Bill C-16 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to increase the number of days of advance polling.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming to meet with us today, gentlemen.

I am sure you understand that all of the political parties have the same desire, or the same objective — to increase voter participation. However, we are lacking research data for taking the right measures and making sure they are effective.

Mr. Docherty, on page 2 of the French version of your presentation, you seem to be saying that we have to avoid having too many advance polls before election day. You seem rather to favour increasing or extending voting hours.

I have a very specific question to ask you. Instead of adding two advance poll days, as Bill C-16 proposes, if we increase the voting hours on the three advance poll days we have now, and the number of places where people can vote, do you think those two factors would likely produce results in terms of voter turnout?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's bring our meeting to order.

We have limited time today. I would like to remind members that at the end of this meeting there are two things that I wish to happen. One is that we need to leave some time for committee business, some of which has carried over from the last meeting and some of which is just standard committee business. As well, colleagues, I want to remind you that Mary Dawson, the Conflict of Interest Code and Ethics Commissioner, has asked to meet with the committee. She will be bringing some of her colleagues, and we will leave time for that at the end. Depending on how the meeting goes, we may suspend to do that informal meeting and then resume the meeting, or perhaps the meeting will have found its natural conclusion and we will conclude the meeting and then meet with Ms. Dawson. We'll see how that goes.

I want to remind members that pursuant to the committee's order of reference of Thursday, November 7, 2007, the committee is here to study Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act.

Colleagues, again we are dealing with three different bills at the same time, so I just want to refresh your memory that today we are on Bill C-16.

I want to introduce our witnesses, whom I appreciate very much attending without handcuffs or warrants. We do appreciate the fact that you have made, in Mr. Docherty's case, a second attempt to attend the meeting. The dean of arts at Wilfrid Laurier University, colleagues, you might remember, was scheduled for last week, but the weather did not allow for that. So we certainly appreciate your second attempt, and it appears to be quite successful.

Mr. Pammett, we appreciate your being here as well. Mr. Pammett is with the political sciences department at Carleton University, where my son used to attend. So it's an absolute privilege to have you here.

I will allow our witnesses a couple of minutes to introduce themselves to the members of the committee. If you have an opening statement, you're certainly welcome to do that, and then, colleagues, we will open it to the usual round of questions, seven minutes for the first round, and we'll see how we do with that.

Perhaps we can start, Mr. Docherty, with you, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much for the clarification. That's why I'm reading this out, so that we know what we do have to do.

Monsieur Proulx asked for a copy of any response from the Chief Electoral Officer to the minister's requests. Not much later, Madam Redman brought up the suggestion about bringing the Chief Electoral Officer in to discuss Bill C-6.

Would it be a smart idea to bring the Chief Electoral Officer in to deal specifically with Mr. Proulx's request as well as Madam Redman's request, as well as Bill C-18, if he has comments on it? We could have him here one time and deal with all three.

If no one objects to that, we will send the Chief Electoral Officer, then, a letter and give him notice of that.

We are still waiting for a letter from Monsieur Blanchet regarding Bill C-16. We haven't received it yet, so we will follow up on that.

This week, colleagues—I just want to remind members—tomorrow, on Wednesday, November 28, we have the subcommittee on the code of ethics meeting in room 112-N from 3:30 to 5 p.m. for the election of a chair and continuation of the committee's review of the code of ethics commissioner's report.

At five minutes to seven is an informal meet and greet with the Chief Electoral Officer, Monsieur Mayrand, at Elections Canada. All are invited to attend who can.

On Thursday from 11 to 11:45, we have two academics, Jon Pammett and David Docherty.

Scheduled from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. is Chief Electoral Officer Jean Ouellet, from Saskatchewan.

Following that, there is also an informal meet and greet with Mary Dawson, who is the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

That brings us to a problem I'm going to ask my clerk to explain to members before we go into consideration of the report; it has to do with the ability to televise future meetings. There was some conversation yesterday at the steering committee about televising and when it would happen and what rooms are available.

