Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 25th, 2014

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Obviously, if a document is not available, is not reported on, then one cannot verify it, one cannot audit it. It is not part of what is to be...because this is what the bill proposes at this time, that this be excluded and not reported on; not only excluded, but not reported on.

Already we see the problem with party returns. This is an issue that is before you and I hope you will solve it this time. It's been with you since the 38th general election.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Great, thank you.

I was very glad that you pointed out the analogue to problems with vouching, the irregularities that the Neufeld report audit revealed. You essentially said don't get rid of the methods of identification like vouching, but make the election day process much better. One of the features of that is more timely recruiting and training of election day workers. Mr. Mayrand has now unequivocally said he thinks that the time has come for parties to get out of the business of being part of staffing of election day workers to give Elections Canada more time to recruit in advance and to train much further in advance, plus he knowledges training has to improve.

Do you have any comments on that issue of making sure not only that there are more officers—that was your point—on election day, but that training improve so that the kinds of irregularities that have been used by the minister as his Trojan Horse don't happen again?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Obviously, under the bill there's an additional week that the Chief Electoral Officer shall have at his disposal in order to start recruitment. In other words, candidates of the first and second party of the previous election will have one week less to nominate people. I think it has to be recognized by Canadians we're now at the stage where only 30% of those positions are filled by the nominees who you provide, only 30%, and 10% in the western provinces. It has become almost an anachronism.

When I was Chief Electoral Officer, I was just waiting for that to die on the vine frankly, and if you don't do it this time, you'll do it the next time you look at the bill in a couple of years. You'll be doing it because it will not affect you in any way, shape, or form.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I have one last question and need a quick answer. I understand that, at best, moving the Commissioner of Canada Elections to the DPP's office is neutral. There is no actual gain from your perspective. Is that true?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

There is no gain, and it is a perpetuation of an unfortunate decision that was made in 2006, which really was not at all the issue that was debated at your predecessor committee, even though I reported on it.

To me, it's ball game over on that one, and the change really does not affect anything except cost-effectiveness and the timeliness of prosecutions, in other words, the time it takes between the investigation and the laying of charges.

This is an issue that has not been addressed by this committee at any time, and I suggest you should do that. The Director of Public Prosecutions is a public official. He should come here and answer to you about how he has handled this responsibility in the meantime.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Reid, you have four minutes to finish off with this round, please.

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

Before going to Mr. Kingsley, I just want to respond to something that Craig Scott said regarding the current Chief Electoral Officer's suggestion that parties should get out of getting election day officers out there.

I disagree with that suggestion, and I want to say why. The DRO and the poll clerk at each poll are appointed by the first and second parties in that riding from the last election. Their job traditionally was to be the first line of defence against fraud by the other party. They essentially cancelled each other out.

It is difficult to find people for those positions, I grant that, and it's getting harder as time goes on, but they do serve as a useful check. In ridings where there is reason to be afraid that someone might want to resort to monkey business, they serve as a very effective protection. I think it's important to keep that. I say this as someone who initiated the measure that caused the returning officers for ridings to no longer be a partisan appointment, to become an appointment made by the Chief Electoral Officer. So as someone who tried to get parties out of that role, I think that getting them out of the DRO and poll clerk roles would be a bad idea.

Going back to the vouching issue, Mr. Kingsley, I just wanted to ask about your suggestion relating to how vouching would be done. You made the following suggestion, which I'll quote. I'm going to ask you to expand on it if you could. You said, “Amending the vouching provisions to require that the requisite oath also be given in writing”—right now, I gather, it's verbally—“will address the concerns which have been raised respecting vouching.”

Could I ask you to expand upon what you're getting at and also on some of the practicalities involved in asking people to fill out a written oath, presumably on-site, with a busy election official?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Well, in point of fact I'm trying to address the perception that has been brought forth, which is in my view nothing but a perception, that there are problems with vouching by utilizing other sections of the bill, where it says that in these cases—impersonation, someone else having voted in someone's place—you will now have to sign that oath, as opposed to only taking it orally. I'm saying okay, if that's what you want to do. If that solves that particular problem, then it must obviously be able to solve the problem of the perception that some people have about the vouching system.

I will add that with respect to the returning officers, there have been comments made that we appointed...which were predominantly Liberals. That was an excellent move on your part, sir, and I thank you on behalf of Canadians, on the appointment of returning officers. Just so everyone knows, we were obligated by that law to seek the advice of every party leader about every returning officer, and any party leader who objected to any returning officer, that name was off the list. I did not care who objected. We did not overturn any political leader. So the 180 people who were left as returning officers were all people who had been accepted by all the parties.

