Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 14th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is there anybody else?

I would like simply, then, for the committee's possible benefit, to clarify whether it's possible for Elections Canada, the Chief Electoral Officer, to have all this data, assuming there's consent—date of birth, proof of citizenship, etc.—and to come up with the list. Sharing that list with candidates doesn't necessarily have to mean having that information on it; however, it's possible at the end of the day on election day that somebody at the polling station would have the authority to view the date of birth. Is all that possible?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I would think it is possible, yes, if you need it to establish the identity of somebody.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Can I just confirm with you that it's not a violation of privacy for this committee to ask for proof of identity by way of a photo identification? That wouldn't create a problem with the Privacy Act again?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

No, it wouldn't create a problem with the Privacy Act, because the Privacy Act is not written in absolute terms. It's not like the Access to Information Act. Again you come back to asking whether you need a photo. Quebec has gone that way and asks for photo ID.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

One of the other issues the Chief Electoral Officer has asked about is having all volunteers.... As you probably know, in every election campaign the heart of the election campaign is made up of volunteers. I think there'd be a reluctance of volunteers to give information. What is your view on that request, from a privacy standpoint?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Did you say a reluctance of volunteers to give information?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes. The Chief Electoral Officer wants a report on the volunteers who work on elections.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Oh, I see.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

There are obvious problems with that, but the question I'm asking you is, would it be a violation of privacy? Obviously if the volunteers want to give the information, it's implied consent. But if volunteers do not want to give the information, yet it's what the Chief Electoral Officer wants, would that not then be a violation of their privacy?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

It would depend. Privacy is very different in varied contexts. What does the law say? I'm not familiar with that part of it. If it's in the Canada Elections Act, is it justified? Is it needed? Is it necessary to the integrity of the electoral process? There are a lot of questions you could ask about that practice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Are there any other questions on this issue? I think we have the answers to those issues that we were needing more information about. I believe the committee can now move on to a debate session and make a decision on these issues.

Prior to doing that, again, I would like to thank our witnesses very much. I think you've been outstanding in a short notification situation. Indeed, getting us an answer by 11 o'clock tomorrow is just another thing I'd like to thank you for.

We have officials with us from the parliament of Afghanistan visiting today.

I would like to welcome you. We are honoured to have you sit with us.

The witnesses have offered to stay. I'm not sure why you'd want to do that, but it is a public meeting and that's good to hear.

Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, I think what we need to do at this point is to review our list. Just to remind committee members, we've gone through a number of suggestions from the Chief Electoral Officer. These are suggestions that came from various witnesses; indeed, a number of suggestions have come from members of the committee themselves.

You'd be surprised at how many we've gone through and voted yes, and how many we've gone through and voted no. What I think the committee should do now is to focus on those issues that we felt we needed more information about.

There is in fact a draft report, which was circulated earlier. Does everybody want to take a moment to find that? Perhaps you could take a moment to stretch.

I should probably tell you as well that dinner will be here at 5 o'clock, so we will continue until we get that.

Mr. Guimond.

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

There is one thing we need to understand after the testimony of Ms. Stoddart. I have been sitting on this Committee since 2000 and every time we talked about birth dates or voter numbers, Mr. Kingsley told us that we needed to discuss it with the Privacy Commissioner and get her agreement. But she has been telling us here--maybe Mr. Kingsley will read this--that she has no jurisdiction over the Canada Elections Act. She said that as far as information such as the date of birth or voter number is concerned, it is up to the legislator, i.e. ourselves, and to the minority government to make decisions.

I want one thing to be clear. Usually, when I make comments of that sort, within 10 minutes I get a call from Mr. Kingsley. This is proof that he listens to us. His spirit listens to us. I suppose he is acting in good faith. Maybe he does not know that the Access to Information Act does not apply to the Canada Elections Act. I trust it is a matter of ignorance and not bad faith.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We have the draft report in front of us and we can go through that. I would like to point out to members that if you look at any recommendation....

Obviously it makes sense to start at 1.0, operational issues, and under that, recommendation 1.1, advance administrative confirmation process. We have in fact discussed that. If any member wants to stop at any of these points, I'm happy to do that.

Concerning the recommendations that we have not discussed yet, the first one I come to is recommendation 1.5, which says at the very bottom that it is to be discussed at this meeting. So if members are comfortable with that, we'll simply go to those recommendations that indicate we haven't discussed it and we will now discuss it.