We have priority, as this committee takes priority over other committees, and it would be up to the whips to determine whether we take precedence or priority over a televised room.

I'm going to ask Mr. Latimer to explain to committee members the difficulty with televised rooms. Then we'll move right into the report so that members can consider it.

Please, Mr. Latimer.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I have another question for Mr. Archer.

It seems to me you concluded your presentation by saying that other studies might perhaps be necessary to determine the positive impact of this measure contained in Bill C-16 compared to the relative cost.

Could you clarify your thinking? What would those studies be?

[Ned Franks, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Queen's University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could have gotten here earlier, but I went to see a former student of mine, Peter Milliken, and had a coffee with him before coming, so my excuses and apology for being late.

I have some comments and I'll simply read them. I hope you have them in French, too; I'm not sure.

The objective of Bill C-16, to increase voter participation by increasing the number of advance polling days, is a useful and in my view uncontroversial reform. The percentage of Canadians taking advantage of advance polling opportunities has risen from 5.4% in the 1997 general election to 10.5% in 2006. The use of advance polling is likely to increase. The only potentially controversial issue I find in the bill is the proposal to have all polling stations open on the last day of advance polling, the Sunday before elections. This risks creating two polling days with equal opportunities for voter participation, one on the formal day of the election, and the second on the previous day. It is for this committee to decide if this is truly the wish and intent of Parliament and advise the House on that.

I estimate that increasing the number of advance polling days from three to five will, at best, improve overall voter participation by 1% or 2%. This is worthwhile. It will add to the cost of elections, but the entire cost of Parliament and its agents, including Elections Canada, is only a fraction of 1% of the overall budget of the Government of Canada and is a small price to pay for democracy. The importance of the democratic processes, representation in Parliament, and public participation through voting and communicating with Parliament and parliamentarians far outweighs their costs.

However, an increase of 1% or 2% will not resolve the problem of voter apathy. In the past 20 years, participation in Canadian general elections has decreased from a respectable 75% or better to the much less satisfactory low sixties. That 40% of electors choose not to participate is cause for concern. Voter apathy has become an issue in many western democracies. Despite much research, it's still not clear what causes this decline or what can be done to reverse it. It's perhaps the most important problem facing our parliamentary system. The decline is not only in voting. Membership in political parties has also declined. Less than 1% of the Canadian electorate now belongs to recognized political parties.

Many explanations have been proposed for the declines in both voter participation and membership in political parties. First, political parties have become increasingly irrelevant. For example, opinion polls put environment and ecological issues high among the concerns of Canadians, while the environmental policies of the traditional parties consist largely of empty rhetoric contradicted by what they do when in power. Second, some identifiable groups have a low level of political participation. These include the young people, and especially the children of immigrants. I suspect that much of this derives from fundamental issues of how these groups view government and what government does to and for or fails to do about matters that affect them. Third, politicians and politics as a whole are in disrepute. Recent opinion polls put politicians at the bottom in terms of public trust. I think of the elderly English lady who told an opinion survey, “I never vote, it only encourages them.”

I believe that the lack of public trust in politicians is in large part a consequence of how politicians behave, including how they behave in Parliament. I began taking university classes to visit Parliament 40 years ago. The current Speaker, Peter Milliken, was in the first of these classes. The current level of debate is as low as I have seen, and the bad manners and incivility in question period the worst. I would not want to take a class to watch question period at present. It would risk destroying their faith in our Parliament and parliamentarians.