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

I wanted to have time to ask another question, but seeing that we're going back and dealing with that bit of the historical record, I'll just say that in my own constituency of Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, the former Liberal-appointed returning officer, Caroline McMillan, was reappointed, and in this one case I can say for sure that was a reasonable decision. She performed and has performed very professionally since that time.

I concur that in that one example, which is the only one I can turn to, it was a wise decision on your part.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I return to 307 others. All the leaders had the option, through all the people sitting in the House, to say no to any returning officer, and I just accepted that. I did not question it.

If one leader said “no,” that returning officer was replaced.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you. We can't start another line, so we'll stop there.

Mr. Kingsley, it's always fantastic when you come to committee, and we learn a lot when you do. We hope to see you again in the future. We know we will. This committee gets to invite you on all elections matters.

We will suspend for two minutes while we change witnesses and start our second half.

Thank you very much.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Thank you, sir. I appreciated this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll call our meeting back to order for the second half. We still are in public and televised.

We have two distinguished guests with us for this hour of our study. David Brock is the Chief Electoral Officer of the Northwest Territories, and Keith Archer is the Chief Electoral Officer from British Columbia.

Have you arm wrestled to see who's going first?

David Brock is going first.

If we could have short opening statements from each of you, and then we'll go to rounds of questions.

[David Brock, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections NWT, Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

In my opening statement I will address only those aspects of the bill that may have the most adverse effect on electors in the Northwest Territories. Those are the end of vouching, the examination of identification documents by candidates or their representatives, and limiting the communications of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada.

Voter ID laws in the Northwest Territories mirror those in the Canada Elections Act; therefore, this makes for a valuable comparative study. Following the 2011 territorial general election, the legislative assembly concluded that voter identification requirements did in some cases discourage qualified voters from voting. The requirements do seem somewhat excessive, particularly in our small communities where we all know each other.

In the 2011 territorial election, for every 1,000 ballots cast, 15 electors required vouching. Even though the population of Yellowknife is more than five times greater than the next largest NWT community, vouching was twice as likely to take place at a polling station in a community other than Yellowknife. The reason is apparent: in 27 of 33 NWT communities, less than half of residents hold active government-issued photo identification. This causes me to draw three conclusions: first, the frequency with which vouching occurs is relatively low; second, electors in smaller NWT communities are more likely to rely on vouching in order to exercise their right to vote; and third, in my view, removing vouching from the Canada Elections Act would, at least in the short term, cause a barrier to access for some electors, especially in our smaller communities.

The claim that vouching increases the risk of fraud is, in my view, unfounded. Consider the process. First, the person vouching must have proper identification and the person being vouched for must provide basic personal information and swear an oath. As the Parliament of Canada considers eliminating vouching, the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories is contemplating expanding vouching by recognizing the relationship of electors beyond the polling division as well as by increasing the maximum number of times an elector may vouch for another elector.

I ask this committee to recommend removing the provisions of this bill that repeal vouching.

The Parliament of Canada is also considering allowing candidates and their representatives to examine an elector's identification at a polling place. It is important to have partisans monitor activity at polling stations to ensure that the electoral processes are carried out in accordance with the law. However, it is equally, if not more, important that ballots be cast free from intimidation or undue delay.

To restate, in 27 of 33 NWT communities, fewer than half of residents hold active government-issued photo identification. Almost all of the approved additional documents that may be used as proof of residence are likely to contain personal financial information. The risk of unveiling personal financial information to a polling official, especially in small communities, is already a possible deterrent to voting. I'm concerned that this deterrent will be exacerbated if these documents may also be examined by partisans.

The riding of Western Arctic had a 53.9% voter turnout during the 2011 federal election. Along with many other northern ridings, it falls near or below the bottom 10th percentile for participation rates in federal elections. Allowing partisans to examine an elector's identification may, for some, be intimidating and inhibiting, and thus could cause even lower rates of participation in Canada's north.

I ask this committee to recommend removing the provisions of this bill that allow candidates or their representatives to examine elector identification.

Finally, the summary of this bill clearly states that it is an objective to limit the Chief Electoral Officer's power to provide information to the public. With declining participation rates, it is not clear why it would be a policy objective to have fewer election-related messages.

Under current federal law, the Chief Electoral Officer may implement public information programs, particularly for “those persons and groups most likely to experience difficulties in exercising their democratic rights.”

