Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 3rd, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Gentlemen, please.

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

Shame on you, Craig.

Just a minute, Mr. Chair—

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

It's authorized.

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

—Mr. Scott has just used unparliamentary language in accusing me of misleading people.

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

I did indeed.

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

It's unparliamentary. I did nothing of the sort. He has to withdraw that.

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

I'm not withdrawing anything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Please.

Thank you.

One at a time to the chair or to a witness, but not to each other.

Let's continue.

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

Mr. Chair, the Chief Electoral Officer has the authority to designate ID. He had designated voter information cards to approximately one million people in 2011. The idea that's being suggested or implied that this was not acceptable or authorized in 2011 is wrong.

The second thing is that the Chief Electoral Officer testified that with an accuracy rate of 90%, the VIC is likely the most accurate and widely available government document. Licences are just as inaccurate as VICs because the addresses on them are often way out of date so the wild scenarios of Mr. Reid can occur with licences just as well—

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you. Mr. Scott, stop for a second.

I have a point of order from Mr. Reid.

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

The point was that Professor Craig stated that I had misled this committee. If he wants to argue that there's information that I had not taken into account, that I was misinformed, or any of these other things, that's fine. But to argue that I've been disingenuous in front of this committee is unacceptable. I would never make such an accusation against him without evidence. I think he should withdraw that statement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Scott, help me with order by saying so.

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

Mr. Chair, I did not use the word disingenuous. I suggested that the way in which the question was put gave the wrong impression.

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

You used the word “misled”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I do believe you used the word “misled” and I'd love you to help me deal with this.

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

I will.

Mr. Reid did not deliberately mislead the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Move on.

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

If I could start by asking three questions.

In particular, I would like Mr. Howe and Mr. Dinsdale to address them because I only have a couple of minutes.

First, do you see any particular reason why section 18 as it exists, the public education and outreach, and the one suggested by the minister and championed by Mr. Reid for very good reasons that he's been giving, can't sit side by side? Is there any reason why we have to get rid of the existing one and replace it with only the current one? The minister has refused from day one when I suggested this to even consider it.

Secondly, with regard to cause and effect, do you see any evidence that the public outreach and education efforts by Elections Canada, including with the AFN, have had either no or negative effects?

I'll leave it at that because I only have a minute.

Thank you.

[Peter Dinsdale]

First off, I think the primary difference that we see in the change of section 18, of course, is the lack of proactive outreach and the lack of being able to research, particularly voting patterns, and the identification of groups who participate. That would seem to me to be the barrier that we're trying to address.

Secondly, I don't think there's any perfect database. I haven't seen one database out there that is not without flaw. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work to fix those databases, but my view is that the voter information card for first nations is a very useful tool. I'm not aware of any fraud, any issues, or any challenges based on the use of those in past elections.

[Prof. Paul Howe]

For my part, I think that the current role of the Chief Electoral Officer in promoting voter participation should be retained and it should be expanded. Although it's difficult to say what the precise effects of the initiatives that Elections Canada has undertaken are, we have a lot of evidence from other jurisdictions that have been able to use more precise methods of assessments—experimental-type methods and so on—which would say that when you do engage in voter outreach, it does have tangible effects. Sometimes they're rather small but you do have tangible effects and they add up. As you do more and more it all adds up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair

Thank you to our witnesses. I appreciate your being here.

I only have a few minutes, so let me just say to Mr. Dinsdale that given the fact you've come here today on behalf of first nations and said that this is creating new barriers.... Quite frankly, if this government had the respect they should have for our first nations people, that alone should be enough to bring this process to a screeching halt, and give more people—meaning Canadians themselves—an opportunity to comment on this. But they're not. I'm so glad you're here putting a face on the Canadians who stand to lose their precious vote.

But I want to swing over to Mr. Thorsteinson by way of commenting on your talk about the lack of documentation for the rebates that are given. While the government doesn't seem to be affected by the first nations, by the opposition, by the Chief Electoral Officer, the commissioner of elections, or an other expert who has commented on this, they've really done it now, because they've riled up Sheila Fraser. If there's one person in this country who Canadians count on to tell them the truth, it's Sheila Fraser. What did Madam Fraser say, as quoted in the media:

There's such a fuss being made about lunch money and what (politicians) spend for travel and (yet) the political parties get more than $30 million (in rebates and tax credits) and there's no real accounting back.... In this era when everybody’s talking about increased transparency and accountability, why would they not be subject to some kind of audit?

This refers to the fact that, of the $66 million in the last election that the federal parties—all of them—paid, they got $33 million back in rebates and they didn't have to provide a single receipt. There was no need to bring a receipt. I've mentioned before that it used to be around here, when I first got here—it was only changed a couple of years ago—that you could submit a $25 expense claim for a cab without a receipt, because it was deemed to be a small, minor administrative matter. Then, in this new era, everybody said, “Well, wait a minute. You can't go giving out 25 bucks without a receipt. What the heck.” Here we are giving away $33 million with no receipts.

So, Mr. Thorsteinson, if you would comment on how that looks from outside the Ottawa bubble, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

[Barry Thorsteinson]

Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, you cited quite a number of organizations, bodies, experts, or whatever who've chipped in already. I think it's on the record and the committee is well aware of their comments.

My comment would be, it will only have an impact when the governing-party base begins to start saying quietly, through their channels, that we are here to conserve democracy, we are not here to erode it, and this is going against Canadian values and standards. When they hear that enough from their own base, then the political impact will add up on the fallacy of this legislation.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.