There are some bright lights. To mention another former student of mine, Rob Nicholson, the current Minister of Justice, is exemplary in his courtesy and the relevance of his answers. But in general, Parliament and its denizens seem bound and determined to bring both the institution and politicians into disrepute. There is no good reason for Bill C-16 to be treated as a partisan issue. All members have an interest in encouraging voter participation. I hope that this committee can achieve a consensus on this useful reform.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Agnieszka Dobrzynska]

Bill C-16 proposes a number of measures to increase the convenience of voting in Canada. These provisions are: increased advanced polling opportunities, the existence of two consecutive regular polling days rather than only one, and the possibility of voting on a Sunday. The combination of the three measures provided for in Bill C-16 would make Canada's electoral legislation very unique. Only Sweden offers a similar combination of convenience measures to encourage greater voter participation. The case of Italy seems to resemble that of Canada. A period of two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday, was recently established in Italy for voting. However, advanced polling is not permitted in that country.

In the past, several studies considered whether administrative measures to increase the convenience of voting would have an impact on voter turnout. However, existing empirical research has yielded conflicting results. Certain studies indicate that measures such as increased advanced polling opportunities or the possibility of voting on a holiday can increase voter turnout; others observed no impact.

With regard to the existence of two regular polling days, certain studies report a negative impact, which seems hard to believe. Although these studies are rigorous, all have their limitations. That is why we have conducted a new empirical transnational study including elections held in all democratic countries between 1990 and 2001. Our sample included 151 elections in 61 democratic countries. Our objective was to examine the impact that administrative measures to increase the convenience of voting would have on overall voter turnout.

The findings of our analyses indicate that, in countries in which electoral legislation facilitates voting by allowing advanced polling, voter turnout is approximately four percentage points higher than in countries in which this option is not available. However, the possibility of voting on holidays and the availability of two consecutive regular polling days had no significant statistical impact.

We have three comments to make. First, the three measures we examined had a positive impact on voter turnout; however, the correlations were not that strong. Second, the availability of two consecutive regular polling days was found in only six elections in our sample, which may explain why it is so difficult to identify a significant statistical trend. Lastly, our findings suggest that, although all of these measures could have a positive impact on voter turnout, the real impact is limited.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I have no other hobbies.

(Motion agreed to)

Colleagues, can we move back to the first item? I'm trying to move a little bit quicker so we can get to our witnesses.

On the committee budget, is there a motion to adopt the budget for witnesses' expenses? Moved by Madame Robillard.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

I have some good and bad news. Last Tuesday I mentioned to you that the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec, Monsieur Blanchet, would be willing to appear on Tuesday. Unfortunately, he's called to say he's not available. He has cancelled, unavoidably and with great apology. He is not available at all next week. So there were some options, and I'll just lay them on the floor for the committee.

I spoke to the minister about legislation that's coming up. The minister has a very tight schedule but has offered to come on Tuesday to deal with the next two bills, which are veiled voting and rural voting.

We could move to clause-by-clause on Bill C-16 on Tuesday, but I was concerned about the members not being able to hear those witnesses. I think more witnesses were offered.

Did you get another list of witnesses for Bill C-16?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

All right, we have a quorum to make decisions, so let me briefly go through some of the items that I want to quickly go over, so we can get to our witnesses as quickly as possible. Perhaps if we can deal with these issues, our other witnesses may show up. We've talked about most of the items before and most of them are simply a matter of course.

The committee budget needs to be adopted for witnesses' expenses for Bill C-16. Has that been circulated? We're going to circulate that right now. Clearly, I want some authority to adopt that budget.

While we're circulating that, as I mentioned a few days ago, a few meetings ago, we do have the return of the forms from the conflict of interest code that this committee set a subcommittee up for last year and did a fairly thorough job of reviewing. We now have the forms back and I'm suggesting that we set up a similar subcommittee to look at those forms and report back to the main committee. If members around the table agree that's the way to go, then I would be looking for a motion to create one. I did have the opportunity to talk to Mr. Reid yesterday, as Mr. Reid was the chair of that committee.

Mr. Reid, are you prepared to present a motion to set up a subcommittee to study those forms?

[Doug Cryer, Director, Public Policy, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada]

I am Doug Cryer. I am the director of public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

The EFC is a national organization that has affiliate denominations--40 different denominations--and over 100 different ministry organizations as well as about 40 institutes of higher Christian education.

