returning office one over time.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Are there statistics on this new possibility, specifically?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's gone from about 4% to about 10% participation overall at advance polls, but that also includes those elements you've been talking about. Those additional opportunities have resulted in increased participation by people in those options. At the same time, we've had this overall declining trend line, but most of the decline is at the day of voting.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, it might be useful for the committee to have Elections Canada talk about the impact of the measure whereby voters can vote at any time, even before candidates are nominated, at the returning officer's office in their ridings. It would be significant to compare the impact of that measure in urban, rural and mixed ridings.

As for studies, there are none. I understand.

As part of the consultations—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I could actually add to that, now that I have the numbers in front of me. On overall advance poll voting, it's gone from 5.4% in 1997 up to 10.5% in 2006. Special ballots, which is what you're generally referring to—which can also be by mail, but usually when you go to vote at the returning office you're going through that special ballot process—were 1% in 1997, 1.5% in 2000, 1.8% in 2004, and 3% in 2006.

There you see that in the space of four elections it tripled; it's still a small percentage overall, but it has tripled as an option.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

We will check if it has really—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

In fairness, you were already at 2% in the election before that, so it doubled.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

It would be useful to determine whether that measure has encouraged better voter turnout. I think it has. In addition to achieving what Bill C-55 intends, the measure might be made more efficient by opening more than one location per riding during the run up to the election. It's up to the government to consider doing that.

As part of your consultations with Elections Canada, was there any consideration of the impact this measure might have on the demand for volunteers?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I assume you mean for the people to staff the polling stations. That's something that—

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

No, I'm talking about the call for volunteers by political parties.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

You mean for the political parties.

I don't think Elections Canada will consider it their place to comment on that. I think they would leave it to the political parties to comment on it.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Would it have been useful to—

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I don't know if they did, but I'd be very surprised if they would.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, it might also be useful to speak to the political parties, which have to recruit volunteers for election day and advanced polling, to see what their views are. This is another subject in which committee members might be interested.

If this bill is passed, are you planning to apply it to bi-elections as well?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

That's a very good question. Would the exact same routine apply in byelections? I'm told it's structured so that it does that.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm sorry, Mr. Bélanger, your time is up. We can give you more time in the next round.

I do appreciate your comments, and we're keeping track of the suggestions you made so that we can follow up on them. As well, I'm starting to sense the types of witnesses we're going to need to call, and that's a great purpose for this meeting—to get our list of witnesses initiated.

We're still in the second round. These are five-minute rounds.

Mr. Reid, you're next, and then Mr. Dewar.

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

Thank you.

I wanted to start with a note of frustration at some of the requests that have come down. Why aren't there government studies on this subject? A lot of the material here relates to how this has performed in foreign countries, and you obviously can't have a Canadian government study of that.

I used to be the critic for democratic issues for the Canadian Alliance, and I was asked repeatedly why voter turnout was lower in Canada than elsewhere. The simplest explanation was that in European countries, which we're usually compared to, they vote on weekends, when people have free time. Having gone through three elections now, I must say that I see over and over again lots of anecdotal examples of places where that's an issue.

The comment I wanted to make is with regard to advance polls. The rural versus urban issue is based on a bit of experience I've had myself, having represented at one point a riding that was half urban and half rural, the city of Kanata and the large rural area. Subsequently, it was been redistributed, so it's all rural now.

One of the things I've been aware of is the degree of difference between the number of people using advance polls in my constituency and in the adjoining constituencies, which fall within the boundaries of Ottawa and are urban. What you notice is a very significant difference because of the fact—this is what I've attributed it to—that advance polls, which are not as widely distributed as regular polls, are easier to get to in an urban setting than they are in a rural setting. I think that goes a long way toward explaining why you see higher turnouts at advance polls, in particular in the two ridings to my immediate east. So I think having advance polls at all locations on the day before voting is likely to have a particularly significant impact in rural areas, and as a rural MP I appreciate that.

Just another thought, though, pursuing Mr. Bélanger's observation about voting at the RO's office ahead of time. There's already a provision in the law that permits more than one RO's office to be set up. We took advantage of that in my constituency. We've got a constituency where, essentially, in population, it's like a dumbbell: very few people live in the middle and there are two population centres at each end, about two hours—

[An hon. member]

We're not describing the member, are we?

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

Thank you for pointing out that that was not a reflection of me personally.

It was two hours' travel time from one end of the riding to the RO's office, which was located 10 minutes from the riding boundary at the other end of the riding. So we requested and the RO complied and set up a second office.

It seems to me that some pressure locally—it certainly worked in our case—can produce a second RO's office. Something of that nature can already be done under current laws. I don't know whether legislative change is required to do that—probably just more active participation by the MPs to identify this and bring it to the attention of their ROs.

It was more in the way of commentary than questions. Thank you.