Evidence of meeting #35 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was advertising.
A video is available from Parliament.
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
One of the Scotts is going to speak. I'll figure that out in a second.
8:05 p.m.
NDP
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay, Mr. Reid, go ahead. No, I'm just kidding.
Mr. Simms, you're up.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
You're a sweetheart.
On a point of clarification, what you've just mentioned was from amendment G-4. We're getting to that next. Is that correct?
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Maybe I should save my comments for that, then.
8:05 p.m.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I'm wondering if we can stand this discussion until after we deal with amendment G-4, partly because it was intended to be left until the very end, until we were clear on what had happened with amendment G-4 and what amendment G-4 included.
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I'm happy to leave amendment NDP-7.4 and go to amendment G-4 and then we can go right back to amendment NDP-7.4, if that's the case.
8:05 p.m.
An hon. member
I think that would be helpful.
8:05 p.m.
An hon. member
I agree.
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay.
I now have amendment G-4, and speaking on behalf of amendment G-4 is Mr. Lukiwski.
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
As I was saying just a few moments ago, the purpose of amendment G-4 is to clarify that the Chief Electoral Officer may implement public education and information programs to make the electoral process better known to students at the primary and secondary levels. There are quite a number of intervenors who mentioned that they had some concerns with the bill before we introduced this amendment, because it would prevent that type of cooperation between the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada and student organizations. This clarifies that. This is in response to things such as Student Vote, civics. It gives certainty that the Chief Electoral Officer may continue with the same public education and information programs that he had been engaged in during previous years.
Also, and this just deals with the advertising, we still contend that the focus of Elections Canada advertising should be on the where, when, and how to vote. We have consistently seen and heard evidence that the voter turnout across Canada, and most alarmingly among young people, has been declining steadily over the last number of elections, all the time that Elections Canada was advertising why a person should actually get out and exercise their franchise, why they should get out and vote.
My purpose, as I've stated many times when we listened to our intervenors, was that in effect, if the advertising was focused on telling electors where to vote, when to vote, and how to vote, and what kind of identification is required, that would be the salient information that prospective voters need. Survey after survey has indicated that many times the reasons people didn't vote is they didn't have that basic information. The added benefit is that by merely advertising the basics, you are in effect promoting voter turnout because you're constantly telling people there's an election coming up, and here's what they need to know in order to cast their ballot.
We have in this country an excellent system, both within our schools and our political parties, within society as a whole, of engaging Canadians as to the rights and privileges of voting and why it is important to get out and vote. We do not think it is necessary for Elections Canada to continue spending advertising dollars on that focus when, in fact, they should be focusing their efforts on convincing people and telling them the information they need to get out and cast a ballot. That's what this clause does.
So we add:
(1.1) For greater certainty, subsection (1) does not prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from transmitting or causing to be transmitted advertising messages for any other purpose relating to his or her mandate.
We're saying the focus should be on the where, when, and how, but it does not cause any difficulty for the Chief Electoral Officer or his staff in transmitting any other advertising messages relating to his mandate. It opens it up. It does not prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from speaking to the public. This simply talks about advertising campaigns relating to student votes, and what the focus of Elections Canada should be with respect to formal advertising.
There's nothing in this bill that says the Chief Electoral Officer cannot speak to the general public. The minister made that quite clear in his comments, which were quoted extensively by my friends opposite last Friday.
Amendment G-4 clarifies, to the government's satisfaction at least, what the focus of advertising campaigns should be on behalf of Elections Canada. It certainly includes the very important provisions with respect to public education, student votes, and student involvement.
April 29th, 2014 / 8:10 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Lukiwski, some time ago I had the honour of joining the Governor General when he went to China and Mongolia. In both of those countries, there are many reasons they love our country. One of the reasons is Elections Canada. It isn't so much the size of Elections Canada, or how they are able to conduct elections in a country this size; it simply is the independence. Every young democracy, and this country, praises us for its independence.
In the testimony we received here, time and time again witnesses praised the civics program, which you're doing as well, but each witness never said that the prescription to this bill was not to save this program; the prescription was to save the independence of the office, to allow it to invest in a program like civics. It gives them that freedom to do that.
What you have done here in your amendment is not something to give them freedom. You've cherry-picked something that you think you like, which is a good program. But by saying, “We'll give you independence,” in other words, choose a card from this deck of cards, the problem is that the deck only has one card. You're being way too prescriptive in the independence that you want to give.
Despite the fact that you keep focusing on the method of which voting...which is noble, which is what they want to do, but let these people decide how it is they will make democracy more effective.
In this particular amendment, at the end you say the following:
(1.1) For greater certainty, subsection (1) does not prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from transmitting or causing to be transmitted advertising messages for any other purpose relating to his or her mandate.
Well, the mandate was set by you, not by them. That's where the problem lies in all of this.
I don't accept this for several reasons. I think what you have done is you have curbed the independence and are pretending, and you're doing this by cherry-picking particular positives in this group.
8:10 p.m.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
My comments are also a question, and I hope someone on the other side is willing to answer it.
I would like to know why, on the topic of public education and information programs, the amendment specifies, “to students at the primary and secondary levels”. Why include such a small and restrictive specification?
I don't think anyone listened to my question. So I don't think I will obtain an answer to it.
Is there a reason for this?
8:10 p.m.
A voice
No, no.
8:10 p.m.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Okay.
I think this is a problem. We were told that many other groups were benefiting from those public education programs, such as aboriginals or university and college students. The programs can also be used to encourage young people who are not in school to vote. Elections Canada could target many people in the past. Programs were in place to try to encourage them to participate in elections.