The EFC encourages active civic engagement and recognizes that we all benefit when Canadian citizens exercise their right and their duty to vote. Providing more voting opportunities might be helpful to increase voter turnout. However, the proposal made in Bill C-16 to set up advance polls on two Sundays before the federal election day will have a significant impact on Christians whose day of worship is Sunday. The question we are asking is, will churches be competing with federal elections on Sundays? Or we could ask why they should intrude on religious observance days at all.

The addition of the advance poll on the Sunday before the election is the most problematic, because rather than it being a typical advance poll with limited voting stations, every polling station will be open just as it would be on an election day. In a recent internal poll that we conducted within the EFC, we asked whether people agreed that there should be an advance poll with all polling stations open on the day before a Monday election. Four hundred and ten people responded out of 1,300, and 84% of them said no, that they were not in favour of this proposal. This response indicates that there could be widespread disapproval of this initiative, and rather than strengthening the voting process, it would run the risk of turning more people away.

Many Christians still count Sundays as their Sabbath day of rest and a day dedicated to family. Some latest statistics, as already mentioned, demonstrated that 32% of Canadians, or 11 million people, attend worship at least monthly. Christians, as an identifiable minority in Canada with already established habits and practices on Sundays, are clearly the most affected by these proposed advanced polls.

The proposed change also means that churches will be in competition with Elections Canada for rental space, a point already made by Mr. McDonald. Churches that host polling stations in their church halls will be affected, unless the polls are moved elsewhere, and in countless growing communities across Canada it is not unusual for a church to rent space in local school gymnasiums or in community halls--the same places where Elections Canada will be vying to rent space for their polling stations. Other activities are often displaced to accommodate polling stations on election days.

Should Christians bear an undue burden in their accommodation of these proposed changes where their regularly established worship arrangements may be disrupted? There are many questions as to how to encourage more people to vote. Ultimately, however, the government should not infringe on the worship practices of a substantial religious community when it is not essential to do so.

I believe you have our three recommendations that we handed out to you regarding this bill.

Thank you.

[Jamey McDonald, Executive Director, Baptist General Conference of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Jamey McDonald, and I apologize at the outset because I do not have a written submission to go before you. I have a written submission in front of me, but the late invitation came to me at the latter part of last week. Je parle français, mais I can't write in French. So I do not have a written presentation. But I will read something to you.

Thank you very much. I consider it a real privilege to be able to speak with you this morning. I am a passionate believer in this grand experiment called Canada. I travel the world in my line of work, and I admire all cultures, but every time I return home to Canada, I thank God for what we have here. It is truly the best country in the world.

I also respect very much what you are trying to do in bringing leadership and governance to this great country. Thank you. It's not easy, is it? As good as Canada is, we can always do better. So thank you for doing your best to bring better to Canada.

I want to address your proposal suggested through Bill C-16, and especially your suggestion to allow advance polls to occur on Sundays before our election dates.

Who am I? Number one, I am the executive director of the Baptist General Conference of Canada. According to the latest census data, Baptists make up about 2% of the Canadian population. That's perhaps 750,000 adults. There are five major Baptist groups in Canada. I speak for one of them. A good number of our present members of Parliament would call a Baptist church their home base. Tommy Douglas was a Baptist minister before stepping into political life.

Historically, Baptists have always heeded to the separation of church and state, asking that though we may influence each other, we shall not dictate to each other. Today is not different. My comments today as a Baptist minister are not designed to dictate to this group. I merely offer observations and opinions.

Second, you need to understand me. I am also a church attender. Recent data suggests that over 30% of Canada still attends church on a regular basis, at least monthly if not weekly. This suggests that close to 11 million Canadians would still identify themselves as churchgoers, and by implication, 70% would not.

This is my point. I realize that the intent of this bill is to encourage more Canadians to participate in their democratic right to vote, but I'm of the opinion that opening polls on a Sunday would not in fact do so and may in fact have a deleterious effect.

