Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Could I ask you to just submit to us some more detailed kinds of timelines, and what the minimums are there? I believe that's the sort of thing that needs to be done in writing. That would be very helpful to us or the committee that is to be set up—the special committee—to guide us in deliberations.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Now we'll go to Mr. Christopherson, and thank you for chairing.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's fine. I was looking forward to recognizing myself and running over here and taking the seat. That would have been a first. After 30 years, you're always looking for firsts.

Thank you so much. It's good to see you all again. I am absolutely thrilled to be here to be part of the review of this with you.

There are a couple of things I just want to clear up. You mentioned in your opening comments two of your major tasks, one of which is auditing the financial returns of political entities and issuing reimbursements of election expenses. Correct me if my memory is wrong, but it seems to me that we still have on the books the rule that federal parties submit to you the expenses for which they expect reimbursement and they don't have to provide a receipt. Is that still the regime?

[Marc Mayrand]

Correct.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Let's be clear. Like everybody else, in my own return, I have to give you the receipts, and I have to give you anything you ask for, but the federal parties, where there is how much money in total—a rough calculation...?

[Marc Mayrand]

In terms of reimbursement?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, to the federal parties.

[Marc Mayrand]

It would be over $60 million.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Sixty million dollars goes back to our respective political parties—no receipts required.

Thank you to the previous government for not changing this.

You still can't compel witnesses, too. Remember, we had a problem around that, and you still can't do that. When you're trying to suss out whether things are legitimate or not, you still don't have the power to force someone to testify. Is that correct?

[Marc Mayrand]

The commissioner cannot compel witnesses.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I use these points deliberately as a segue into my next question.

Chair, I'm going to ask your indulgence to at least allow me to place the question, but I accept and respect the fact that no government member has to answer. I think I'm entitled to at least ask the question, through you. I hope you will allow it.

With that, and I'm not trying to put any colleagues on the spot, is there a government member who can help the rest of us understand what the government's thinking is around the reforms? The government has said that it's going to strike a special legislative committee to deal with this, and yet Monsieur Mayrand comes in after every election. This would now be my fifth time going through this process. And there's going to be a whole host of changes, and I guarantee you, it's a lot of work. Indeed, Chair, we will need to set up a lot of time for this if we're going to be the ones who do it. It's a very complex procedure. It's fun because we all tend to work together to try to find fairness, as opposed to winning an argument, but it's still a lot of work.

My question for the government members is, given that this work is going to come, and my experience tells me that's a very all-inclusive, encompassing process, how does that link up with the government's plan to do a complete revamp of the whole electoral system?

We have two initiatives happening. One clearly comes here, but how does this special committee link into this work, and is it going to link in? We don't want to do the same thing in two different places, I wouldn't think. That wouldn't get us anywhere. Where's it going to go? Is it going to reside with us? However, that doesn't make sense to me from a common-sense point of view. If the government is going to set up a special committee to look at everything, it seems to me that we, as the procedure and House affairs committee, might want to consider handing this off to them, if they're willing to accept it, if they're going to become the experts in this Parliament on this.

I have those those kinds of general questions, Chair. I put them out there, and I respect that the government members are under no obligation to answer, but if they can provide any guidance or enlightenment, that would be helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Chan.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I simply want to thank Mr. Christopherson for his comments, and I know that we're deviating from the main purpose of our witnesses being here today—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes and no.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

The point is well taken. We'll take it under advisement. I'll bring it up your concerns with the Minister of Democratic Institutions. I think they're legitimate.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Fair enough. That's fine. I accept that. I appreciate your responding to me.

I also wanted to tie in, with whatever time I have left, to where Mr. Reid was going. It may not be for the same purpose, but I think the process that we're looking for is the same.

Mr. Reid has been clear. They're pushing for the referendum. He was upfront about that. I'm upfront about the fact that we believe big time in proportional representation. We know the government has a favoured model, but they're going to have a bit of a problem because the whole country knows that it would skew the system in their favour, and being fair-minded folks, they wouldn't want to be stuck with that label.

I still think there's hope for proportional representation. I truly do. Is there enough time, though, for us to do a complete revamp?

We'll leave the referendum piece out for now because Mr. Reid has asked some questions on that.

By the way, Chair, a few Parliaments ago there were some of us here who spent the better part of a couple of years going through the Referendum Act and bringing in experts. I'm just saying there's a whole baseline of fairly accurate in-depth information from constitutional experts, and there are Mr. Mayrand's thoughts, and his people's thoughts.

The work is there, Chair, if we end up going down that road, but is there enough time right now for us to revamp the whole system, completely redesign it, and have it ready for the next election?

What we're looking for obviously, and I'm not trying to trap you—I wouldn't dream of trying—is the trigger point. Once we get past a certain point it's not going to be practical. We share the concerns of Mr. Reid.

What would be the time needed to do a complete revamp, such as you've heard some of us talking about, in your best estimation, sir?

[Marc Mayrand]

Well, I'll put it to the committee that legislation enacting the reform should be there at least 24 months before the election. There are all sorts of hypotheses. I don't know what exactly the reform will be, but if it involves a redistribution exercise, which PR does by definition, this is a significant undertaking. The timelines have already been cut in previous legislation. I don't know that they can be reduced any more. In fact, the commission asked for an extension in the last redistribution exercise.

It's not something that can be compressed easily unless, again, you redesign the whole redistribution process, but that's another—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That speaks to the front end, and at the back end, you're saying, “All that work needs to be done. Push the button. You need two years.”

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, once you have the redistribution, you would need six to seven months to implement the new maps, the new districts, and then we would need to get ready for the election. We would need to prepare all the training. We would also need to build the systems that would support this new regime.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

There may be a major public education component that would have to be built in too.

[Marc Mayrand]

Of course. Absolutely. We can assume that there would be a need for major public education.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

To follow up on my previous question about voter education, when we look at the regular program expenditures, we're talking about $29 million in-between elections. That does not include public awareness campaigns to encourage people to vote if they're over the age of 18 and are eligible voters, even though Canada is part of International IDEA, which actually provides best practices to other countries on exactly how to do that very thing.

[Marc Mayrand]

That's correct. Elections Canada is, in fact, the only body in the world that I know of that cannot promote democracy within the country.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much for that clarification.

You say you're in the process now of auditing the financial returns of political parties and candidates. However, once that audit is complete, if you find there are potential breaches, the ability to investigate breaches of the Canada Elections Act was moved from the commissioner of Canada elections, which reports through you to Parliament—