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

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

That would be lovely, yes.

[William Corbett]

I think we can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Generic might be a better word.

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

I wanted to ask this as well. You mentioned you had sent out 86 caution letters, or had considered, at any rate, 86. It would be helpful to us if, on an ongoing basis but perhaps starting now, you could periodically keep us up to date with how many caution letters you're sending out vis-à-vis which sections of the act. That would be very helpful to us in determining, from a legislator's point of view, which parts of the act are difficult for people to follow in good faith.

The very fact that you're sending out a caution letter indicates that you believe these were not bad-faith violations of the act, and it would allow us to look and see if perhaps we're making unreasonable demands on volunteers, particularly the agents, who normally work without remuneration.

So if you could do that, I would certainly be very grateful, and the clerk would be happy to submit that to all members of the committee.

[William Corbett]

I can tell you now that, of the 86, 47 involved the nomination contest reports being filed late, very late. Another batch involved transfers to a candidate before the candidate was confirmed by the RO--another dozen or so of those.

There seems to be a misunderstanding as to when money can be transferred from an association, or when contributions can be made to the campaign for a candidate. It isn't simply when the candidate is selected by the party, it's when the candidate is confirmed, because the definition of candidate is a confirmed candidate by the returning officer. There's a batch of those as well. Those are roughly three that I can identify to you now.

We've used it for a handful of double votes, where the person has been cooperative with the investigation, remorseful, contrite, sometimes perhaps very forgetful. They voted at the advance poll and on election day and didn't remember.

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

Often this is what can happen. Everybody on this committee knows that, for reasons no one can quite explain, Scott Reid, Scott Jeffrey Reid, and Jeffrey Reid--all of whom are me--get separate cards at my address. I suppose if I were forgetful in the right kind of way, I could vote at the returning office, the advance poll, and the regular poll. Admittedly I'm a high-profile person in my riding and someone would probably notice, but if I weren't, they might not.

[William Corbett]

If you weren't sophisticated, you might think, having received two voter information cards, that you could vote twice.

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

That's right, it's conceivable.

I wanted to bring up a separate issue. This relates to the meetings that the Chief Electoral Officer has with what is referred to as the all-party consultative committee. I'm sure you're familiar with this committee. Perhaps you're not.

[William Corbett]

I've heard of it, that's all.

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

It deals with difficulties in interpreting the act. My understanding is that in the past the commissioner has tended not to be present, but it strikes me that, given that it's largely about trying to determine what are the problematic areas of the act, it might be helpful if either you or a representative of your office were able to be present at some of these, or at least to make sure you're kept apprised. I would think that actually being present and perhaps offering some opinions might be helpful, given that all parties are invited and are present, including the very small parties.

[William Corbett]

I will raise this with the CEO and see if I can get an invitation.

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

Thank you.

The last thing I wanted to raise is the subject of your opinions. You're the man who makes the decision whether to engage in prosecutions, which raises the issue of the information sheets Elections Canada puts out. I think that on the website there are currently 28 of these, or thereabouts, but I stand to be corrected. At their head they have a disclaimer, and back in another day the disclaimer used to say something to the effect that as long as one made a genuine effort to follow the interpretation that you have given on the sheets, one wouldn't be prosecuted by the commissioner of elections.

That has since been removed, and there's now a disclaimer that makes it very difficult to tell of what value the interpretation provided in the information sheet is. It says:

The views expressed in information sheets are not law and are not intended to replace the official text of the Act. How the Act applies to any particular case will depend on the individual circumstances of that case. Elections Canada reserves the right to reconsider any interpretations expressed in information sheets, either generally or in light of the actual circumstances of any case, and in accordance with continuing legislative and judicial developments.

That is a wonderful way of Elections Canada ensuring they're covered. But from my point of view, these things are close to worthless. This wouldn't be the case if, in your position as commissioner, you could look them over and then either indicate—ideally on the website, but if not, in some other form that's publicly available—that you agree with the interpretation and, therefore, that someone who made a best effort to comply would not be prosecuted by you; or say no, that you disagree and that Elections Canada ought to change the interpretations it was giving vis-à-vis whatever the issue happened to be.

[William Corbett]

This poses some difficulty.

The CEO and I have discussed the need for our legal positions to be one and the same, so that Elections Canada speaks with one legal voice. But you know as well as I do that when you get five lawyers together, you'll have some difficulties. Whatever the disclaimer may be on an information sheet, if Elections Canada puts out the information sheet and an individual follows it clearly, this would certainly be a factor to be considered, and it would make any prosecution extremely difficult. That's as much as I can tell you.

They can disclaim all they like. What do you think a judge is going to say when we take something like this forward—“What are you doing here?”

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

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

[William Corbett]

Not that I'm giving you an opinion or anything.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

There is a little bit of time left, but I think you can appreciate that we can't do too much with 20 seconds.

We'll move on to Monsieur Guimond, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I should begin by congratulating you, belatedly, on your appointment to this position, Mr. Corbett. We know the other William Corbett, but you two should not be confused. We'd have to know which is the real one! I also want to thank my fellow committee members for accepting my suggestion that we ask you to come and testify before us. I take this opportunity to boast: my colleagues are familiar with my proverbial humility. It is unusual for the Commissioner of Elections to testify before the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I'm going to ask my questions quickly in order to give you the time to answer them and so as not to put myself to sleep in asking you them.

Mr. Corbett, your office has a credibility problem. Perhaps not for us members, but in the minds of the main election organizers in the ridings of our respective parties. Let me explain.

We on the outside sometimes get the impression we make a number of complaints that result in nothing. On an election campaign, you become paranoid. We always think that our opponents are doing something inappropriate, that we're the only ones who know the truth and do good, and that our opponents are doing wrong and doing us wrong. We get the impression that we file complaints and that that results in absolutely nothing.

To denounce or debunk this myth, I'm going to ask you something.

Can you provide, for the benefit of committee members, a table of all the complaints that were filed during the 2004 and 2006 elections, if you have those figures? I'd like that table to contain the number of complaints filed and their status: rejected, withdrawn or under investigation.

That in a way would make it possible to determine the utility of your position. In order to comply with confidentiality rules applicable to complaints, don't put any names or information that would make it possible to identify the persons concerned. I don't want to know that such and such a lady in the riding of my friend Jay Hill, at 226 Scott Street, Prince George, filed a complaint against the Conservative organization in her riding. I'm not interested in that. But I want to know what the complaint was and the section of the law in question. I agree with what Scott Reid said about the section of the act referred to. As he said, if there are any acts that pose a problem or sections of an act that give rise to complaints, perhaps that's because of a clarity problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Merci.

Mr. Corbett.

[William Corbett]

Other than for the workload, yes, we can give you some information on complaints. Whether it will be as fulsome as you want I'm not sure, but I can give you a best efforts undertaking.

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

For the 2004 election as well?

[William Corbett]

Yes.

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

All right, you're going to submit a table to me. The table will probably be this thick.

[William Corbett]

Much smaller.