Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 15th, 2007

[Marc Mayrand]

Actually, there would be two more days. You need to remember that. The bill provides for two days of early voting: the first day, which we have focused on heavily today, but also the previous Sunday, which is a regular advance polling day.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I am just trying to get a handle on this. There is the regular election day, on the scheduled date, and the Sunday is added.

[Marc Mayrand]

A Sunday is added, and there are three advance voting days from the previous week. A fourth day is added to the weekend, and that is the Sunday. So there would be four consecutive days of regular advance voting, based on the rules as we understand them, and also a day on the eve of polling day where people would be able to vote at any of the polling stations nationwide.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

So the $34 million covers that additional day.

[Marc Mayrand]

That is for the entire bill. It would cover all the provisions of the bill, at every election, and the costs associated with this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues, but I'd especially like to thank our witnesses, not only for coming on short notice, but for agreeing to stay. I'm sure all committee members appreciate the added answers we had as a result of this second round.

Thank you very much. We very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you.

Colleagues, we're going to suspend for one minute so we can get our witnesses out and the next group of witnesses in. So we will suspend the meeting for one minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's begin with our second set of witnesses today.

I will open the floor so the witnesses can introduce themselves, and then we will begin our round of questioning.

If we could, let's keep opening comments to maybe less than two minutes, if that's fair.

Mr. Mortimer, please introduce yourself, and then we will....

[Harry Mortimer, Director, Regulatory Compliance and Reporting, Liberal Party of Canada]

Good afternoon.

My name is Harry Mortimer. I am with the Liberal Party of Canada. I'm the director of regulatory compliance and reporting. I appreciate having been invited here to share our views on this bill. I have a short prepared statement, and I'll be happy to take questions after.

[Éric Hébert-Daly, Federal Secretary, New Democratic Party]

My name is Éric Hébert-Daly. I am the federal secretary of the New Democratic Party of Canada. We know each other because I have appeared regularly before your committee. So as far as introductions go, that will suffice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We did invite representatives from the four parties. I believe we invited representatives from the Green Party as well. Unfortunately, we have no representatives from the Conservatives or the Bloc. However, we did receive a statement, a letter, which you have, from a representative of the Conservative Party of Canada. That's been circulated.

We'll begin with an opening statement from our witnesses who are here, and then we will start with a five-minute round. That is what I'm suggesting, unless there are objections.

Mr. Mortimer, please, your opening comments.

[Harry Mortimer]

Thank you.

I would like to say that the Liberal Party fully supports all efforts to increase voter participation. We strongly believe that all Canadians should have the opportunity to participate in the electoral process equally.

Having said that, we do have some concerns that I will highlight for you today in general terms, and I will be happy to expand on those when asked.

Our concerns are threefold. One, this government has done no consultations or studies to show that this bill will actually increase voter participation. It appears that this is yet another piecemeal attempt at electoral reform, a move done without consultation or adequate study. Two, we have logistical concerns over the fact that this bill effectively creates two election days. Three, we have specific concerns regarding subclause 176.6(5), and subparagraph 167.2(a)(ii).

As you know, this bill will amend the Canada Elections Act to add two additional advance polling days for national elections. This effectively creates a two-day election. Our main concern is that election days are resource-intensive for both Elections Canada and political campaigns. Unless we know whether or not these measures will increase voter participation, it is difficult to justify the added time, expense, and logistical challenges of a second full day of voting. Keep in mind that in the last election there were 62,000 polling stations on election day, requiring the attendance of over 124,000 deputy returning officers and poll clerks.

The value of increased participation in the electoral process may be priceless, but before jumping off this cliff, it might be helpful to have some hard evidence that all of this will make a substantial difference. We would urge the committee to undertake such a study, and we ask the government to consider implementing this on a trial basis for the pending by-elections prior to rolling it out on a national level.