One such group is aboriginal peoples, who comprise 51% of the population in the Northwest Territories and whose participation in federal elections is already significantly lower than average. We know that the decision to participate turns on a sense of civic duty and a minimum level of political resources. Political parties and candidates are very well placed to offer political resources, but partisans are not necessarily interested or incentivized to convey a sense of civic duty to all eligible electors.

The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada is best positioned to answer for all Canadians why voting matters.

I am concerned that limiting the information provided by the Chief Electoral Officer may have a disproportionate effect on aboriginal electors in Canada, a group of people who comprise a majority in the Northwest Territories. I ask this committee to recommend removing the provisions of this bill that limit the power of communication by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada.

That concludes my opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Brock.

Mr. Archer, please make your opening statement.

[Keith Archer, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC]

I thank the chair and members of this committee for inviting me here this afternoon.

I'm Keith Archer, the Chief Electoral Officer of British Columbia, an appointment I have held since September 2011. Prior to this appointment, I was a professor of political science at the University of Calgary for 27 years.

Bill C-23 contains more provisions than I can address in the short time available to me. Consequently, my comments focus on two themes that go to the heart of some of the key provisions of the bill and which were discussed by the minister responsible in a newspaper article yesterday. They are first, voter identification and accessibility of the ballot, and second, citizen engagement in the electoral process.

Let me start with voter identification and accessibility of the ballot. Because Canada does not maintain a national citizen registry or issue universal national identity cards to all citizens, the federal jurisdiction and many provinces have adopted some variant of the same framework to provide proof of identity and current residential address for voting. That is a type one document, which is a government issued identity document with photograph, name, and residential address; or two type two documents, one of which has the person's name and one of which has the name and residential address; or a type three process as a fail-safe mechanism, which is the use of vouching.

Bill C-23 makes it more difficult to satisfy voter identification requirements by removing the voter information card from the list of approved type two documents and by eliminating vouching, the fail-safe method. I would encourage a rethinking of both these changes.

Only about 85% of Canadians possess a type one identity document, such as a driver's licence. For those 18 or 19 years of age, it's about 60% and falling. For those over 65, it's about 70%.

Type two documents are necessary to ensure that the millions of other eligible voters who don't have a current driver's licence can still exercise their section 3 charter right to vote. The list of type two documents that are approved is quite extensive. The independent non-partisan election administration agency approves type two documents usually following extensive discussions with various service providers to ensure that classes of voters are not administratively excluded from voting. We recognize that these documents considered individually are imperfect. Requiring that voters produce two such documents increases one's confidence that they establish that the voter is who he purports to be. This is added to other checks in the system such as having voting taking place in a public space, providing candidates the opportunity to scrutinize the voting process and to challenge voters on their right to be registered and to vote, hiring election officials from their local communities, and levying substantial penalties for voter impersonation.

The type two identification requirements strike a balance between proof of identity with certainty while ensuring an accessible ballot. The only document on the type two list controlled by the election agency is the voter information card, or in the case of British Columbia, the where to vote card. As we focus our efforts on continually improving the quality of the voters list, we continue to improve the quality of the VIC or the where to vote card.

The other identification issue in Bill C-23 is the removal of the vouching procedure.

In the 2013 general election in British Columbia, vouching was used by about 14,000 voters. It was just under 1% of all votes cast that were by voters who were vouched for.

Our analysis reveals that vouching is more common in rural districts and in mixed urban-rural districts. There is no doubt that vouching adds complexity to the voting process in B.C., and since the election official overseeing this process only receives three hours of training on all aspects of voting administration, we recognize there may be minor administrative errors in completing this process.

However, let's not confuse minor administrative errors, such as a voter not signing a vouching form in the right place, with election fraud. An analysis of administrative errors in vouching in B.C.'s 2013 election showed that fewer than 1,000 such minor errors occurred among the 1.8 million votes cast, and there was no indication of election fraud in any of these cases. Simplifying vouching procedures can dramatically reduce error rates.

The bottom line to vouching is this. Vouching allows tens of thousands of voters in B.C. and hundreds of thousands of voters in federal elections to exercise the franchise for which their citizenship entitles them. There is no evidence which I am aware of that links vouching provisions in Canadian elections with voter fraud, and there are many safeguards in place to ensure this is the case.

Let me talk briefly about citizen engagement. The last point I wish to make concerns citizen engagement in Canada's electoral process. In British Columbia, Elections BC is the province's window into the world of election administration. We are the people who are engaged to think about these issues every day of the year, to understand current research, trends, and best practices in other jurisdictions, and to ensure that expertise benefits our citizens and provides the best advice possible for policy-makers.