I would ask you to consider the wisdom of opening advance polls on Sundays. Why? There are three reasons. First is what I call the irritation factor. Not all Canadians attend church on Sundays, but 30% do, and I wonder if bringing voting to that day would not irritate them, or at least make the government vulnerable to irritating a fairly large segment of our population.

Second is what I call the disenfranchisement factor. Not all Canadians meet in church buildings for their Sunday services. About 5% of our congregations, the ones I am overseeing, use schools, community halls, and public places on a rental basis. In most cases these congregations are new Canadians; they're new to Canada. They're first-generation Canadians, and they struggle to have the financial resources to afford their own church properties. Thus, they rent public facilities. If these public locations are also used for advance polls, my thoughts are that the election will trump their church service, and at least some worshippers will be disenfranchised, even if only for a Sunday or two.

Third, I raise the question of what I call the non-effectiveness factor. At present, eligible Canadians participate in the voting process perhaps at the 50 to 60 percentile, if days are good; if you live in Saskatchewan, it's 70.

We have advance poll dates well publicized. We even have legislation in place that mandates that employers allow their employees a minimum of four hours of available time in order to vote before public polls close. I'm not persuaded that low voter turnout is because of an inability to get to an advance poll or even to an election day station. I wonder if the apathy is deeper rooted.

In conclusion, may I encourage this committee to show wisdom and not alter advance polling to include Sundays around election day. Please keep thinking, but go longer and harder in your thought processes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's bring this meeting to order. We do have a number of witnesses to go through today, who have joined us and will be joining us, so I don't want to get too far behind.

First, I want to thank everybody for coming out this morning. As you well know, pursuant to the committee's order of reference of Thursday, November 7, 2007, the committee is here to study Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act.

Members, I want to remind everybody that we are in a larger room today still. At the request of some members, we are still going to have a larger room as a result of the number of folks who do tend to join us, both staff and observers, as well as the number of witnesses we're going through during our study.

Members, the meeting is still being televised. At the end of this meeting we have some housekeeping duties to go through, so I'm going to reserve about 15 minutes at the end to talk about some things, including the budget of this committee, the fact that the Ethics Commissioner wants to come informally to meet the committee. I want to have some discussions with members about when we should do that, and some other things that we'll talk about at the end of the meeting. One of them will be whether we continue to televise these meetings. It's entirely up to members, and I will bend to the will of the committee.

As we begin, we have three witnesses with us this morning, and I do want to thank them for coming out. It's always a pleasure, and it's actually quite an honour for members of the community to come forward, for parliamentarians to ask questions and get a full and broad visual, I suppose, or a thought process going on the bills at hand.

Colleagues, we have with us Mr. McDonald from the Baptist General Conference of Canada, Mr. Cryer from the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and Reverend Roberts from the United Church of Canada.

First, I would like to welcome the witnesses again. I will offer you 10 minutes, about two to three minutes each, to introduce yourselves, and if you have an opening statement, feel free to go forward with that. You don't have to do that, but it's entirely up to you.

Colleagues, I think we'll continue after that with our usual rounds of questioning. I believe we can start with a seven-minute round for the first one. We'll see how things go. We'll have these witnesses with us only for one hour, so you can use your time to get as many questions in and answers as you deem fit.

Perhaps we can start with Mr. McDonald. Please introduce yourself, and perhaps you have an opening statement.

Thank you.

Canada Elections Act

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I should probably correct my hon. colleague, who seems to be confusing two different bills. She quoted my comments in Hansard, and correctly, I might add, but they did not deal with Bill C-31. They were about another bill on expanded voting opportunities. That is a bill through which we want to increase the number of days on which voters can cast ballots in advance polls. We are debating that right now in committee, my committee, which I am missing in order to be here to share my comments with members. It is now called Bill C-16, which used to be called Bill C-55, and is on expanded voter opportunities. It really does not have anything to do with Bill C-31.

