Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I don't think there's a response there from the minister. That's more a discussion that we can have in a few moments.

We'll now move to Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thank you.

I won't need the entire five minutes, so I'll cede the remaining time to my colleague Mr. Preston.

Again, just to set the record straight with Mr. Angus here, I have no doubt that Mr. Angus spoke in the House about the homeless issue, but my point is that there was absolutely no discussion on the potential disenfranchisement of rural voters because of the civic address/residential address situation at this committee. His colleague, Monsieur Godin, never raised it.

I will not just go on my word. I would encourage anyone, Mr. Angus included, to check the transcripts of this committee. If he can find any mention from the NDP that this was going to be a problem, and the objections they raised, then I will apologize unequivocally, because there were none. There were none.

Mr. Chairman, again I put that offer on the table, and I look forward to Mr. Angus producing the transcript that says the NDP identified the fact that Bill C-31 could have caused the disenfranchisement of one million rural voters because of the civic address thing. There was no discussion of that.

I'll cede the rest of my time to Mr. Preston.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

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

I would suggest, in good parliamentary spirit, that this is a good opportunity for us--rather than running around seeking to shift the blame--to begin to pull together and solve the problem for Canadians; that would be a good approach.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Speaking of good approaches, Minister, you have your study from the by-elections in Quebec—and I wish I could name them but I cannot—showing how well voter ID worked, or at least Environics' version of how it worked.

I hate to ask you to speak on behalf of Elections Canada, but maybe you can give your opinion. Did we do a very good job of advertising during the by-election about what voter ID would now be needed at the polls? I can assume that Elections Canada will do that in the next general election also, in pre-informing...obviously the knowledge to know to come to the poll with ID and what ID you may need will certainly solve there being a lot of issues at the polling stations.

Do you know what measures they took, and what they're planning to do in the next general election?

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

The only information I have on how well the advertising campaign worked is the following statement in the summary: “Communications campaign was relatively effective in raising awareness and understanding of the new identification requirements.” Then a little more, which is that it looks like about a quarter had kept the material that was sent to their houses, a little more than that on the requirement for information, and the voter information card, which was still sent to everybody, appeared to be the principal source of information.

In terms of newspaper and radio advertising, the reach was fairly small. But overall, the communications campaign was somewhat successful, is what I would call it. You're talking about in the opinion of the....

There's an interesting gap in the information, and that's that election officials have a less optimistic view of the world than actual voters. Voters are happier than the election officials, I guess because a voter has a single experience, and the election official looks at their 200 experiences and remembers the one problem.

The voters themselves considered that they were reasonably—about a third of them felt somewhat well-informed.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Great. Elections Canada tends to do fairly vast election advertising regardless of whether there's something new. This year there will be some new news to put out, and—

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

If I were to make a suggestion to Elections Canada, based on what I see here, the main information people seem to turn to is the voter information card that is sent to their home. The newspaper ads and radio ads are less effective.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

So in fact now the card, instead of just saying “your polling station is”, will say “your polling station is, and please bring photo ID and be prepared to present it”.

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

Something to that effect.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Great. It sounds like the right way to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We do have about 15 seconds in that round, but I think we'll just move to the next speaker. If we need a third round, we'll do that.

Madam Picard, please, for five minutes.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to point out that the proposed amendments to the Canada Elections Act were prepared after members of all parties were consulted, including the government side and opposition parties. I think that the study was conducted very transparently, with a genuine desire to represent electors well. We also wanted to let voters vote with their conscience, by eliminating all irritants. As we always say, people will do what they do.

In the past, deficiencies were observed in the legislation. People could present themselves at different polling stations, and vote again. In the past, we have seen all kinds of dreadful things. For 10 years, the then Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, wanted to improve the way in which people were identified when going to vote. We talked about a visual identification process. For those who could not present a photo ID card, many ways were implemented to ensure they could identify themselves.

I think that, as citizens, it is our responsibility to vote. When a citizen is aware, well informed and able to exercise his or her right to vote, he or she should make the effort to determine whether he or she is on some register. The era when everyone was put onto a bus is over. I come from a family in whose house the polling station would be set up, so I know how things worked then. Procedures have improved over the years. So we would now like to have a much more transparent system, which may never be perfect, but which is, in my view, now transparent enough.

I think that with the amendments we have just made we should emphasize awareness-raising and greater responsibility among citizens. I'm very satisfied with the work we have done here. I have taken this very seriously, as I believe most other committee members have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Angus, you have five minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I think we're trying to move this bill forward so that we can deal with necessary problems that have arisen, and yet we come back to the usefulness of the electoral list at the end of the day. I know that's not part of this bill, but we have to ensure that our bill is able to deal with the reality on the ground of people who go to vote.

