Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 19th, 2007

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Secondly, I would certainly support the idea of enumeration. We've always supported that, and I think it was a sad day when enumeration was basically abandoned. Maybe it needs to be done in certain areas.

I think it does deal with this question of what is voter fraud. When you look at your performance target in your brief and when you look at your coverage target for the list itself—and you're saying you've actually reached 92%—does Elections Canada have any figure on fraud? Do you have an indicator on that or something that you look at as a measurement? And if you don't, why don't you?

[Marc Mayrand]

We have various initiatives to validate the information on the registry. From that validation, I don't know that we can draw this as fraud. If there's incorrect information or—There may be a whole series of explanations for variations in information in the registry.

One thing I can assure you is there is no evidence of systemic fraud in the system. I was recently made aware of that during a review to determine whether there really was someone living at the address being claimed to be the residence, which was a Turkish bath. It turned out that, yes, two electors were living there and had been living there for six years. So we have to be very careful before concluding it is a question of fraud.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I think it's a very critical question, because the former CEO was of the opinion that fraud was not a major issue. The commissioner we had before the committee talked about various cases that were being investigated, because of course there are cases and there are reports and they need to be investigated. But I'm curious. We have this bill that is now going through allegedly to deal with all of this voter fraud, but what it's actually going to do is cut people off from voting based on political assertions that this fairly major fraud is taking place, and yet I don't think it has ever been demonstrated or documented, certainly not by Elections Canada.

Is there anything that Elections Canada has that can show us that fraud is taking place at a level that you think is unacceptable? I know there are isolated situations, but is there anything beyond that?

[Marc Mayrand]

I haven't seen any evidence of systemic fraud.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Colleagues, it appears to me that we have finished our questioning on the estimates. Perhaps we need to get the Chief Electoral Officer and his team back for discussions on other things. I would ask colleagues right now if we are ready to deal with the main estimates only.

Monsieur Guimond.

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

Mr. Chair, before I can focus seriously on the estimates, could you ask the Chief Electoral Officer to answer my last question? I asked if it is possible for a poster to be placed at the entrance to each polling station. The poster would show an enlargement of the ballot to help the people in line in making their choice, just as was done in the last Quebec election. Then I would have a better picture of the estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Mayrand, would you like to answer that question?

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

It could be crucial.

[Marc Mayrand]

It is a suggestion that we could consider. It is not something that we are presently discussing. You just brought it up this morning.

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

It is a good idea.

[Marc Mayrand]

Maybe. I will discuss it, weigh the pros and cons, and consider any other factors that may need to be taken into account. It is certainly something that we could consider.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Are we ready for the question on the main estimates, colleagues?

I'm seeing agreement on it.

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

It has taken a long time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Shall vote 15 under the Privy Council, less the amount voted in interim supply, carry?

PRIVY COUNCIL

Chief Electoral Officer

Vote 15—Program expenditures..........$21,766,000

(Vote 15 agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Should I report the main estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much. I would like to thank our witnesses, Monsieur Mayrand and his team.

Thank you very much for coming out today.

Colleagues, thank you as well for your questions.

It does appear there may be an opportunity to invite you back for further issues, and I know you are completely cooperative in doing that.

I would like to suspend the meeting for a few minutes so that we can dismiss our current witnesses and bring in the next round. I will suspend the meeting at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's resume our meeting.

I would again just like to remind members that we are in public, and if time permits we will deal with the private members' business, as tabled by Mr. Preston at the last meeting.

Right now we're going on to the second half of our meeting today, with the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

Mr. Corbett, I will give you a few moments, if you could just introduce yourself and your colleague, and then I'll offer you some time for a brief opening statement. Thank you.

Mr. Corbett.

[William Corbett, Commissioner of Canada Elections, Elections Canada]

Thank you.

I have with me, Johanne Gauthier, who is the new general counsel with our office.

I appeared in front of the committee on February 8, 2007. Since then we have been busy, and I can give you a brief update on our activities.

We've engaged Ms. Gauthier, who has a strong management background. She is formerly with the Military Police Complaints Commission and is a former winner of the Public Service Award of Excellence in management. So we have a strong management component with our office now.

This has allowed our long-serving general counsel, Johanne Massicotte, who you may have met, to take advantage of a pre-retirement program.

We are in the process of transforming two key employees who were with us on secondment into indeterminate positions. One has a strong litigation background, having been a former Department of Justice prosecutor, and the other is very knowledgeable in the intricacies of the Canada Elections Act, which is still somewhat of a mystery to me.

We're working with the CEO to reduce the number of unnecessary referrals from Elections Canada. We're going to work on some standards for referrals. You may have noted the huge amount of paperwork that seems to come our way.

We're also working with the CEO with regard to resourcing for our office. If I had my way, I'd have some full-time investigators available to me, with particular skill sets that I think will be necessary for the future, and possibly a forensic accountant.

We have recruited some new contract investigators, and we're aiming for people with experience in financial matters, financial investigations. And we're continuing our update of the investigators' manual.

We have developed a workplan for the office for 2007-08. Ms. Gauthier will be responsible for it. It's quite ambitious and it certainly is comprehensive. It's been discussed with the CEO. We're already acting according to it, and I can make it available to you.

To ensure our readiness for the next election, we've held a training seminar in Ottawa this week for our contract investigators. This was attended by 37 investigators, mostly field investigators. It was a very positive experience, and it gave me a chance to meet many of them for the first time and to address my expectations of them. We're well deployed across the country with capable investigators presently.

The agenda and course materials are also available to you, should you be interested.

As you know, I must act independently in making decisions and maintain the confidentiality of matters under investigation by the office. This reflects my obligation of fairness to anyone dealing with the office and for the privacy interests of individuals.

Please accept that I am constrained in responding to some questions since to do otherwise would have a serious impact on the ability of our office to carry out its responsibilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Corbett.

We'll go to our first round, which will be five minutes again.

Mr. Owen, please.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Corbett and Madame Gauthier, for being with us today.

Commissioner, I wrote on October 24, 2006, to the Chief Electoral Officer at the time with respect to two potential breaches of the Canada Elections Act with respect to political donations. On October 31, 2006, Mr. Kingsley wrote to me, with a copy to you, referring it on to you as being within your area of responsibility rather than his.

I wonder if you are able to provide an update on your investigation into that matter.

[William Corbett]

I feel I am constrained from providing you with an update, sir, in view of the fact that it's publicly known that it's with our office. This is not, in my view, the proper forum to do that.

But we have heard from your executive assistant and we'll be responding.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

All right. Can you give any idea of the time that might be required for the response?

[William Corbett]

I'd say soon.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.