However, I would point out one other flaw or misinterpretation the member is trying to foist upon members of this place. She said, quite correctly, that in committee the NDP voted against Bill C-31, but it was not because NDP members identified the flaw of the residential address. NDP members voted against it strictly on the basis that they felt the homeless would be disenfranchised.

I will speak to that, but the NDP voted against Bill C-31 not because, as some of the NDP members have tried to suggest, they discovered before the bill was passed that there was this flaw on residential addresses. Nothing of that sort occurred in conversations in the procedure and House affairs committee. Every single member missed this one gap, this one little glitch that eliminated or disenfranchised rural voters who did not have a residential address. I want to correct the record on that.

Specifically on the question of the homeless, I spoke to that in my main address. We have taken great pains to try to make it as fair and as equitable as possible. Yes, many homeless, perhaps the vast majority of homeless, do not have proper identification. However, if they are members of or frequent attendees at a homeless centre, they can get the attestation, whereby the manager can say, “I verify this person's name and the fact that he or she resides in the centre”. Secondly, they do have the ability to have someone to vouch for their identity.

Finally, I would say, again as I mentioned in my main address, is there any legislation in this place which will ensure that absolutely, without question, 100% of eligible voters will be able to cast a ballot? Probably not. There probably never will be.

However, we have taken great steps to ensure a balance between the ability to ensure voter integrity and the ability of everyone who possibly can vote to do so.

[Marc Mayrand]

It is something that would have to be considered. Currently our understanding of Bill C-16 is that it's the same ballot box for day one and polling day. It's the DROs who take those boxes overnight. We have put forward some suggestions providing some flexibility to ensure the safety and the keeping of those boxes overnight.

Again, if we were to have separate boxes, it might address part of the problem. I'm not sure it would be the full solution. It might also have an impact on counting the results. It might add delays in counting the results if you had two boxes. Anyway, it is something that would need to be probed in much more detail.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Imagine the case where Parliament defeats Bill C-16. In order to improve voting—you do have this power, because this has not been voted on—you increase the number. As our friend Mr. Joe Preston said, there are 35 voting days. There are 35 days.

In order to allow people to vote closer to where they live—not everywhere in Canada but in specific locations—we could add advance polling stations that were closer to them.

I do not think that that would require any big changes and it is in your power to do this.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

This round I'll speak as quickly as I possibly can, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, through you to our guests, thank you so much for coming. It's always great to have our Elections Canada friends here.

I just want to start off with a little bit of a preamble related to what Mr. Godin said and what my friend Marcel just said about who we could get to work. These are all personal choices. If someone would like to top up their EI by working a couple of days for Elections Canada, then I'm sure they'll make that choice. As Mr. Proulx said, it's the same thing with someone who is collecting welfare, or whatever it's called in each province.

Certainly it's a personal choice as to whether they take a job with Elections Canada and whether that will top up their income. In every case that I can think of, it would certainly be a top-up. They may be limited out.

The other thing Mr. Godin mentioned was that we're now taking up another day. You're driving people to the polls on a Sunday. Three provinces in this country now do their voting on Sunday. Certainly what this adds is a day of choice. If, in fact, you do not want to vote on the Sunday, all this has done is add a choice. Am I correct? We're not telling you that you can't go on the Monday. It's there.

We talked a bit about the structure of voting and how hard it might be to get.... In a lot of small villages, in rural ridings like mine, the church is where we vote. I don't know of any voting polling station in my riding--I'd have to look across the country, as I'm sure there are some--where we actually vote in the sanctuary. For the most part, it's in a church hall or in the front area, or something to that effect.

I think the voting on Sunday can be accommodated in a room in a church that isn't the sanctuary, where mass may take place. In fact, I suggest to you that in many of my small villages, going to church that day will then give the opportunity to head downstairs and place a vote.

Again, this is about offering choice. You mentioned in the beginning that one of your strategic objectives at Elections Canada is to increase voter turnout and increase access. Do you believe that C-16 does that?