Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

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

And how do they go about identifying that individual? We are about to propose to Parliament that only one person be able to sign for such an individual, whereas in the past, a person could sign for several different people. How does it work in Quebec?

[Marcel Blanchet]

In Quebec, the person accompanying another individual who is unable to provide ID must have a health insurance card, a driver's licence, a Canadian passport, a Certificate of Indian Status or a Canadian Forces ID card. That person can accompany only one other individual, unless it is a family member. In those cases, they can come with their father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter and, in addition to them, one other person.

In other words, there can't be one person in every single polling station responsible for identifying—

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

What are you proposing by way of a solution? One of the problems we have been made aware of is the high number of homeless in Vancouver East, which causes problems when there are elections. In Montreal, a lot of people are unable to find someone to vouch for them and, there again, we are not necessarily talking about only the very poor people, although I don't want to see the poorest members of our society disenfranchised. I'm afraid that this kind of system could prevent such individuals from voting.

[Marcel Blanchet]

I told you that another person can identify an elector who has no ID or that this person can provide two documents to prove identity.

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

And what documents would those be?

[Marcel Blanchet]

They can be documents or identification with a photo or two documents with the person's name on them. It could be a hydro bill or a student photo ID. Both of those documents can be used for identification purposes.

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

In that case, a photo is still required.

[Marcel Blanchet]

It could be two documents with no photo but with the person's name and address on them; for example, a Hydro-Quebec bill or phone company bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

I'm sorry. We're finished with that questioning. There will be a little bit of time.

Members, we are running out of time here, so I'm going to ask that we go down to three-minute rounds and keep our questions very short and succinct.

Larry, you're up.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you for coming.

Why are the election list clerks appointed by parties? That's partisan, and I know they're signed up to be objective, but why aren't they just hired by Élections Québec as neutral people? Why are the election list clerks not just hired by your office? Why are they partisan?

[Marcel Blanchet]

Once again, that is the result of the way things have evolved historically. As you may recall, these individuals were initially representing the political parties and, strangely enough, they were paid by the Chief Electoral Officer. That was exactly what was challenged, and rightly so, in my opinion. Only the two major parties had the right to receive that information from these individuals who are being paid by the government.

The new rules stipulate that these officers are employed by the Chief Electoral Officer, and therefore the returning officer in each polling station. They will continue to be paid by the government, but they will have to demonstrate neutrality in carrying out their duties, and the documents they fill out will have to be available to all political parties.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

When these electoral list people fill out the bingo cards.... In the federal election we had yesterday there were seven people running, and they have to give it to all parties. So do they have to write it out seven times?

[Marcel Blanchet]

If I understood you correctly, you are asking whether the information is provided several times? I said earlier that the political parties would generally come every half hour to look at the information.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

And the people from the other parties.... As I said, yesterday there were seven and there were two at the table. Are the other people allowed to come in and look around, like scrutineers are in elections?

[Marcel Blanchet]

They can certainly observe what is going on, but the information is only given to the electoral list officers. Their job and their responsibility is to fill out those documents and hand them to the runner — that's what we call them in Quebec, and you probably do as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Preston, please.

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

Good morning.

You've discovered that you don't need two list clerks. I think you've said that. You think one could handle it. But Monsieur Guimond asked if you think the secretary could handle the job and not have any list clerks. Otherwise, in the federal system, there would be an additional cost. We'd be putting another person at the table. Do you think that's a possibility?

[Marcel Blanchet]

Well, we would have to see how that would work, but we would not want to do anything that could result in the voting process running less smoothly. Would asking the poll clerk to fill out the cards have that effect? Well, we have no experience with that. We believe that two such officers is too many; a single person appears to us to be an appropriate option. As for the possibility of there being no one to do this, well, we would have to give that some thought.

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

You also stated that in the polling station there's an identification table that those without the required photo identification you require, who are on your list, could go to and be identified as voters.

If they do not have photo ID or two pieces of identification with their addresses on it that satisfies that, are they then not allowed to vote?

[Marcel Blanchet]

There are a number of ways for these people to be able to vote. Other than the ID, there is the ID verification table that a person can go to with another individual who identifies him or her based on the criteria set out in the legislation; the other possibility is for that person to provide documents other than those required under the legislation and the regulations. The Act is very flexible.

These measures are well accepted by the population. We have tried out that process on a number of occasions since those provisions were added to the Quebec Elections Act in 1999. 97% or 98% of people who turn up to vote have ID. Very few people have to go to the ID verification table, to the point where the people seated at that table get bored.

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

I agree, but I'm trying to satisfy Mr. Godin also that there are homeless in this world, and they may not have ID. How do we satisfy--you said you would try and pre-register them to the address where they may go, and now they're registered, but they still don't have identification. How do they present themselves at the poll?

[Marcel Blanchet]

The fact is it is still difficult for the homeless to vote. You have to have an address in a particular riding and you have to be attached to a particular polling station. We generally use the shelters where they go to sleep or eat. That is where people can go to register.

The Quebec Act has another particularity which you may know about: you have to have your name on the electoral list in order to vote. In Quebec, you cannot get your name on the electoral list on voting day. It has to be on the voters' list, and the last chance to make changes to that list is when the special review occurs, at the very latest three days before voting day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Madam Picard.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to talk about upcoming reforms, and specifically fixed election dates in Canada. The date that has been suggested is October 15. As members of the Bloc Québécois, we see that date as problematic with respect to the registry, because we are from Quebec.

On July 1, there are more than 220,000 households moving in Quebec. We asked the Chief Electoral Officers of Canada what would happen to the registry. We know that you send your data to Elections Canada.

Will we have enough time to prepare a list that reflects all the changes that have occurred as a result of all these households having changed addresses?

I know he's been in touch with you and I'd like to know what you said to him. Is it true that we could get an up-to-date list around September 15, even with all these people moving?

[Marcel Blanchet]

July 1 is indeed a very important date for most people living in Quebec. It's a date when a lot of people move, and people in Quebec move a lot; apparently Montreal is a world champion in that regard.

We receive address changes in the weeks that follow and, by mid-September, we have received most of them. By the third week of September, we are still receiving quite a lot of them, but by the middle of that month, we have received most of the address changes, so that if an election were to be held in mid-September or, preferably, late September, most of those changes would already have been reflected in the list.

Of course, we have an agreement with Elections Canada whereby we can forward on request, the actual day of a federal election, the updated electoral list.