In addition, this bill may have logistical consequences that the government has either ignored or failed to address. For example, an ordinary advance polling station located in a church would be required to be open on a Sunday, and all 62,000-plus polling stations would need to be situated in locations that were available not merely for a day on Monday but on the consecutive Sunday and Monday. The committee would be well advised to study these issues carefully, as they would have unintended consequences.

We also have specific concerns with two subclauses of the bill. Subclause 176.6(5) provides that the poll clerk is to give the candidate's representatives a list of who voted upon closing of the advanced polls. Our concern is that if this list is only distributed to candidates' agents in this way, campaigns can only know who voted if they have a scrutineer available at every polling station at closing time. This is logistically unfeasible.

We propose a revision that requires each returning officer to provide each candidate with a copy of the list of who has voted no later than 11 p.m. on the day of any advance poll.

Finally, we recommend that subparagraph 167.2(a)(ii) be deleted, as it appears to be redundant in light of clause 176.1.

To summarize, while we are supportive of the bill, I would advise the committee to carefully study the impacts of the bill, as it appears that the government has not done so.

I appreciate having been invited to share our thoughts on this matter and will be happy to field any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Merci.

Monsieur Hébert-Daly.

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

Obviously, the New Democratic Party of Canada will support all efforts to encourage greater voter turnout. This has always been an issue of the utmost importance for our party.

However, just like my colleague from the Liberal Party, we share Elections Canada's concerns, which were mentioned by Mr. Mayrand. We are concerned, for example, that ballot boxes may be moved about, by the time it's going to take to implement the proposed provisions, and about the cost involved. We are looking at a 12 % increase in the general election budget. There was consideration of the 35 days of polling, but at the end of the day, it is 30 days in total instead.

In any event, the current Elections Act provides for several polling possibilities. This is why the money should perhaps be used on awareness and to encourage people to use the other existing methods and polling days including the advance polling ballot and special ballots which may be sent at any point throughout the campaign right up to the Tuesday before polling day.

We also are concerned about staff recruitment. I'm not necessarily referring to recruiting people, because I think it will actually be easier to find people to work on Sunday than on Monday. Rather, the problem is with training. If the election staff all have different schedules, there may have to be ongoing training of a large number of people throughout the whole process.

On several occasions throughout any given polling day, local identification of people is a problem. Either people are poorly trained, or they've been trained but have their own personal spin on what they're supposed to do on polling day. The problem only gets bigger when different people turn up to do the same job.

Our job, as a political party, is to get people out to vote, and this is always going to be our goal. But the fact remains that some people are always going to be a little upset about getting calls on a Sunday morning or having to answer the door when people come and try and get them out to vote. As a political party, we're going to have to be very careful about that. So, with that in mind, I encourage you to not necessarily see Sunday as an ordinary polling day.

In closing, I think that Bill C-31, which was enacted during the last parliamentary session, could have included a focus on voter turnout. Had this been done, now that the act has been passed, we wouldn't be facing so many problems today.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

We'll start our first five-minute round.

Madam Redman, please.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I would like to thank both of you for coming because I think you bring a very important perspective. It's interesting that a lot of your concerns in your briefs very much reflect some of the concerns we heard from the Chief Electoral Officer.

Clearly there's an interest in getting more Canadians involved in the process. I'm sure that every political party, ours included, has looked at the youth not coming out and participating at the levels we'd like to see.

Mr. Hébert-Daly, you talked about the mail-in vote. I'm just wondering if either of you, from a party perspective, have had discussions amongst the grassroots, or maybe at the party bureaucratic level, about looking at e-voting or other methods of voting other than these additional days. If the intent of this piece of legislation is to increase voter turnout, it strikes me that this is a bit like giving the same message, either repeating it or yelling it louder, rather than finding another method of reaching potential voters.

I wonder if either of you could comment on any kind of investigation you've done into alternative methods of engaging electors, especially young people.