We don't have a major initiative for enumeration, so it's somewhat of a hit and miss game, which is why I want to return to Australia.

I know that the obligation to vote in Australia is different from the obligation to vote in Canada, but these are both very westernized democracies, pretty much from the same stock of tradition in some ways. Yet we're finding that the movement of population in Australia is now at the point where 15% have to rely on declaration voting.

I want to return to this, because the problem we're going to find at the end of the day—and I certainly don't think this government should be positing a situation where rural voters are somehow more important than first nation voters or any other voters.... We have to make sure that anyone with a right to vote should be able to vote, at the end of the day. Many people, whether they're urban, rural, or first nation, might be in a situation where they've moved. That's why in Australia they have a declaration system.

Would it not be possible to have a declaration system here wherein the ballots are put aside and can be checked? Whether the percentage of the declaration voting were 15% or 10%, those would be the problem votes. Those are the ones we'd be looking for, if there were going to be any issues of fraud. We need to ensure that at the end of the day we are allowing people the right, if they're lacking or have moved, to vote with the declaration system.

What is the problem with that?

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

I wasn't a member of this committee when it did the report that went into Bill C-31. I don't know whether that approach was examined at the time or not. It might be a worthy subject of study for this committee, if you want to bring it forward.

The broader question of electoral lists is one that certainly has interested me. The move from regular enumeration to a permanent voters list, it was hoped, would solve a lot of the problems. In the early years, people began to wonder if it didn't create a worse problem, and anybody who, in practical terms, whether in running campaigns or as a candidate, has had to work with electors lists saw a lot of those problems. On both sides of the ledger, as a guy running campaigns and as a guy being a candidate, I certainly saw some of those.

I should say, though, that I have been favourably impressed with how the system is getting better. I think the permanent electoral registry is improving. There are still all kinds of problems with it, and mobility is huge. It's fine, if people are interested and motivated to get themselves on the list and have the changes registered, but a lot of people aren't. If you don't have a driver's licence and are not interested in being on the list and don't check off the box on your tax return, it's pretty tough for the list to be up to date.

If you want to examine the notion of whether returning to enumeration is a better idea, that's fine. If you want to study the idea of declaration, that's fine, too. I think at the end of the day, people who are motivated seem, within our system, to be able to vote.

We should note, though, that returning officers are able to provide for enumeration in areas where they believe there has been particularly high mobility, or where they believe—in a new subdivision, for example, where there are new residents who wouldn't be on the permanent voters list because they're all just moving in, in areas of new and rapid growth.... One would hope those are used judiciously.

It's certainly open to all parties and all candidates, in discussing this with their local returning officer, to encourage that this kind of spotty enumeration be undertaken.

So there are mechanisms in place. I don't think we will ever come up with a perfect system. I was initially skeptical of the permanent voters list and thought enumeration was a better way to go, but I'm beginning to be sold on the permanent list as it gets better over time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much, Mr. Angus.

Colleagues, I don't think we have time for another round, out of respect for our time schedule.

A couple of members have asked if they could ask a question. I am probably inclined to allow three minutes, if the committee is agreeable to allow two more members to speak for a few minutes. Otherwise, I would simply encourage members to talk with the minister after the meeting.

Mr. Lemieux would like to ask a question. Is there consensus by the committee to allow for this? We don't have time for a full round. Is there consensus to allow Mr. Lemieux...?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, colleagues.

Mr. Lemieux, be very brief. Thank you.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

It was a question about how this works practically—I don't think it happens in a lot of instances—when somebody is new to their electoral district, to their area. They're going to have a mailing address but not a civic address.

I just noticed that the notes we have here say, “Bill C-18 does not extend the deemed residence provision to voters who register on polling day”, and they must have someone who vouches for them.

How exactly will this accommodate people who are new to their area? They won't have their driver's licence, even, with their mailing address on it. Does this present any particular challenges?

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

There's also the vouching option, so there is an additional way for them to do it.

I think overall that's probably the most problematic area of the bill. The easier way for them to do it is, of course, to contact the returning office well in advance of election day to ensure that they get registered, rather than try to do it on voting day. A lot of people do that.

In balancing all these different requirements, I think the solution that's been struck is the best one. There will never be an ideal world, but this is as close to ideal I think as you can get.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux. Thank you, colleagues.

Minister, I want to thank you for coming today and being as prepared as you were to discuss two pieces of legislation. That takes a lot of work. I thank your staff and your support team as well.

We can dismiss our witnesses at this point.

Colleagues, we want to talk about a couple of issues with respect to committee business. One of them is a report from the subcommittee.

Is it the wish of the committee to go in camera at this point?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We will suspend for one minute while we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]