We have a particular role to play in removing barriers to participation so that all eligible electors can exercise their franchise. At times this could mean focusing extra efforts on citizens who face more substantial barriers than their neighbours. The right to vote is not diminished because a citizen is young, or a new Canadian, or because they have recently moved and their identity documents have not been updated.

It also means that we have a role to play in fostering public discussion about electoral matters. I was very pleased recently to head a panel in British Columbia that issued a report to the legislative assembly regarding the issue of Internet voting. We've benefited considerably from the previous work of our colleagues at Elections Ontario and Elections Canada. We also recently collaborated with the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, at UBC, on a conference on the 2013 B.C. election.

All of that is to say there are a number of groups that have an interest in fostering the democratic process: political parties and candidates, civil society organizations, scholars, activists, and not least of all, election administration agencies. Indeed, our election administration agencies in Canada are the only group specifically designed to take an independent non-partisan approach to citizen engagement.

I would encourage the committee to reconsider limiting the role of Canada's independent election agency from this important work. Elections Canada's current and past work stands as an international exemplar of election administration best practice.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to turn the floor back to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Super. Thank you both for your statements.

We'll go to Mr. Reid for a seven-minute round.

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

I'd like to start with Mr. Brock. Obviously you're both free to comment on the things I ask, but I am a little bit worried that if you both comment on my first question, I won't get around to the second one, which is intended for Professor Archer. I alert you to that.

On the issue of advertising, there was formerly very little in the way of restrictions on what the CEO could do. I was very frustrated with the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer spent a lot time advertising why you should vote and very little on how you can vote. I personally found some of the advertising ineffective, or so it seemed to me. The ads, for example, showed people with tape over their mouths start speaking and no sound comes out. I didn't think that was a very effective way of getting people out to vote. Also, it starts with the assumption that there's something wrong with the system, with you as a voter, if you aren't getting out and voting, and there's maybe something wrong with the people who are presenting themselves as candidates, as opposed to there being something wrong with the way the system itself is administered. There's a lot of evidence showing that actually is where the problem lies.

With regard to the problem of lack of youth participation, the CEO conducted a study and published it on his website. It broke down young people into five subcategories, as I recall, and then explained why they weren't participating. Lack of an accurate voter information card was ranked as one of the reasons for three of the subgroups, a majority of the subgroups. Clearly, there is a problem there. That is the reason it says, in the list of things the CEO's advertising can do, how electors may establish their identity and residence in order to vote, including the pieces of ID they may use to that end. I know this because I lobbied the minister to put this in. People don't vote in some cases because they aren't sure where to vote. They're new to the community and they're not sure where the voting takes place. They don't get a voter information card. Sometimes they're given information cards that give the wrong location. That can happen too. This is a significant problem, and it is not going to be resolved by an advertising campaign about why you should vote. It's about the bread and butter; here's how you vote.

Likewise, we had a group that came to my constituency office. We arranged a meeting with the minister. They were disabled people wanting to have it explained how people can vote if they're disabled: voting at home, voting if they're shut in. Anybody who's gone out canvassing knows there are many people who can't get out of their houses for a variety of reasons. They're disabled and they have to wait for their son or grandson to carry them down the stairs; that happens. They're in the middle of changing a diaper when you knock on their door to ask them to vote for you. There's a variety of reasons that make it difficult. How you can vote at an advanced poll; how you can vote at the returning office; how you can vote by mail; these are all things that are not advertised as well as they should be.

If I could make a change to section 18 of the act from what it says now, it wouldn't say that the Chief Electoral Officer may provide the public with these things; it would say that the Chief Electoral Officer must provide the public with these things, and must report afterwards as to how effective they were and how they could be improved.

I throw all these things out, and I understand what you're saying regarding advertising. I hope you can appreciate the frustrations I have with regard to the efficacy of our advertising, given some of the problems that exist.

[David Brock]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the comments and the question. I do have a strong appreciation for the arguments made by the member.

To provide an example, last March we cooperated with the Public Policy Forum to conduct a dialogue on youth civic engagement. Part of what we heard from young people was that they needed a better understanding of the reasons for voter registration and of the basic methodology of how to register to vote. That was a very strong message we took in recognizing there was a clear thread between two of the three priorities for the inter-election period for Elections NWT, improving civic engagement, particularly youth civic engagement, and improving the quality of our register of territorial electors, which produces the voters list, and that there was action we could take to act on that. That's an illustration of the strength of my appreciation for the argument just made by the member.

