Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 13th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I think we'll start the meeting now. We have our quorum. I would like to advise members that this meeting is in public. As well, I would like to introduce once again Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Chief Electoral Officer.

Thank you very much, Mr. Kingsley, for coming today, and especially on such short notice.

Mr. Raymond Landry, commissioner of elections, is also with us today.

Thank you so much for coming on such short notice.

If you would like to take a moment to introduce to the committee your colleagues who are with you today, then let's do that right now, if we could. Mr. Kingsley.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes.

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

Apparently the committee is supposed to be meeting this evening. I do not remember that we decided to do that. I would like a discussion about it before the end of the meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

If we can leave that to the end of the meeting, Mr. Godin, I'd be more than happy to discuss it. We have such tight constraints. That's why we called the meeting. If we can get through today, I'll be more than happy to discuss that. Thank you.

Mr. Kingsley.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer]

Good morning, sir. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the committee.

You've already introduced Mr. Landry. His curriculum vitae should be available to you. In light of the fact that it's his first appearance and in light of the importance of the duties he performs, I thought you should be apprised of his curriculum vitae. Perhaps it could be circulated, if it hasn't already hasn't been done so.

With me as well is Ms. Diane Davidson, the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer and Chief Legal Counsel, and Mr. René Molnar, the Senior Director of Electoral Operations.

We are at your disposal, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is there anyone else to be introduced? We're all good. Thank you very much.

I also would like to thank the committee for coming on such short notice, as well. We'll talk about the events tonight.

As a very brief summary of what we've been doing so far, the committee has been reviewing the Canada Elections Act. For the most part, we've been focusing on the summary and reports by the Chief Electoral Officer, but we've also had parties who represent themselves, both here at committee as well as in writing. The committee has reviewed a number of different documents. We've gone through all these documents, and some of them are very clear and easy and we've made decisions on them--yes or no, for example.

Ultimately what we're here to do today is this. There are a number of outstanding issues the committee felt we needed to invite you back for and get clarification on. The committee is under extreme time constraints because what we want to do, before the end of this session, is to put a report to the House.

Without further ado, in front of us all, we have a list of questions arising from our meetings, if everybody can refer to that. It's from Jamie here. Has everybody got that in front of them? It begins with recommendation 1.3, “Expansion of the Statutory Budgetary Authorization”. I'm going to assume everybody has that in front of them.

We will open for questioning, the standard rounds, eight minutes first. Although we're pretty specific on our questions,obviously Mr. Kingsley knows exactly what we're going to go to. But I will allow the Liberal opposition to begin questioning.

Monsieur Proulx, are you comfortable going?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I thought we were going to be discussing our B list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

In fact, that's what we are starting with. We've just reorganized them so they're in a good order.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Recommendation 1.3.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Recommendation 1.3, chapter 1. It isn't something we have discussed before.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

We haven't discussed this on our list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay. Would you prefer to move on to recommendation 1.10, which the committee has discussed?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

What is it in regard to?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Recommendation 1.10, “Greater Flexibility in the Establishment of Advance Polling Stations”.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

At the last meeting we had on June 6, we were looking at different points from that as far as our B list was concerned. We looked at recommendation 2.1 and then we jumped to other points.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Recommendations 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.12. Okay, ultimately we're going to go through them all, so please start wherever you're comfortable.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Simard is back with us.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Kingsley, for being here this morning.

I'm not going to stick to the list here. I've got some issues I'd like to bring up, and we were told we would be able to discuss anything related to the Elections Act.

One of the things that have been happening lately is that I've had three elections in three and a half years, because I was first elected in a by-election. It might be four elections in five years if things hold true. I'm starting to have a lot of experience in elections.

One of the issues is how onerous the work is for our official agents and some of the people who are doing work for us. They're all volunteers, and it seems that there are more and more rules for them. It is getting so onerous that people are saying they don't want to do it anymore.

I'm wondering if there's a way to simplify that. One of the issues, for instance, that our office is dealing with right now has to do with people who want to contribute to our campaign. We use our association's Visa account; we set it up through our association. This has been done over my last three elections and for my predecessor, Mr. Duhamel, in his last two or three elections. It has been audited and has been seen as proper. We collect through our association, and then the association just gives a cheque to the campaign. Now we're told this is not proper.

This kind of thing is really upsetting the people who are working for us. Is there a way to simplify the work all these volunteers have to do? They are volunteers, and it is an amazing amount of work.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Mr. Chairman, in order to achieve this, we would have to review the statute with you, because we've installed the simplest system we can in light of the statutory requirements you or your predecessors have passed into law about what is required and what is not required. We could provide you with recommendations, if we can think of any, whereby this could perhaps be simplified a little further in terms of the legislative text.

I also want to mention that before we even established the forms for this, we consulted with a number of local riding associations and with the advisory committee of political parties. Then we came out with the forms. The forms still must meet the test of fulfilling the requirements of the statute; if you wish, we could take it under advisement and come back to you with recommendations on how perhaps it could be simplified even further.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you.

Another experience I had in my riding--and I'm probably the only one in Canada who had this--was that a school division decided at the last minute not to use their schools for the election. It was a last-minute thing, probably a few weeks before the election, and we had to find new locations right across the riding. That was very detrimental, because most people had voted there over the past three or four or five elections. It was a real disaster.

One of the reasons the school board indicated was that there was a security issue. Mr. Kingsley, does the Government of Canada--or do you, through your position--have authority over school divisions in insisting that they use their facilities for polling stations?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

There is no statutory authority for the Chief Electoral Officer to prevail upon school boards or schools. We do offer carrots, in the sense that we pay good Canadian money for rental.

We also try to address their concerns, which are really related to the security of the children in their charge, by hiring additional security guards to control traffic whenever they indicate any kind of requirement to us in that respect.

What occurred in your riding happened not only in your riding. We are experiencing it in very significant terms. I had to strike special deals with the school board of the City of Montreal, for example. They were very cooperative, but there is now an initial reluctance on the part of schools to make the schools available.

What we're trying to emphasize is that we will reach out to them. We will pay them for that; we will provide additional security at Elections Canada's charge and continue to hope it works.

If it continues to happen in large numbers, I think we'll have to either try to find other places or try to prevail upon the schools; however, to do so legally--federally--is going to be very difficult, because these are not federal institutions.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

My returning officer in my riding was actually very innovative. One of the things he did--and I hope it's legal, because it was very useful--was that every couple of hours or at certain intervals, he posted the list of people who had voted. I think everybody here agrees--because we did discuss it in committee here--that this would be very important progress in terms of doing things. Instead of having 20 or 30 people at each polling booth, you could have it posted; then the people come in and take the list off this slate.

I'm just wondering, first of all, if that is legal. It was done in two ridings in Manitoba. It was very successful. Is it something you would encourage in the future as common practice?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

It was just whispered in my ear that it may not be illegal, because it is not in the act. It may also not be legal, but certainly I will be very sympathetic in terms of looking at this and coming back to the committee, because it would be helpful. I know there is an issue about people coming in and going out, and disrupting proceedings, or else having someone who's permanently there representing you as a candidate.

I could see that this could simplify matters tremendously. So I will look at that and come back to tell you if it is legal or not, in definite terms. If it is legal, then we'll see what we can do for the next election, no matter when it takes place.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

If it's not legal, maybe we should make it legal for the next election, because it is practical progress in how we do things—