Procedure and House Affairs committee  They would have to register and they would have to have been away from Canada for less than five years. That's the current status of the law. If they've been away for more than five years or haven't resumed residence in Canada, they can no longer vote. I say that with a caveat, b

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have checks and balances to ensure that these are properly qualified electors, but I will not deny that this is an unsupervised voting process. We rely on the honesty and the good faith of Canadians. We have also a system that provides a criminal offence for this type of inte

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's already the system in place. Whether you print your ballot or you get it by mail, the issue will be the same. The system assumes that those who rely on voting by mail will do it as independently and secretly as all other electors. I'm sorry to say that I don't know how we

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It has been a true honour for me to serve you all for these many years. Some of you may have found that it was too long, but it was a pleasure, and it gave me a unique perspective on the type of work that is done here. I've always tried to bring t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Oh, yes. That's a very valid point. This is for electors who are properly registered and who show up at the advance poll with their ID and their voter information card.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If you're not registered or if you need to change your registration, you would still have to sign the traditional forms that in those cases you have to fill in. It's really to deal with the mainstream electors who come with their ID and voter information cards and are at the righ

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I can certainly speak for Elections Canada. I won't speak for candidates and campaigns. The main challenge, which I'm sure you faced as well with your volunteers, was retaining people on board for twice the normal length of a campaign. Many ROs, returning officers, faced that ch

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have a register of citizens residing abroad. I would have to look up the figures again, but it's roughly 5,000 Canadians residing abroad. There is an estimate of the population of Canadians abroad that runs over a million, but as I said, very few are registered.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. In fact, the changes we're recommending are that they could download the ballot electronically and send it back to us with their own envelopes. Rather than having to wait to receive a kit from Elections Canada, they could save that time. They could register online, download

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We would have to look into that in more detail. This thing is suggested as a way to ensure that we continue to have poll-by-poll results. One of the downsides of allowing people to move around, in terms of voting, is that you may not get as granular a result as candidates and pa

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Currently?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are two types of pilot, just to be clear: one that involves a change to the Elections Act and one that does not involve a change to the Elections Act. I'll give you the best example. Opening a special ballot office on campuses across the country did not require changes to

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are three considerations. There's the ease of recruiting qualified people to do the work. It would be easier on a weekend. There's also having access to facilities. Right now the challenge for returning officers to secure schools for voting is tremendous. Increasingly s

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If we have certainty about the election period, that would make it easier. There are some staff. Returning officers' key staff are trained before the writ is issued, of course. The 285,000, however, we can hardly train much in advance because they need to know when they will be a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They can register. They have to register, and normally in the year of an election we will contact citizens overseas and issue pamphlets inviting them to register. That's the first thing they have to do. When the election is called, we issue the ballot kits. We do a bit of work pr