Evidence of meeting #12 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was list.
Commissioner, Elections Canada
That one is not the example. You see, we still have 114 cases that are being investigated for the 2004 election, so we're not finished the work so far.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
But you are finished for 2000, right?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
It would be true to say that you have finished for the elections of 1979— because it's the first one you cite—1980, 1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, and 2000. That's seven elections, and out of all of those, we had four prosecutions. That's less than one per election. You can see why I'm structuring my question this way, of course.
The subsection 511(1) of the act says, “If the Commissioner believes on reasonable grounds that an offence under this Act has been committed and is of the view that the public interest justifies it, the Commissioner may institute a prosecution or cause one to be instituted.”
It makes me wonder, looking at the small number of prosecutions that have been successfully carried out.... You didn't mention if there were unsuccessful prosecutions. There may have been some. I don't know. I'd like to actually find that out. In fact, I'm asking you to submit that information to us.
But coming back to my main point, obviously none of us really believes that there's an average of one case of electoral fraud every election and a half or two elections. Is there a problem in that you are unable to get information? You have to have reasonable grounds--grounds to which you can assign a reason. Is it the case that the way the law is structured, we are being unsuccessful at capturing examples of fraudulent voting that must be going on to some degree?
Perhaps it's not an epidemic, although there has been some assertion in the public that there is an epidemic. But let's say it's not. Let's say it's even going on at some low level. There's so little activity going on in prosecution that it makes me think there must be difficulty from your point of view in actually finding reasonable grounds. That suggests to me that it's one of those acts for which there doesn't seem to be any paper trail that gets left afterwards.
Of course I'm working up to asking whether we can find ways, or if we ought to be looking to find ways, to change the legislation so as to make this easier to pursue in cases where it does occur.
Commissioner, Elections Canada
You stopped the reading paper, or the sheet, that was given to you at a certain point, because there are a large number of cases in which people were alleged to have attempted to vote twice. I don't know if you put that in a category of—
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Two acquittals, you're quite right. Two acquittals on prosecutions following the 1997 election.
Commissioner, Elections Canada
You see that in 2000 Parliament entered a new enforcement tool into legislation, which is the compliance agreement. If I may indicate that from 2000 to 2006, 83 compliance agreements were entered into, instead of prosecutions being taken before the courts.
I think this is a major change that has occurred since 2000. Prior to that, we only had prosecutions, and as you know, prosecution before the court at the level of proof required to convince a judge beyond a reasonable doubt that an offence has been committed is as tough under the Elections Act as it may be under any other statute.
Conservative
Conservative
Bloc
Pauline Picard Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Landry, I would like to tell you about a case that happened in my riding and that I have already reported. Moreover, I am convinced that such cases also occur in other ridings. I have stood for election in my riding five times; this is my fifth mandate. There is a certain individual, a member of a political party, who exercises great influence. He recommended that the returning officer should become a candidate. Thus, he has a strong influence on her and he participates in all elections. Whether the election be federal or provincial, he will be there. He is a fairly powerful businessman.
Every time there is an election, we have to complain about this individual. And I do not only mean my party, but other parties as well. In fact, he is intimidating and pressuring the returning officer. You have received such complaints.
Last time, he did even worse. During advance voting, on the first day, he blatantly intimidated people, men and women who came to vote. He even resorted to violence against certain persons. The returning officer did not know what to do. She is really a very intelligent person who does her job very well. She did not stand for this. She complained several times to the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer. She even asked us to write you a letter of complaint so as to put a stop to this.
The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer contacted the said individual on the day of the advance poll vote. Some people who had to go through this filed complaints. Finally, he was sent away, on the day of the advance polling.
Complaints were formally filed with your office. Now, to my great surprise, we received a letter from you telling us that you did not want to investigate any further because you had some doubts. You may well have doubts about what happened, but people had to go through this as I saw with my own eyes.
How far can this go? Intimidating voters is an offence under the Canada Elections Act. We can complain as much as we want, but what happens after that? Things remain the same. You answered that you had doubts. This is not the first time we get such an answer from you. Did anyone come and investigate the people who had been offended? No one came, but you still have doubts.
The said individual is still pressuring people. He writes to newspapers, he humiliates everyone and says that what we did was totally ridiculous.
I have doubts about your service and the way it is protecting us when such an individual can carry on in this way. And he will carry on, no doubt! During the next election, he will be back, pressuring and intimidating people.
What is your answer to this?
Commissioner, Elections Canada
First, when that type of thing happens in a polling station, the returning officer is responsible for maintaining order and to make sure that people proceed the right way inside the polling station. The Federal Election Commissioner does not have that responsibility under the law.
Second, when we receive a complaint, that complaint...
Bloc
Pauline Picard Bloc Drummond, QC
The returning officer did everything she could to eject that person. She asked him to stop what he was doing, but since that had no effect, she contacted you.
Commissioner, Elections Canada
As I told you, the returning officer can call the police if something happens inside a polling station. It is up to that person to play her role. She is on site. Canada is a huge country and I don't have enough staff to be present in every polling station. There are 65,000 of them in Canada.
Bloc
Commissioner, Elections Canada
That was the first part of my answer.
This is the second part of my answer. When we receive a complaint, it is rigorously analyzed by our legal advisors. The job of these people is to determine whether a specific offence has been committed, whether there are enough facts to warrant the belief that an offence has been committed, and that there is sufficient evidence to convince a court beyond any reasonable doubt that an offence has been committed. The public interest is another element which is taken into account. This is not an easy process. Controlling incidents which happen when tensions and emotions run high is not easy.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Thank you.
I think that's a sufficient answer for the member.
Did you want a round, Monsieur Godin?
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Yes, I will be brief, because I would like us to move on to another subject.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
To be honest, Mr. Commissioner, after having heard what Ms. Picard had to say, I feel that your answer is unacceptable. The commissioner has a responsibility and the Office of the Commissioner is responsible for what happens in all of Canada. To say that Canada is a big country is not a valid excuse. In this case, a businessman allegedly interfered with an election and intimidated people. The lawyers don't work for you. That's why the Office of the Commissioner must investigate. If it does not do so, how can the people in Ottawa make a decision? If this is the way things work, we should pass legislation to get rid of the Office of the Commissioner.
Commissioner, Elections Canada
Mr. Chairman, I would like to repeat that...
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
I think the question's been answered. I think it's up to the committee to make a decision as to whether or not that is relevant.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
I would like to move to a list of questions. While I go through this, I would ask the committee to listen to and consider the answers, because these are issues that the committee raised.
We have a meeting again tonight. Perhaps we will need to use that meeting for our witnesses. So I'm going to be very quick, and I would like to get very quick answers to some of these outstanding issues.
First I have a request. Could we have those compliance agreements, referred to earlier, submitted to the committee for review?
It's the understanding of the committee that recommendation 4.5 deals with candidate audit fees and subsidies. Is it true that the candidates do their own audit, then the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer does a second audit? If that's true, why are we doing two audits?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Okay. Do you wish that I answer that?