Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 25th, 2010

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

That would be fantastic. Thank you.

The next thing I wanted to ask you about is electronic voting. I was at a seminar at Carleton University, which had been arranged partly by the university and partly by you, about two months ago, maybe three now, and one of the things discussed, as you mentioned, was the Swiss experience with electronic voting and referendums. There was also the Estonian example, which seemed to me, recognizing of course the very small size of Estonia compared with Canada in terms of both geography and population.... Nevertheless, that seemed to me to be the closest parallel.

Having looked at the presentation that had been given on the Estonian situation, I was wondering what you thought were the lessons that could be drawn in terms of whether or not we'd actually be able to apply this in Canada. A thought that occurred to me was that the privacy laws must be different in Estonia from here. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that.

[Marc Mayrand]

There are matters of privacy, security, and I think Estonia also had a national identity card, which we don't have in Canada. Obviously, the integrity and auditability of the process are going to be key in anything we do.

I should maybe also mention that i-voting, the way we're looking at it right now, is meant to address a particular group of electors who are currently facing challenges in voting. We're thinking of the military who are based overseas; we're thinking of Canadians abroad, who depend on the postal vote, which, depending on the service.... In the last general election we received 3,000 mail ballots too late to be counted. We're also thinking about disabled electors, who have serious challenges if they're not mobile, who could take advantage of a service like that.

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

Effectively, electronic voting would most likely to be introduced in a stick. If I think of Canada as being sliced up vertically by ridings, if you take a cross-section a different way, across, you might find that one sector—visually disabled voters, say, or people who are forced to stay at home because of their health—would be the first ones to be included in electronic voting. Would you introduce it that way?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's our thinking currently. Before we launch into a universal i-voting system, I think we need to test it with discrete groups who can be identified, can be located, and can be traced, so that we experiment to find out how well it's working.

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

Would you be able to do that in some by-elections first?

[Marc Mayrand]

Ideally, we'd like to do it in a by-election after 2013. I think that would be the proper way to go on this.

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

Would you be giving us any advance notice beforehand?

[Marc Mayrand]

Definitely. As I mentioned earlier, it requires permission from this committee to proceed. As we move throughout this journey, we will certainly continue to involve the committee. That's why we invited members to attend this conference at Carleton. As we progress on this, I plan to keep the committee fully apprised of our progress and challenges.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Mayrand, and welcome to all of your team.

I also had the opportunity to attend the symposium you organized in cooperation with Carleton University. I believe Mr. Reid and I were the only committee members at that very interesting meeting. However, as regards electronic voting, somewhat as that's done in Estonia, I was not convinced, and I still have some reservations in the matter. I believe it would be a radical change from the way we vote in Canada. I'm not sure either that we're ready for that kind of change.

Furthermore, the last time you appeared, you explained to me your vision of remote electronic voting. At the time, we wondered whether electronic voting might encourage young people to vote more readily. You answered that we could install terminals in the universities. Young people studying elsewhere than in their constituencies could vote at their universities. To do so, we would use the voters lists. Young people could therefore vote on their campuses.

When you gave Mr. Reid your answers, you didn't touch on that possibility. Is this still being considered? Have you ruled it out? Or else is it still moving forward?

[Marc Mayrand]

We haven't ruled it out. It's another option, another additional possibility, but it isn't really on-line voting. It would be more a kind of electronic voting that would make it possible to take ballot boxes to where voters are, whether we're talking about young people or ordinary citizens. It means people don't have to go to a location that, in some instances, is less convenient for certain electors. This is quite a fundamental change, which essentially consists in taking the equivalent of a polling station to where electors are. It could be in people's work places. For example, in real estate complexes, there are thousands of people who, on a break during the day, could take the opportunity to vote.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Is that part of your pilot project, in your 2013 strategy? Is it still too soon?

[Marc Mayrand]

It's a little early. The next demonstration—we'll talk about it on June 17, during the visit—is designed to introduce a technology that enables persons with disabilities to vote independently, with no assistance. It's a technology called sip-and-puff. It enables a tetraplegic person to vote independently.

There's one issue in particular that we'll be dealing with in the case of blind people and persons coping with another type of disability. The idea will be to be able to deploy this equipment where these people are. The technology exists, and I think we could test it, with the committee's approval, in the next by-election. Based on that experience, we'll learn more about it. We'll know if we explore the possibility of having voting terminals across the country. We'll get a better idea through this technology.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

How many people do you estimate there are in Canada who could benefit from this new accessibility equipment? You've no doubt established a profile.

[Marc Mayrand]

Based on certain data, there are millions of electors who suffer from various forms of disability.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

They could use—

[Marc Mayrand]

They could benefit from this technology. The problem is that they are scattered across the country. How do we go about deploying the technology closest to where they're located? We've conducted a study. At one point, we were asked to explore the possibility of publishing ballots in braille, and the lists... One option was to publish a number of documents that way.

However, we discovered that not only the printing and distribution costs, but also the necessary logistics to produce the ballots in braille across the country... We thought it was impossible, given the time limits prescribed by law. That's why we started exploring other technologies.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Do I have a little time left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have 30 seconds.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

With regard to the elector's card, you say you'll probably add it as a piece of identification. So it would be a second piece of photo ID?

[Marc Mayrand]

You need either a photo ID card, including name and address, such as a driver's licence—that's fine, one card is enough— or—

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

We could add the elector's card.

[Marc Mayrand]

—if you don't have a driver's licence, you can present two authorized pieces of ID. There's a whole list of authorized pieces—there are 44 of them. We would add that card as the 45th piece which could be used to prove the identity of a number of seniors who find this difficult. So that would enable them to vote.

In addition, young people who are studying outside their constituency often have very few documents. The documents they have don't establish their place of residence during the academic year. So some groups would benefit from that addition to the list. It's the same thing for aboriginal people, who have few documents enabling them to identify themselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Godin, go ahead, please.