Bill C-16 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to provide that, subject to an earlier dissolution of Parliament, a general election must be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following polling day for the last general election, with the first general election after this enactment comes into force being held on Monday, October 19, 2009.
The enactment also provides that the Chief Electoral Officer may recommend an alternate day if the day set for polling is not suitable.

Business of the House

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue with Bill C-28, the bill to implement the 2006 budget tax measures. This would be followed, time permitting, with Bill S-2, hazardous materials, and Bill C-6, the aeronautics amendments.

Tomorrow we will continue with the business from today with the possibility as well of completing the third reading stage of Bill C-16. I will talk to the opposition House leader about that after this.

Next week we hope to begin debate on some of the government's justice bills. The first one will be on the age of consent, Bill C-22. If we could get unanimous consent to pass that at all stages that would be very much appreciated.

We will go then to Bill C-27, our dangerous offenders bill and any cooperation we can get to move that along would be appreciated, I think, by the people of this country.

I am looking forward to sitting down with the official opposition and other parties to discuss the speedy passage of the many popular bills that the government has introduced and I am looking forward to their cooperation on that.

Pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), I would like to designate Tuesday, October 31, as the day to continue debate on the second report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

In response to the member's questions, consideration in committee of the whole of the votes under the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development on the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, shall take place on Wednesday, November 1, 2006, pursuant to the Standing Orders. The second day for consideration of committee of the whole will be November 7, 2006.

As well, I should indicate that Thursday, November 2, 2006, shall be an allotted day.

With respect to the member's questions with respect to the same sex marriage, we will fulfill our campaign promise on that and we will be proceeding with it this fall.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

With respect to people in hospitals on polling day, the law is clear. For visitors or patients, there is no poll in a hospital. These people would have to have signified that they wanted to vote and stated where they were from. There's no poll in a hospital, which is a short-term facility. When former committees considered this, they recognized that in a hospital you're going to have people from different ridings. This may occur even at a Yukon hospital. If the committee wished to make an exception for hospitals in remote areas, it would have to amend the statute. This is something the committee should consider.

With respect to the VIC, voter information card, it is still being sent to people. Some are being thrown away. I'm having discussions right now with the president of Canada Post to see how we could prevent those cards from circulating. I'll come back to the committee once I'm advised by Canada Post about what they think they can do to help Canadian democracy in this respect.

The other question related to Bill C-16. I'll reply to it at the appropriate time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I have no problem whatsoever in allowing the time, but we have a minute and a half left. I think the comments on Bill C-16 might be best kept to another time, and maybe we can just focus on some of the other concerns in the minute and a half left.

Thank you.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I'm not normally on this committee, so I beg the committee's indulgence. Some of the things I want to put on record are related to elections, but may not be related to today's agenda, because I don't get that much access to the Chief Electoral Officer.

I'd like to talk about a couple of things that have come up in elections. One is related to ID, which we've talked about. I agree with the idea of having ID, but just to emphasize Mr. Owen's point, communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut don't have any roads to get there, so most people won't have driver's licences. Youths don't have driver's licences. There just isn't the ID available, so it's a problem for which we're going to have to figure out a solution.

The lists have been problematic in our area. I like a permanent electoral list. I just think we have to refine it better, because we go to every second house and there are people there who don't live there, they've moved, they have way more children than they're supposed to have, etc.

We have a big problem with hospitals in rural areas. It's true that if a person is in the hospital, they can vote. The problem is that for every person in the hospital, sometimes they have between five and ten visitors, especially if it's an acute thing. The problem is that you don't know when you're going to go into the hospital emergency ward. These people come from a hundred miles away because there's only one hospital in the entire Yukon, which is bigger than any country in Europe. People have to come from all over the Yukon, which results in them not being in their riding that day, so they're disenfranchised. They can't vote. There's no way they can get back a hundred miles to vote and there's no way they're going to abandon a person on their death bed who they didn't know was going to be there on election day.

I don't know if we still do voting cards. I don't get involved in the mechanics of the election that much, being the candidate, but there was an issue with this at some time in the past. A voting card came in the mail. In our area, there are a lot of these mailboxes. People go to their mailboxes and they throw out all their junk mail and anything that doesn't have their name on it, so you end up with piles of voting cards all over the place and people can just pick them up and vote with them.

Finally, my last point is on Bill C-16. As the Chief Electoral Officer, I'm sure you must be aware of the problems caused when there are two elections at the same time. That's not very convenient in Canada. It's very confusing for the voter. One election is confusing enough as far as enumeration, advance polls, and all that are concerned.

Unfortunately, we have Bill C-16, which doesn't make a provision that you're going to have elections. The first time there's an election, it's going to be three days away from a Yukon election. My suggestion is that we amend that bill so that there's an ability to change the time of elections by a month instead of three days, really, so that we don't have overlapping elections. I think everyone thinks that would make sense.

I don't know if you want to comment on any of those, but those are things that have come up in elections in my area.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kingsley, I would like to begin with a comment. We remain greatly perplexed as to the accuracy of the lists. The best evidence of this is that in your 2005 report, you asked that the deadline for distributing the lists be changed from October 15 to November 15. I doubt that this request was made simply on a whim. You no doubt realized that on November 15, the lists would be more accurate and would reflect the considerable number of moves in Quebec.

It explains why we put forward an amendment to Bill C-16 to change the election date suggested in the said bill, i.e. the third Monday in October. That is what is called “crying over spilt milk”.

