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

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Order, s'il vous plaît.

I'll ask the question on this amendment as amended.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, the next amendment with respect to clause 21 is NDP-5. You will find that on page 27 of your package. I will invite Mr. Dewar to move the motion and speak to it.

Please go ahead, Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Simply put, NDP-5 deals with the issue we heard from people who deal with the homeless around how they operate presently. It is an arrangement that allows a person who is a client of an agency--that is, someone whose only residence, if you will, is a shelter--to have someone to establish that fact and those criteria. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have a home or an apartment, it's not hard to establish residence. However, it is a challenge for those who are most vulnerable.

We have a present practice, a fairly recent one, of having people who work in these agencies vouching not for the purposes of getting on a list, but for the fact that they are staying at this place and that it can be established as their residence. It simply puts into place in this bill a process and a practice presently being used, since witnesses mentioned other concerns about what would happen if we didn't have this process. The net effect is that we would be discounting many people because they wouldn't be able to establish a residence. This is simply a way of avoiding that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Proulx.

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

I have a question on this particular amendment, and members of the panel can help us on this, as can Mr. Dewar.

I forget the name of the lady who was here to testify last week or the week before, but my understanding was that the Chief Electoral Officer or the regional officer was making arrangements with representatives of these different agencies or residences for them to have somebody on site to help identify these individuals. If the Chief Electoral Officer or the DRO is already making arrangements, I don't think we need to put this into the text as such. This is part of the discretionary that exists for the Chief Electoral Officer, is it not?

[Natasha Kim]

Under the act as it exists now, there's no requirement to have ID or to swear an oath or to have someone vouch for you in order to vote. Perhaps what the Chief Electoral Officer was referring to was the registration stage. At that stage you need to take a oath and have a voucher if you don't have identification. At that stage perhaps those preparations could be made to address that. He'll have the discretion to signify two pieces of identification that could be used.

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

Do you mean that would take care of the problem addressed by this amendment at the source, instead of at the voting stations?

[Natasha Kim]

It would be a different approach.

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

Then we don't need this if it's done properly originally.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Are there any comments?

Go ahead, Mr. Dewar, and then we'll go to Mr. Preston.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

With respect, we still need to respond, Mr. Chair. One thing that was clear is that the people involved in our shelters and drop-in programs are actually picking up the slack for the fact that we just didn't have a process for people who didn't have an address, essentially.

This is very new. What we're doing is simply establishing that practice here because, au contraire, we would have a problem. The whole problem was that people weren't able to provide.... If I go as someone who is without an address, I have to have to some sort of proof that I am staying at Centre 454 or the Ottawa Mission, etc. We don't have anything in place presently to do that, except what we heard from witnesses the Chief Electoral Officer has accommodated and worked with. What we're doing here is making sure we have that practice of the vouching process acknowledged, particularly when we go down further in the bill. You need to establish some credentials, because they often won't have electricity bills or bills of any sort to say they are staying at this homeless shelter or this drop-in centre.

A process has been put together by people who are working with the Chief Electoral Officer to do that. My concern is that the bill, as presently in front of us, would require someone to vouch that I'm staying at a certain place; if I don't have any paper on that, it's difficult, and we heard that from witnesses.

Simply put, we're putting that practice into place. It allows for an oath for a client of an agency that is approved by the CEO and who is vouched for by a representative. It gives some credence to the process and procedure that is presently happening, and that's why I think it's so very important. If we don't do this, I think we're putting a lot of people in jeopardy. Effectively, I'm not seeing in the bill how we could do this without having something like this in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Mr. Preston is next, and then Madam Jennings.

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

I have two quick little points. One is that we're asking the CEO to come back to us with the identification he will be allowing for this bill, and yet we're giving him discretion as to his approval of agencies through which this could happen. I would expect that if this was going to go this way, we would at least need to know the agencies. This is really leaving approval of the agency up to the Chief Electoral Officer.

I'll also mention that our witnesses have said that although this may provide for identification on address, it still doesn't meet the citizenship requirement. The people working in these agencies where the people may be staying do not know whether these people are Canadian citizens or not, and that doesn't meet the requirement.

I have trouble on two heads of this: how we pick the agencies, and whether the information being given by the people who work for those agencies is enough to prove an elector.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Madam Jennings has no comment. Thank you very much.

Colleagues, I'll call the question--

Please go ahead, Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I just want to address Mr. Preston's point.

We're not establishing the other criteria here. They are later in the bill, and there's a vouching procedure in place. What we are establishing is that someone can say this person's residence is in fact this place, notwithstanding that it's often a difficult situation in terms of establishing the residence you and I are fortunate to have. The reason I can do it is that I am here; I'm someone who is employed on a full-time basis, sometimes as a volunteer, at this place--in this church, in this drop-in centre. It's simply to say that I know this person and that this person's address is this place. That's what we're establishing here. We're not establishing the other criteria.

I just wanted to clarify that. We're not saying that we're vouching for the other piece; that's later in the bill. This simply establishes the fact that it's their residence. There's no other way of determining that for people who are in this situation. I just don't know how we deal with this unless we have a procedure like this in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, colleagues.

Seeing no further debate on the amendment, I will call the question.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, we are running a little short of time. I'd like to deal with this next amendment, and then we will suspend the meeting until after question period.

You will find amendment NDP-6 on page 28 of your package.

Mr. Dewar, would you please present the amendment and speak to it? Thank you.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment deals with the concerns I've already alluded to on vouching for more than one person. If we are to follow the bill as presented, witnesses provided testimony--and I might add they weren't just city dwellers, but also first nations aboriginal people--that there would be a dilemma in terms of one person vouching for one person. This would allow for vouching for more than one person. Again, I go back to the idea that if the bill goes ahead without this amendment and some of the other concerns I've had prior to this amendment, we are in effect putting up barriers to people who are trying to exercise their franchise. In my opinion we need to deal with that, and one of the ways of dealing with it is this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Go ahead, Mr. Lukiwski, please.

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

Mr. Chair, with all due respect to Mr. Dewar, if we voted in favour of this amendment, it would be in complete opposition to the committee report that we spent a lot of time on. I have to oppose this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We'll call the vote, as there are no more comments on the issue.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I would like to remind colleagues that amendment NDP-6, which we just voted on, does in fact have consequential implications. As such, it will be applied to amendments NDP-11 on page 33, NDP-14 on page 37, and NDP-15 on page 38.

I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of that. That was my mistake. Does anybody have a comment? Seeing none, I will call the question on the clause.

(Clause 21 as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

As a favour to the committee, I did promise that we would break at 1:30 and then resume after question period. We could probably carry on for 15 more minutes. I don't think that's going to solve the problem, but I present that information.

Go ahead, Mr. Guimond.

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

Mr. Chair, waiting until after question period poses a problem for at least four committee members.

At 3:30 p.m., we have the House Leader and Whip Committee, in which I sit with my colleagues Mr. Hill, Ms. Redman and Mr. Lukiwski.

[An hon. member]

And Ms. Jennings.