Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 12th, 2006

[Marc Chénier]

I believe the government had good reason to send out these lists.

Nonetheless, the committee should consider this: the current provisions in the legislation, which only address a person knowingly using information contained in this list, were developed with consideration to the fact that the only information on the list would be name and address. Now we are talking about a personal characteristic.

Your example was about a person working at an MP's office who leaves the list lying around where someone could access it and use it in a manner that does not comply with the law. As far as the offence is concerned for knowingly using information from a list of electors, there would be no way to prosecute someone who works at an MP's office, at a candidate's office or at the office of a registered party.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. McDougall signalled that he had a short comment.

[Dan McDougall]

As a point of clarification, Mr. Chair, we're not trying to delve into new policy areas here. We have been providing our advice in the context of the recommendations that were made by the committee and the response of the government to that report. It was the committee itself, in recommendation 2.7 of your report, that posed this question in the context of identification for purposes of preventing fraud. So it wasn't in anything other than that context that we were looking at it. We were not looking at it in the broader context of other uses to which the personal information may be put.

We were also responding to the recommendation of the committee where the majority of the committee, as indicated on page 15 of your report, in recommendation 2.7, requested that the information not be provided, that “The majority of the Committee believes that this information should not appear on the lists provided to candidates or parties under the Act.” So we were actually responding to the committee's wishes on this rather than creating a new policy area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. McDougall. I think and certainly hope that all members are aware of the report they agreed to.

We'll go to Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Yes, Mr. Hill has a brief comment first, then I'll go.

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

Actually, the point I was going to make, sort of reflecting on your thoughts, Mr. Chair, is that we should be trying to convince each other as we work through these amendments rather than our witnesses. Actually, the point I was going to make has just been made by Mr. McDougall.

I thought the intent, certainly, as we've gone through some months now of deliberations over how to best prevent voter fraud, was to provide polling clerks with the assistance, the tools--better tools--to do the job of preventing voter fraud. That was the intent.

The intent wasn't to make our lives easier as candidates or as campaign teams, and in that context, clause 18, as we discussed earlier in this round of questioning about this amendment, accomplishes what the committee itself was going to set out to accomplish, which was to assist the polling clerks, not to assist to us in campaigning or sending out targeted mailings based on knowledge of the age of our constituents.

So that's just the point I wanted to make.

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

Basically, ditto.

We as a committee agreed not to allow the age of the elector to go on any other list but we would give the polling clerk the ability to know the age of the participant to prevent fraud. And the amendment we have suggested--and that's why we're opposing the Bloc--reflects that.

I would love to have the personal information such as that for campaign purposes, but the purpose of this committee was to prevent fraud.

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

And the bill.

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

And the bill.

Let's vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I did have one more--

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I was going to ask that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

All right. How kind of you to be so consistent with each other's opinions.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6 ; nays 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Now, I think that because BQ-3 has carried, we do not need to deal with BQ-4 and BQ-5, Monsieur Guimond.

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

Yes, I think so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Can we have your permission to withdraw those motions? They're off the table. We don't need them.

I'm seeing a hand go up. This is unusual, Ms. Kim, but I will let you make a comment right now.

[Natasha Kim]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, it's just that BQ-3 addresses the identifier with the “if any”, which in carrying G-2 before would consequentially.... I think BQ-5 reflects that consequential amendment to make the identifier mandatory. So just in terms of drafting--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Ms. Kim, could you repeat that?

Order.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

On a point of order, if I could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

All right. I'll allow that, Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I think what has happened is that because we were busy discussing other aspects of the amendment, we failed to notice the fact that BQ-3 and BQ-5 deal with this slightly differently. BQ-5 assumes that there's an identifier. BQ-3, which we've just adopted, indicates that there may not yet be an identifier, which is in contradiction to something we've already dealt with.

I have no idea procedurally how to get out of that, but I suspect you'd find that a majority of the committee would actually prefer the content of BQ-5 to that of BQ-3.

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

Scott is right. To get out of this, we could withdraw amendments BQ-3, BQ-4 and vote on amendment BQ-5. Our preference out of amendments BQ-3, BQ-4 and BQ-5, is to adopt amendment BQ-5. They are presented in order.

Unless you want to have a fresh debate on amendment BQ-5. If you want, we can vote again or apply the vote already held to amendment BQ-5, which means we would end up withdrawing amendments BQ-3 and BQ-4.

My preference is to adopt amendment BQ-5.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You're withdrawing BQ-3 and BQ-4.

For the record, BQ-3 and BQ-4 have been withdrawn.

I'll call the question on BQ-5, just for the record.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Amendment G-3 is not on the table. Just so members know, G-3 is identical to BQ-4, which we've already dealt with.

(Clause 5 as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, although we're getting some momentum going here, and I don't want to disrupt it, as we have such a good team here—and we seem to have done this before and done it successfully—lunch is here, and I invite anyone in the room to help themselves to lunch as quietly as you possibly can, and we will continue.

Colleagues, there are no amendments in clauses 6, 7, or 8. Would the committee agree to consider them as a group? I see everyone nodding yes.

(Clauses 6 to 8 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 9)