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

I can say that in 2003 the federal NDP held an electronic ballot for the selection of our leader. It was the first time that kind of voting process had taken place in Canada, and it was a very educational process for us, and actually one that gave us a tremendous amount of confidence in a lot of the options that are available around e-voting. It would require an entire other study on the part of this committee for that kind of work to be done, but I do think we might be able to appeal to that younger demographic that you're talking about in a way that we currently don't, and I think that could definitely be something worth investigating. It's something we've discussed within the party and certainly something that there is an openness within our party to consider.

[Harry Mortimer]

In short, the work our party has done I think has been very much on a smaller scope and wouldn't have the information value that would apply to a full election, in order to really apply in this case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Next on my list I have Mr. Godin, for five minutes, please.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

My question is for Mr. Hébert-Daly.

Earlier, you said the money would perhaps be better spent if Elections Canada went on a publicity blitz, increased awareness, and gave people more information and training, etc.

I think I'd like to tackle another issue this morning. I'm referring to the problem concerning people's names on the electoral list. In times gone by, they used to send someone from house to house, and that's how the list was drawn up. I remember Mr. Kingsley was against that. He wanted to do away with that practice and use the lists provided by provinces.

For example, I can tell you that it's my belief that on the Elections Canada lists, there are the names of people who are deceased. They've appeared in my data base six times, and I think everybody is in the same boat.

The Elections Canada list is inadequate. It's time to use the $32 million to employ people to go to people's homes just before the election, to find out if they actually live there, and to update the list. It would also encourage people to turn out and vote.

I'd like to hear what you have to say about this.

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

In fact, voter turnout is a topic which is ripe for discussion. As it turns out, if there are several deceased persons on a list, or people who no longer live at the stated address, or whatever the case may be, when it comes time to calculate the voter turnout percentage, the figures are skewed as a result. So care needs to be taken. Indeed, there does need to be an investment in this.

The NDP has been calling for, not necessarily a complete census, but a census targeting areas where there have been a lot of relocations, problems, seniors, or deceased persons. There are geographical regions that can be singled out with a view to a highly-targeted review. It would be a good investment and would ensure that the electoral list is accurate for the purposes of determining voter turnout.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much, colleagues.

We are actually going to move to our second round right now, and we'll start with Mr. Reid. We'll stay with five minutes.

I'm sorry, we didn't see your hand up for the first round. So we're on the second round, it's still five minutes, and I was paying attention.

Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for coming here. We're glad you came.

I think, Mr. Hébert-Daly, you've been here before. So thank you. It's always a pleasure to see you.

I'm not sure, Mr. Mortimer, if we met before, but I very much enjoyed your presentation, and actually the questions I have are directed to you because you give some interesting details that I thought were worth mentioning.

The first one is your suggestion of using the legislation on a trial basis. By-election turnouts are, of course, notoriously bad, and anything we can do to boost them presumably would be beneficial. So it's not a bad idea. I guess the concern I have is that we've just heard Elections Canada mentioning they would have some logistical problems in pulling this together within the limited timeframe.

Unfortunately, until you asked your question, I hadn't thought of asking this to the Chief Electoral Officer, but the question is, do you think there'd be a problem, logistically, with preparing by-elections in a short period of time, or do you think those logistical issues would be less likely to be a problem in terms of the advance time that's necessary, whether they could be done perhaps at a more advanced rate than the pace that Elections Canada is proposing for dealing with a general election?

Then I have a second question, and if you can answer the first one, I'll get back to you on it. It's a more specific thing.

[Harry Mortimer]

Thank you.

I can't speak for Elections Canada, of course. Obviously they're addressing the concern with computer programming and things, which will have time requirements. But certainly, part of his comment was about the quantity of the logistics and the number of locations. To me it would appear quite likely that they would be able to address this smaller by-election issue in a shorter timeframe, because it's only a few upcoming by-elections we're facing.

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

All right. Thank you.

A second thing you mentioned specifically—and unfortunately you were trying to comply with our very tight constraints—is that part of proposed section 167.2 is redundant and dealt with elsewhere.

What was the exact redundancy you were referring to?

[Harry Mortimer]

Basically, in one part of the act it's saying that it's an election day and the other element of it is repeating the same information in the requirements.