When you appear again before this Committee after the next elections, we will again lament the inaccuracy of the lists. I warn you in advance that if the voters put there confidence in me once again and I am still a member of this Committee, I will say: “I told you so!”

That being said, I want to get back to the bingo cards. In your letter of October 5, I get the feeling you wanted to make things more complicated than they really are.

Has anyone from your office spoken to Mr. Blanchet or one of his representatives to have them explain this system to you? Do you consider that you have an in-depth knowledge of the bingo card system in Quebec?

For example, you said that a photocopier will be needed at each polling station. Are you aware of the NCR, or no carbon required forms? In Quebec, there is an NCR sheet. The party that shows up first gets the first copy, and the second gets the second copy. Why make it complicated when it’s so simple?

You also said that it would cost between $10.6 million and $23.5 million to hire staff to manage it all. Why not ask the poll clerk already in the polling station to cross names off on the lists, while having the bingo card next to him or her? The poll clerk could indicate that voter No. 28 voted in the last two hours. There would be no need for additional staff.

If you say that this involves costs for employees, some people will surely ask if they are crazy, when it comes to the bingo cards. I asked, and in Quebec, the work is done by the clerk.

You say that the list is confidential. Well, they would not be handing out photocopies of the list, but a sheet listing 28, 128, 132, etc. We have the lists, and we can check and see that voter No. 28’s name is Jean-Pierre Kingsley and that he voted between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m..

Procedure and House Affairs

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding its order of reference of Tuesday, September 19, 2006, in relation to Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act.

The committee considered Bill C-16 and reported the bill without amendment.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just in the interest of further understanding what, if any, consequential amendments might be necessary if we were to agree to this amendment to Bill C-16, I wonder if our witnesses could be asked their opinion on this. What ramifications might it have for other parts of the bill?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

The amendment proposed by the NDP is troublesome to me especially because, in Bill C-16, proposed sub-paragraphs 1 through 5 of Section 56.2 are, I believe, sufficiently explicit with regard to the procedure to follow and to the criteria to take into consideration when changing the day an election may be held. That includes the possibility that a Monday may not be suitable “[…] by reason of its being in conflict with a day of cultural or religious significance or a provincial or municipal election […]“.

Given that the Committee, in its wisdom, has decided to reject the Bloc’s amendment to change the date, the day or the month for holding a general election, I prefer that the Bill be maintained as is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Are there any comments?

I will pose the question to the committee again. We'll do yeas and nays by hands.

It is moved that Bill C-16 in clause 1 be amended....

I'm sorry, did you want to speak? Perhaps I went too fast. My apologies.

Yes, Mr. Reid, speaking to the amendment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

I think we're ready for the question.

Members, how shall we vote? Just yeas and nays, with hands? Is that acceptable to the committee?

I see agreement.

The amendment before us is that Bill C-16 in clause 1 be amended by replacing lines 12 and 13, on page 1, with the following:

election must be held on the fourth Monday of April in the fourth calendar year following

Does this amendment carry?

(Amendment negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Members, the officials at the end of the table are here to help us with any technical questions we may have. Members, the amendments package was distributed on Monday. Amendments are marked by the party presenting them and are in the order in which they are stipulated by the bill. Indeed, we'll come to each amendment as we go through the bill. That's the order we've decided makes most sense.

We have an agenda in front of us, but before we begin, I'd like to introduce Mr. Wayne Cole, the legislative clerk assigned to this bill. He will also help with the process of walking us through it.

As the first order of business, everybody has Bill C-16 in front of you. I'll simply note for members that there are no amendments to clause 1.

Oh, I'm sorry. Let's deal with the amendments to clause 1, which are the Bloc motions of Monsieur Guimond.

(On clause 1)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

We're tabling the report. I understand that we can talk about this later, and we can move to clause-by-clause on Bill C-16. Thank you.

I want to advise members that as we move through clause-by-clause on Bill C-16, we will do so in the usual manner.

Perhaps I can ask the officials at the end of the table to introduce themselves, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, and welcome again this morning, ladies and gentlemen. We don't have a lot to do this morning, but I do want to get started on time. We have some other issues that we need to deal with.

To start with standard business, I want to remind members that today's meeting will be held in public as we begin clause-by-clause study of Bill C-16.

Before we begin that, I want to remind members, or at least let you know, that the government response to our thirteenth report that we tabled in June was delivered on Friday. I'm sure most of you have it by now. We'll talk a little bit about that at the end of the meeting. We can defer it until Thursday or we can talk about it at the end. We might want to consider whether we want to send a response.

As well, on Thursday, as members know, we're going to begin discussions--if time permits from today's meeting--on the conflict of interest code. But we can discuss that at the end of the meeting today. I will leave time for that.

Mr. Dewar, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Before we end the meeting, I would like to remind you of Tuesday's meeting. We're again going back to clause-by-clause on Bill C-16. Monday at 11 a.m. is the deadline for any amendments that members might have.

Thank you very much.

Members, have a great day.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay, that's easily done, and we will certainly do it. We will add that to the letter.

Members, if you wish to hear any other witnesses with respect to Bill C-16, we absolutely need to know that right now. I'm not trying to pinpoint anybody, but there were some concerns that more witnesses might be necessary. Is that still the feeling or can the chair conclude that we're done with our witnesses on this matter?

Mr. Owen.