I think the same rules would apply that we'll open it up for debate, and if it looks like it's going to be a very contentious issue, maybe we can just pass on it and come back to it.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this particular order, because we've been talking now about privacy, but hopefully we can spin our brains around to this recommendation 1.5.

Is everybody on that? There are no page numbers. This is recommendation 1.5 of the draft report, on the Senate role in the appointment of the Chief Electoral Officer, which begins:

The Senate is currently accorded no role in the appointment of the Chief Electoral Officer

Just so members know, the Chief Electoral Officer is appointed for life, until he or she retires at the age of 65, and can only be removed by the Governor General. I just thought that was something we might want to point out.

Further on it says:

The Senate has suggested that it be given a role in the selection of the Chief Electoral Officer, given that it already has a mandate to review legislation respecting electoral matters, and that this would be consistent with the appointment procedures for other officers of Parliament.

I'm open for discussion. I believe Mr. Guimond's hand was up first, and Mr. Simard was next.

Mr. Guimond.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to make this a matter of personal conflict but I want to make it a matter of principle. It is normal, I believe, that the Chief Electoral Officer, who is responsible for the election of 308 MPs democratically elected by the people, should be appointed by a house whose members are elected.

We do not want the Senate to have any role in the appointment of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. We must remember that the Senate is made up of members whose appointment is a political reward. Not one of the 105 senators has been elected. Why should we give them any say over the appointment of an officer responsible for the election of MPs?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mr. Simard.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

I would agree with my colleague that I don't feel that the Senate should have a role to play in the appointment of the Chief Electoral Officer. I like the idea that they're involved in the removal, however--and we discussed this earlier. In a majority government, the members of Parliament could actually not like the particular Chief Electoral Officer and vote him out. So I like the fact that you have a second chamber that is overlooking that process.

That said, one of the comments you made was that the Chief Electoral Officer is appointed for life. I guess most other appointments have a term limit. I wonder if that's something we should consider here at the committee. The Commissioner of Official Languages is leaving in a few weeks, and she was here for seven years. We've spoken about other appointments where there are ten-year limits or five-year limits, for the most part.

This is not a reflection on Mr. Kingsley. I think he's done a very admirable job. But I do think it's important to have change after a period of time, because things do change in the system and some people get set in their ways. I think, for members of Parliament, it would be healthy to renew this position after a certain period of time. Whether it's eight or ten years, I haven't really thought about that, but I would like that to be on the table, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We can have a discussion about that, but first, who's up next?

Mr. Hill.

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

I haven't done the research. I don't know whether anyone else present knows whether the Senate has a role in the appointment process of other officers of Parliament—the Privacy Commissioner, the Ethics Commissioner, the Auditor General, the Commission of Official Languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We can answer that question for you, Mr. Hill.

[James Robertson, Committee Researcher]

The appointment of all officers of Parliament except the Chief Electoral Officer and the Auditor General require that the nomination be ratified by both Houses. The Auditor General at present does not require a motion of either House. I believe Bill C-2, among other things, will make the procedures consistent for the other positions. In fact, all of them will be subject to the nomination's being tabled after consultation with the House leaders or the other leaders and will require a vote of the two chambers. No change is envisaged in Bill C-2 for the Chief Electoral Officer, who would continue to be appointed just by the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Let's stay with the issue of the Senate. This is a recommendation by the Chief Electoral Officer that came, I believe, out of his most recent report.

[James Robertson]

In this case he is putting this forward as a proposal that has come from the Senate. I don't think he is actually taking a position as to whether it should be done or not. He is bringing it forward for the consideration of parliamentarians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Hill, did you have anything further? Then I'm going to go to Mr. Proulx.

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

If it's consistent with the appointment of other officers of Parliament, I don't know why we would be opposed to it. Obviously our particular government is interested in trying to move forward by some means, in the future, to seek to elect or select through some form of democratic process the appointees to the Senate of Canada. On the surface I don't see why we would have a strong argument against the Senate's being involved to the same extent as they are in the appointment process of the other officers of Parliament. If we have a problem with this particular officer of Parliament, why wouldn't we have a problem with their being involved with the other officers?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

For further comment, we'll go to Mr. Proulx, and then to Mr. Guimond.