I am wondering whether such a provision, which clearly specifies that the programs are intended for students at the primary and secondary levels, will mean that the Chief Electoral Officer will no longer be able to develop a new program targeting other groups. That's my question. I am very curious to know what the reason is.
8:15 p.m.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
This is not going in the order I wanted it to go. We need to get some clarity on what these changes mean before turning to what was my previous amendment with “for greater certainty”, which I still worry is necessary, but maybe not to the same extent as under the previous wording.
We're looking at all of amendment G-4, not just the subsections, right?
8:15 p.m.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
The first thing is, you should all know that current subsection 18(1) reads:
The Chief Electoral Officer may implement public education and information programs to make the electoral process better known to the public, particularly to those persons and groups most likely to experience difficulties in exercising their democratic rights.
The current law allows Elections Canada, through the Chief Electoral Officer, or vice versa, to engage in public education outreach information programs across the board with there being this kind of purpose of gloss that is for those most disadvantaged or most likely to need this kind of education.
The government has essentially taken that exact idea, struck out the clause on all “those persons and groups most likely to experience difficulties”, and substituted “students at the primary and secondary levels”.
Just as my colleague Mr. Simms said, the government has indeed cherry-picked. After all of the days of hearings that we had with 70-plus witnesses, they were not.... In no way was there an outpouring of people saying that all they wanted kept is civics and Student Vote or like programs. There is all kinds of information about how Elections Canada engages in public education outreach to groups, Canadians in general, and how it should have every right—and this is Scott's point, I know—to expand as it makes sense.
We had testimony from the president of the Ethiopian Association in Toronto, and I honestly think his testimony could stand in for many new immigrant groups. He talked about how new Canadians in particular benefit from information programs of this public education sort that aren't limited to the who, what, and where list that's in the government's bill. He gave really good reasons why a lot of new Canadians benefit in particular from this kind of public education, including coming from systems and contexts where the very idea of an efficacious vote, the very idea of voting as a civic virtue and a responsibility is something that's laughed at as opposed to being part of one's life.
The kinds of work that we know through Mr. Kingsley and then Mr. Mayrand, the kinds of outreach public education work that would have fallen within this provision that exists now with respect to aboriginal Canadians and aboriginal reserve communities are no longer permitted by this because the list is a list of one: students at primary and secondary levels.
Also university students, we know, apart from those in school.... University level is where it can all end. If first-time university or college students have the vote and don't vote, then do that one more time, we've almost lost them for good as voters. Public education and information programs to make the electoral process better known to all those parts of the public have not been reinstated in the government's amendment. It is extremely important to keep that in mind.
Quite obviously, we have amendments coming up that attempt to broaden this to the general provision that we had before, but please, everybody listening here or outside, do not think that this is simply implementing either what we heard in committee or reflecting what the current law is. It isn't. It's coming back to a very truncated slice, however important, of the public who can benefit from public education.
The next thing is the current clause, before Mr. Lukiwski's G-4 amendment, starts out very worryingly. That's why we got into this discussion about what might be precluded. The current provision says that the Chief Electoral Officer may provide the public “with information on the following topics only”.
To provide information is a very general provision. The word “only” is very limiting. It gave rise to the concerns by the Chief Electoral Officer that his generally speaking out might be an issue, but he also said that wording caused him concern with respect to a severe limit on the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate with the public. He mentioned that it could include publication of research in areas that aren't in that list, online recruitment of election officers, publication of reports that aren't specifically mandated to Parliament, issuing news releases, a press conference, whatever.
The word “advertising” never appeared in this until.... The minister kept talking about how this is only about advertising, and the wording didn't reflect that.
Now we have Mr. Lukiwski's amendment saying this is only about advertising, and on the side he's saying, as I believe I'm hearing, that it can't therefore have the same effect that the Chief Electoral Officer worried about in the past. It can't have a muzzling effect because it doesn't occupy the space in the same way: it's not so general; it's only about advertising. I'd like to say that's a much more comforting argument. I'd still want to be fighting for a “for greater certainty” clause, given how all this started, but it seems much more plausible than it did under the old wording.
That said, I'm really confused by the “for greater certainty” clause, and I'm wondering if I can ask the folks from the Privy Council to help me. Just so that everybody knows, what this provision now says is:
The Chief Electoral Officer may transmit or cause to be transmitted advertising messages, both inside and outside Canada, to inform electors about the exercise of their democratic rights.
That's a general category or idea. It goes on to say:
Such advertising messages shall only address
Then it's the same list, the targeted list idea.
The “for greater certainty” clause then says that the subsection I just read doesn't prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from transmitting or causing to be transmitted advertising messages for any other purpose relating to his or her mandate.
On first blush, when I read the savings clause, I thought what's the point, because the first part says you can only do this, and the second part says you can do any other advertising you want. That clearly seems to be a conflict. I'm wondering if that is because the chapeau, proposed subsection 18(1), refers to informing electors about the exercise of their democratic rights.
What the savings clause refers to is anything other than that. Is that correct?
8:20 p.m.
Senior Officer and Counsel, Privy Council Office
Yes, that's correct. The first part is the restrictions on the topics that he can advertise on with respect to advertising messages to inform electors about the exercise of their democratic rights, and the “for greater certainty” clause allows him to advertise for any other purposes in his mandate. For instance, just as one example, if he's holding a competition to fill a returning officer position, then he would be allowed to advertise for the purposes of that competition.
