Evidence of meeting #28 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

John Hollins  Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

11:35 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

I've never been an advocate of mandatory democracy. I thought it flew in the face of what a genuine democracy would be, which is your right to choose to do whatever you wish within the democracy.

I think that would pretty much sum it up.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

You've been very consistent in your thinking on that. I appreciate it.

On the issue of politicians staying out of referendums, given that this one was about the electoral system itself, which is probably about as sensitive as you can get, is it practical to think that, going forward on issues, we would call upon a referendum mechanism to make the decision that politicians and their campaigns would actually stay out?

11:35 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

I think it's a catch-22. If you run the election and the referendum at the same time, it's in the best interest of the politician to stay out. If you run the referendum separately, I think there's a very big gain there. I got it as feedback in the course of the referendum: “we expect our politicians to lead us, and they're not here to lead us”. That made it very difficult for some people, because these are the people whom they would engage for an opinion, and they trust that opinion. When you come out of a neutral position and are trying to explain things.... I found it somewhat of a challenge.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Staying out of it would obviously include not putting it in their election brochures, but what about candidates' debates, in which it would come up? Did they just decline to give an opinion? I can't recall.

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

It wasn't a decline. The rules were very clear.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

They couldn't even comment when asked a direct question?

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

They could put it in their platform, and there was what looked like a hush order.

It was interesting. I always figured that it was—and this was merely my observation—that the referendum was judging the business they're in, so it was a question whether it was a conflict for them to participate in the outcome. I thought, maybe that's the logical thing here. It's a very delicate point; consequently, I could see why they might not want to participate in it.

In any other referendum than that, I would say yes, make sure they're involved. People want to talk to them; they want to know what they feel and how they think.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Right, and that takes us back to this whole issue of having different financing controls. If you have none in one and some in another, how do you separate the two during a general election? It can be very difficult.

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

How does it flow? People only have so many dollars to give. I wonder where it will go. Will it go to the parties?

11:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Most people only have so many dollars to give. Some people have lots of money to give.

I want to shift gears just a little. One of the things we're going to have to struggle with is the issue of our confederation. When there's a national question being put, do we mandate that it only be the national referendum law that applies, or, as in 1992, would there be the opportunity for provinces to use their own? Then there are variations of that. Could provinces use their own if they wanted, provided they met certain standards? I don't mean it in a hierarchical way. As long as they met those, they could work the details out for themselves. What are your thoughts on that?

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

If you run a national election, you're not going to ask the provinces to run it for you. If you run a national referendum, I don't know why you would either. It's not that I agree with the delivery model. I quite disagree. We have three agencies serving every voter. That is triplication in government. That's a very big complaint in the province of Ontario. Why do I fund three agencies to deliver an election? Why doesn't the local clerk deliver all the elections? It's interesting, but it's very real. Consistency would say that you do it nationally.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

You didn't have any financial controls, you said. Do you think that's the approach we should take nationally too?

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

I'm going to make a bit of a leap here. I think we didn't have financial controls, because inherently there were financial controls.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

How so?

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

In the planning of the way our referendum went with an election, the finances were going to the parties. There wasn't much obviously going over to the campaigns. If there was no political entity at work and it was just a referendum, I think you might need controls on those dollars, because there would be a lot of dollars available. Also, it becomes a stakes game. What's at stake here? We've heard it around this table today. You might get big powerful lobbyists involved. I can see that. We see that in the U.S. all the time. If there's a win somewhere for somebody, and at the end of the day there's a bank account somewhere, I think you want to control those things.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

There is evidence that it doesn't always guarantee an outcome. But I have to tell you that most of us around this table, heading into a campaign, would prefer to have lots of money rather than no money in our bank accounts. So money counts.

The number of people who declined a ballot was surprising. You don't seem to agree. I was thrown when you said that 20,000 people declined it. Do you think they didn't have an interest? Or was it that they didn't know enough and therefore weren't going to cast an uneducated ballot? Or was it some variation of those?

11:40 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

I don't think they showed up to vote for the referendum. They showed up to vote for the candidate. It's as simple as that. You are running two events. You have some there for one and some for the other. We were lucky; we had a lot there for both.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

We now move into our five-minute round. I have a number of names on the list. We'll try to do those. You can still add your name if you haven't had a comment yet.

We'll go to Mr. Proulx.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Sir, I might have been distracted, and maybe that question wasn't asked of you, but let's assume that you would be running a referendum at the same time as an election, whether it be strictly in the province of Ontario or whether it be on the national scene. Let's assume that instead of it being on changes to the electoral system, it would be on something much more controversial, such as the separation of the province of Quebec or something else that I can't think of in Ontario. How could you separate expenses related to the election and expenses related to the referendum?

I'll give an example. I'm a candidate, and I travel in my riding or outside my riding to speak in the name of my party. At the same time, I decide that I'm going to make a pitch for one of the sides of the referendum campaign. How could you differentiate an election campaign expense and a referendum expense? It would be very difficult, wouldn't it?

11:45 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

I guess I see it through a different light. I wouldn't have to; you would have to. And you would have to apportion it by the percentage of time spent on that. If it cost you $100 to make the trip and you spent 10% of your time actually speaking with regard to the referendum, you'd allot 10% back.

My protection is that an auditor will go through that with you, the public will see it, and if they disagree we'd have a challenge. Then accountability comes in.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Okay. Yes, you are seeing it in a different way.

11:45 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

I do. I see it very factually.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Yes.

While you're here, I want to ask you a question that's been bugging me for a while. You've used the permanent list of electors in Ontario, the same as we have on the federal scene.

11:45 a.m.

Former Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario, As an Individual

John Hollins

Yes, I have.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Did you like the list or did you hate the list?