Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 8th, 2007

[William Corbett]

Certainly not.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Hill, there's still time on this round.

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

My first one, Mr. Corbett, is just following up on an earlier statement involving specifically Edmonton Centre. You said you had found some instances of individual matters, but not any organized intent. Certainly there was no evidence of an organized attempt to skew the election results by having people who didn't reside in that particular riding actually casting a ballot in that riding, but you did say there were individual instances. How many individual instances were there, where people lived outside of Edmonton Centre but maybe had a business address in Edmonton Centre and voted in Edmonton Centre when they shouldn't have?

[William Corbett]

According to this press release, which I wrote:

...21 electors of the 93 were from outside Edmonton Centre but had voted there.

--in other words, we tried to identify people who appeared to have lived outside Edmonton Centre and voted within--

Almost all had received a voter information card listing a business address in Edmonton Centre. Further analysis indicated that the addresses of these 21 electors had been updated in the National Register of Electors based on information that they had provided to the Canada Revenue Agency or the Alberta Registrar of Motor Vehicle Services. Therefore, none of these electors wilfully or knowingly registered to vote in the wrong electoral district, and none were found to have voted twice.

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

Okay, there were 21. I'm just trying to figure out how extensive it was. You said it was a very expensive investigation, a time-consuming investigation, that you went through. Did your office go through the entire list of every person who actually cast a ballot to ensure that they actually did live there?

[William Corbett]

I don't recall the investigation report in that kind of detail. The focus of the investigation was to try to identify outsiders voting within. They screened Elections Canada available documentation for that purpose, and that allowed them to then make an identification of what looked like people from outside the district voting inside.

Keep in mind that there were a number of people as well who voted at the wrong polling station in Edmonton Centre, but that didn't affect the vote.

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

I'm just referring to the ones who perhaps shouldn't have voted in that riding. I'm just wondering if you have any information on whether your office went through whatever the entire vote was, whether it was 60,000 people who cast ballots or 100,000, although I don't know what the numbers are in Edmonton Centre. Or did you go at random and check 500 names, phone those people, and find out whether they actually were living at the address they were registered to live at, in order to be able to say you randomly checked and that all these 500 actually live there? Did you extrapolate from that and then say that 21 was the total number who voted in the wrong riding?

[William Corbett]

My recollection is that it wasn't random. There was an effort made, in looking at the lists, to identify people who appeared to vote at a business address or those who looked like they voted at a business address, because it was the expectation that these were the people from outside. In other words, they lived somewhere else, but they were voting at a business address.

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

They were making a mistake.

Do I have time for one more question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You don't, but I'm going to allow it, as we have time and I don't see anybody else wanting to ask a question.

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

I have just one follow-up on the statement that you made in explaining the investigation you conducted in northern Saskatchewan.

You said that you sent people from here to that reserve, that the band fully complied with your investigation, and it was quite helpful--at least that is what I got from your comments. But you also said that you have no authority to have people talk to you, not just specifically in that case but in any investigation. You have no power of subpoena or anything like that to get people to actually sit down and discuss with you what they may or may not have done.

[William Corbett]

That's correct.

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

Do you see that as a problem in the act that should be corrected, so that you actually have some authority to ensure that when you're conducting an investigation, there's some onus on people to actually sit down and have a conversation with you or your investigators?

[William Corbett]

That's a very difficult question. In the ordinary criminal realm, police officers can't command somebody to give them a statement. They either give them a statement willingly or they don't. For a murder investigation, I don't have to give a statement; I'm a witness.

It would be difficult to justify it in this area. It's part of our investigation culture. Most people cooperate. I've had lots of people who don't. I shouldn't say lots, but I've had reports back saying, “This person's not prepared to talk to us.”

In the one in northern Saskatchewan, there were a number of people who weren't prepared to talk to us; some aboriginal people don't want to talk to investigators. But the band office was cooperative.

I'd like to have the authority, mind you, but I don't think you're going to give it to me.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, colleagues. I appreciate everybody's diligence in being prepared for this round of questioning.

Commissioner, we certainly appreciate your being here and the time that you and your assistant took to come forward and to have reasonable answers.

There have been some undertakings. Our clerk will remind you of those things, and we certainly hope you get them back to us as soon as you possibly can.

That ends the round of questioning for this piece of business. The witnesses are dismissed with our thanks, again.

Colleagues, we will remain in public and go to the next item on our list. You should have briefing notes that have been prepared and distributed on the issue of cars idling on Parliament Hill. That will be our next item of business. You should also have a draft letter to the Speaker on this matter. I simply would like the committee to offer me some comments on that issue right now. It shouldn't take very long.

We will suspend just to allow the witnesses to gather their papers and remove themselves from the table and for colleagues to look through their paperwork.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's come back into the meeting. I remind you that we're still in public.

Before you are the background notes on the idling of cars as well as a letter dated February 8, addressed to the Speaker of the House and chair of the Board of Internal Economy. I'd like a bit of discussion on this issue, and then ultimately I'd like to get permission to send this letter or something resembling this letter.

Mr. Owen, please.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

I think the letter properly reflects the concern we raised. I'm fine with that. I just want to put on the record that there has been an improvement in the last three or four years, both in having drivers more mindful of not idling their cars when it's not absolutely necessary for temperature reasons and from the ministerial point of view, both in the previous government and this government, with the ever-increasing number of hybrid cars being used by ministers.

The only addition I would add to the letter is just that in addition to talking about idling ministerial vehicles, we should be cautious about idling ministers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I have all kinds of things to say, but I won't.

Monsieur Guimond, please.

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

Yes, I'm satisfied by the letter. My opinion is worth what it's worth, but, in my view, the municipal by-laws of the City of Ottawa and the City of Gatineau do not apply within the perimeter of the Hill. If you call the City of Ottawa police to ask them to intervene on the Hill or in your office, they will refuse to do so under parliamentary privilege. You can refer to that in the letter, and that's probably what Mr. Walsh will do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

It's a reference. Indeed, the bylaws of the surrounding municipalities and other bylaws are simply in there as a matter of reference.

Are there any other comments on the letter?

Ms. Davies, please.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Even if those bylaws don't apply from a legal point of view, we would want to meet the spirit of them. So we're fine with the letter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mr. Hill.

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

I would just point out that the Prime Minister has talked to his cabinet ministers and suggested that they are mindful of this.

I agree with Mr. Owen that there have been improvements over the last while. The vehicle I have is a Toyota hybrid. My driver tells me that when it's idling it's on electricity and the engine doesn't even kick in. It has an electric heater. Technology has reached a point where vast improvements have taken place. I don't know what percentage of the ministers have hybrid vehicles—I haven't conducted a survey or anything—but I think there have been improvements.

This motion that has been brought forward by the NDP is timely. All of us in our daily lives, whether we're ministers of the Crown or citizens, should be reminded from time to time to do what we can to protect the environment. Certainly the Prime Minister has indicated it's his desire that we do as much as we can. Even in this old letter we referenced from a former Speaker it says, “I am asking that you approach your chauffeur to eliminate all unnecessary idling of vehicles.”

We had a brief discussion about this because, as I pointed out, it's not only ministers; it's other people. Both staff and members, who aren't ministers and don't have cars and drivers, in this type of inclement weather need to warm up their vehicles before they throw them into gear and try to drive home when it's thirty below or something. All of us need to be reminded.

So we can send this letter, and if it results in greater awareness and direction from the Speaker or the BOIE, I think everybody universally is supportive of that.

On the comments from my colleague Mr. Owen, the other thing that has changed with the present government is that our cabinet is quite a bit smaller, so there are fewer cars and drivers on Parliament Hill.