Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2010

[Brad Lavigne]

We're very much in favour of it. We have it going on in British Columbia and Alberta. Quebec and Ontario are doing partial and pilot projects. This institution needs to get with the times. We have a voting challenge. The voters list is not good. We need full enumeration, and until that time, we need to give the tools to the Chief Electoral Officer to stop the bleeding.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks. That was a good point. I would just add--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Christopherson, you said “Internet voting”. Are you talking about Internet registration?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I meant Internet registration. That's my mistake. But I appreciate your mentioning that, Mr. Lavigne.

I'd also just like your comment on the status of the permanent voters list. The NDP has gone out of its way to say that there are real problems with that. So as you're commenting on Internet registration, what are your thoughts on the permanent voters list as an effective tool?

[Gilbert Gardner]

The voters list is flawed. During the last election, in 2008, there were over 50,000 more voters on the federal voters list than on Quebec's voters list, which was used for the election in December, barely a month and a half later. There is still considerable duplication, as well as delays in deleting the names of voters who notice their name on the list twice. Despite their requests, their name appears more than once. So there is still a lot of work to do in this area.

In terms of Internet registration, I will limit my comments to what I said earlier. I would support it as part of a pilot project approved by the committee, especially in connection with a by-election.

[John Arnold]

We recognize that any list is going to have its limitations. The voting list, as we have it now, is a useful tool.

On Internet registration, we are in favour of it, and we believe that the regulator is fully capable of dealing with all the potential security and fraud issues. That can be dealt with.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Super. Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Mr. Murphy, welcome to our committee today. Please give it your best shot in the three minutes remaining.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I'll be very brief. I just want to follow up on that line of questioning on the Internet registration, not the voting. I just want to get your thoughts and comments.

I do agree that this is the way society is going and that this is the way we should be operating. In my experience with the list, it's inaccurate because the returning officers have mechanisms at their disposal to add people to the list, but they don't have any mechanisms, that I'm aware of, to take people off the list.

You're dealing with a list where a lot of people have moved on or they've died. There are all kinds of reasons why they're on the list, but there really isn't any mechanism to take them off. You can tell the returning officer that the person has gone to Calgary and he went five years ago, or that fella is dead, but they look at you, and there's no mechanism for that.

I just want to get the parties' opinion on this. There must be better ways. How do they verify information coming in through the Internet if someone wants to register? Secondly, and perhaps just as importantly, how do they verify the information coming over the Internet that a person no longer lives within that particular electoral district?

[Gilbert Gardner]

I would draw your attention to recommendation IV.11, which seeks to make the voters list more representative by authorizing a guardian to delete the name of a person who should not be on the list. I believe that is one of the proposed methods.

However, I may have a different take on the problem. It is not so much the quality of the list as the voter turnout rate that is the problem, in my view, and those two things are not necessarily related. We may want to spend more time looking at ways to increase the turnout rate, while endeavouring to keep the voters list as accurate as possible—but it will not happen overnight.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Arnold.

[John Arnold]

As a political party, we're not certain that we would be able to develop the rules regarding Internet registration. This is why we would rely on Elections Canada to develop those and then allow the parties to comment on whether those rules are going to meet our needs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Lavigne.

[Brad Lavigne]

One way to look at what is being done in Canada and other jurisdictions is to call Elections B.C., or the Alberta authorities, or Quebec or Elections Ontario, to find out what they've put in place. I, like Mr. Arnold, did not come here with any Internet fraud solutions today. That's not my area of expertise.

But I will share just quickly how bad the lists are.

You, Mr. Murphy, started off by saying that the lists...and I've seen the numbers that the Chief Electoral Officer has suggested: 93% of the voters are there. I believe it's 80-odd per cent who are living in their permanent residence. There's no way, from the information we have, that this is anywhere near what we know to be true.

I know that each political party around the table today would know that. They can go to their political party's offices and see the stacks and stacks of returned mail because a person has moved or because a person is deceased. There's nothing as sad as when you're on the phone with a widow and you keep mailing to the husband who passed away 10 years ago. The reason that husband is on the list is that he's on the voters list. He's on the Elections Canada voters list. That's not our list. That's not the other parties' lists. That is the Elections Canada list. If it's that bad, I can't understand how the integrity can be maintained.

The key here is that you're asking us to fix a flawed system. The permanent voters list is a flawed system. We recommend going back to full enumeration. It has only been about 14 years since the legislation was passed in Parliament. I don't know what more this table or the rest of the House needs to see for evidence to say that we need to go back, so that individuals, either online or in person, can be signing up to exercise their franchise. If they move or if they change their name, they can turn on their computer--as they're doing every day already--and update their information. I think that's a modern, fraud-free way of getting this system into the 21st century.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Great.

Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to direct all three of you towards item number 7 in chapter II, candidates' debates, and the recommendation he's making there.

I'll just open the floor, maybe to you, Mr. Lavigne, and your discussions on that. I'm just curious about what your thoughts are.

[Brad Lavigne]

Yes. The offering here is to monetize one's performance at an all-candidates meeting. It's something that we couldn't disagree with more. There's no way that you could add a value to one's performance, one's exposure to it. I can't imagine what the market value of that would be. I can't imagine how we'd assess the variations of that, whether it's a small community group that's having an all-candidates meeting, or if there are two candidates or 15--wildly varying--and the size of the crowd, and then the paperwork that would have to go into it. It would be nuts.

At the same time, what you'd also see is that this would have an influence on the groups in the local ridings that are putting on these events; that is, candidates would say no. They'd say, “If I go to your all-candidates meeting, that's $100 off my ceiling”. So they're going to wait for the bigger one, the chamber of commerce, where they're going to do one debate; that's going to be $1,000, and that's it for their debates. I don't think that would serve electors well and I think it would be impossible both to, first of all, monetize all-candidates meetings, and then to police them afterwards.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

The spirit of the legislation is to make sure everything is equal and balanced. If you go to a candidates' debate--I assume everybody is going--then it's obviously equal and balanced. So it would be a wash, would it not?

[Brad Lavigne]

It could be very unbalanced; you could have organizations that only invite certain individuals to participate. But I don't think Elections Canada is going to be an effective vehicle to regulate that. I can't imagine it.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Arnold, would you have any comment on that, or Mr. Gardner? I'll open it up to both of you.

[John Arnold]

Our understanding is that this is already going on. Elections Canada has developed internal rules and a framework in terms of expenses that should or should not be recorded in the return. Our understanding is that they were looking at codifying these rules into legislation so that everyone is working from a level playing field.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You're actually in favour of the recommendation, then, are you?

[John Arnold]

We are in favour.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Really?

Mr. Gardner.

[Gilbert Gardner]

We object to that recommendation. The legislation talks about equity. That does not necessarily mean identical access for all political parties registered with Elections Canada. Many sections in the law favour a certain number of parties enjoying most of the popularity. I think that recommendation stems from the lobbying of very small parties trying to obtain the right to take part in national debates with the leaders of the main political parties.

Right now, section 319 of the act is quite clear: it excludes public debates. It does not involve a contribution, but a neutral debate, organized by a neutral body that does not favour any candidate over another, and I think the current legislative framework is very much in keeping with the will of legislators.