Perhaps I can say two things. One is that I think, in terms of reporting back, there's always value in agencies of Parliament reporting back to the legislature in terms of their effectiveness of how they spend taxpayer dollars. One of the difficulties, of course, with voter turnout is that there are numerous variables that affect turnout and so it's difficult to say, in a causal fashion, that one form of advertising may have been more effective than the other, although there have been suggestions about how randomized experiments and using different methods of advertising in different electoral districts can help discern between those.

Finally, I would say, with respect, that I think recognizing there's a need to improve the how, when, and why of voting doesn't necessarily negate the importance of having the Chief Electoral Officer also communicate the importance of voting generally. The two are not mutually exclusive, and I think both are very important to communicate to electors.

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

Thank you. Okay.

Given the fact that I have only one minute left in my allotted time, why don't I just ask Professor Archer to comment on the same thing rather than pose a new question.

[Keith Archer]

Sure.

In the recent election in British Columbia, we focused a lot of our attention on trying to convey a set of key messages to our electors. First, the message was where, when, and how to vote. The second message was that voting is your right as a citizen and we make significant opportunities available to you as a voter.

As David was saying, we tend not to separate into watertight compartments the types of messaging we provide to voters. Certainly, virtually all of our messaging includes the key elements of how an elector can exercise their franchise.

We also engaged in a lot of outreach of electors in the most recent election, particularly people who either were not on the voters list or for whom the information on the voters list was not current.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Archer. We have to move on. Mr. Reid's time is completed.

Maybe you'll get a chance to share that thought during Mr. Scott's seven minutes.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

To both guests, thank you for being here and for taking such great care with your presentations.

I thought, just to sort of announce where I'd like to try to get in seven minutes, I'd start with Mr. Brock. I appreciate that you had a couple of other recommendations that you didn't have time to cover in your remarks, and I wanted to ask you about two of them, at least.

With Mr. Archer in particular, I'd like to go a little bit more into the where to vote card, but I'll come to that in just a second.

Mr. Brock, I was glad to see that you've been reading the bill close enough that you are a little bit concerned, or maybe a lot concerned, about the fact that in clause 10, proposed section 20 would allow the Chief Electoral Officer to engage the service of persons having technical or specialized knowledge of any matter relating to the Chief Electoral Officer temporarily, but in order for them to be remunerated, Treasury Board would have to approve.

Just as an example, the Auditor General doesn't have that kind of constraint on what he or she can do by way of hiring temporary specialists, and I believe they can draw directly on the consolidated revenue fund for that purpose.

I'm wondering if you could speak briefly to this question, and then maybe Mr. Archer has some thoughts on it. Is this an inappropriate insertion of government budgetary decision-making in the realm of a parliamentary officer?

[David Brock]

Great, thank you for that question. Thank you for raising one of the matters that was addressed in my brief that I didn't have time to address in my opening statement.

Perhaps I can say three things about the provision that would require Treasury Board approval to remunerate officials working for Elections Canada to provide technical assistance or other specialized knowledge. One thing is it is difficult to discern from the bill as it's currently written how that might be applied, because we have no cases of implementation to draw upon, so in some ways I'm working from an understanding of what I think the implication of the bill would be, but we would have a better understanding if this were implemented, and my hope is that it won't be, as I've made clear in the brief.

There are two issues here. One is that Elections Canada often engages individuals in the area of research or in specialized technical work within the institution, and they're very good about publishing the results of that work. I, as Chief Electoral Officer in a smaller jurisdiction by number of electors, and in this case even by geography, rely upon that work because Elections NWT has nowhere near the capacity of Elections Canada to produce that kind of what is really world-class research on electoral behaviour and election administration.

In addition to that, I don't believe that university academics would fill that gap because, having spent some time in that area, and Dr. Archer knows this better than anyone, political scientists or others are mandated to respond to gaps in the theoretical literature, not necessarily to address public policy challenges that Elections Canada or the Parliament of Canada may be facing in a very short amount of time.

My final point is one which I think is fundamental to a few provisions in the bill. I think it is important in this country to think carefully about the relationship between officers of Parliament or, in my case, officers of a legislative assembly, and the executive. I think that going back to 1920, the understanding was that we needed to have an impartial body that did not have an accountability or reporting requirement to the government, but rather had that requirement to the legislature, and Elections Canada is perhaps the strongest example of that in the world.

My concern with this provision is perhaps inconsequential as it could be in the long term, depending on how it's implemented, that it fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between Elections Canada and the Parliament of Canada. The office of the Chief Electoral Officer is not an arm of the executive. The office of the Chief Electoral Officer is an agent of Parliament, and the accountability relationship and responsibility is owed to Parliament as a whole.