Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 4th, 2007

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

My question for Mr. Mayrand relates to the electoral code in Morocco, which was distributed to us by our researcher. I guess, in all fairness, I ought to ask this question first: have you had a chance to look at all of this? I know it's been brought up in the past.

[Marc Mayrand]

In a very summary manner.

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

The way it's written here, a chunk has been taken out of section 62 of the electoral code of Morocco, which describes at some length the visual ID you can use. They have a lot of visual ID in Morocco: passports, driver licences, hunting licences, what they call family record books, booklets of marital status, and professional cards. They then go on and vote, they present their card. It says here: “With the ballot in hand, the elector enters the polling booth and indicates his/her choice of candidate in the appropriate space, folds the ballot and presents his/her electoral card and identification card to the president who checks the name of the elector against the electoral list and verifies the elector’s identity.” It doesn't actually say “verifies it by visually...”.

So I'm wondering, is that in fact what happens, do you know?

[Marc Mayrand]

My understanding is that there is visual identification in Morocco. And one of the things in Morocco is that you have to present at least one card with a photo, which, in my mind, would legitimize the requirement to reveal your face.

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

It's not actually here in the code, but it's in practice. That's how the Moroccans interpret the law.

[Marc Mayrand]

That's my understanding, yes. They have mandatory photo ID that's required in order to vote, and when they administer the identification process, they do require electors to unveil.

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

The other thing I notice here—and I suspect that we wouldn't have any cause to change, but I'm curious—is that they have you going through the voting process and then identifying yourself, but in Canada it's all up at the front, I assume. In all cases you have to do the identification prior to being handed a ballot or anything else?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, before being handed the ballot.

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

Would I be right in assuming that you think that's a better way of handling things?

[Marc Mayrand]

I would think so.

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

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm going to offer another round to the members, because I've had a couple of hands go up requiring questions. Is it okay to go to one more round? Three minutes maximum, colleagues.

Monsieur Proulx, three minutes, please, and then Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Mayrand, it takes me a lot of time to understand, but once I have understood, it is for good. The difference between the way things are done now and what would happen if the bill is passed is the following. A person who goes to a polling station without photo ID could vote upon presentation of two other pieces of ID. This person would have to show his or her face. The women wearing a head scarf that I talked about earlier would have to remove their scarf, under the new law, even if they had two pieces of identification.

[Marc Mayrand]

Any person wishing to be provided with a ballot in person would have to show his or her face.

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

How does that compare, Mr. Mayrand, to the mail-in voting process? These people identify themselves with pieces of identification, it is true, but there is no physical identification.

[Marc Mayrand]

Indeed, our electoral system recognizes an exception for this special voting process, the main purpose of which is to allow people who find themselves outside their riding to vote. It is thus that we established a mail-in voting process. Obviously, in such situations, there is no contact with election workers. It is therefore not that relevant to require the visual identification of the voter in such cases.

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

Do you not find that this system is not quite fair? Those who vote by mail will not have to identify themselves visually but those who go to a polling station to vote will be required to identify themselves physically or to be visually identified even with pieces of ID identical to those used by the people who vote by mail.

[Marc Mayrand]

Furthermore, the special ballot system is an exceptional, extraordinary system aimed at serving a particular segment of voters who are unable to present themselves in person at the polling station. As well, the election system will offer a choice to those voters who truly do not wish to show their face and who could use this other method so as to nevertheless be able to exercise their right to vote without showing their face.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you. There are about 30 seconds left in your round, if you'd like to use it.

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

Could we talk about the motion that we are supposed to be debating in the meeting?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You can discuss what you want.

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

Maybe we could talk about the steering committee report that was never accepted. No?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We'll go to Mr. Lukiwski, please.

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

Thanks, Chair.

I'd just like to get your opinion on something Mr. Dewar raised, actually, because I think it had some relevancy, obviously, to the discussion here about trying to enfranchise rather than disenfranchise voters, and that's enumeration.

One of our previous witnesses was Mr. Jean Ouellet, who is the chief electoral officer for Saskatchewan. I'm fairly familiar with the enumeration process in Saskatchewan, and it's not the best. I asked him the question, because we had in previous provincial elections seen examples of when literally dozens of households in city areas in certain ridings were excluded. They were not enumerated. I'd seen that time after time after time in provincial elections.

In discussions with the electoral office, I asked why this was. Did they not have the manpower to go out and enumerate, or was it sloppy work or whatever? They pointed out that in certain areas of a city, where perhaps the crime rate is fairly high, people just do not answer their doors. They gave me examples. The previous chief electoral officer, a woman by the name of Jan Baker, recounted the story to me of going out personally with the enumerators to ensure that they were doing their jobs correctly. She would see people through their windows in their houses. And they would ring the doorbell and knock on the door, and the people wouldn't answer. Perhaps because they were afraid, or for whatever reason, they just didn't answer the door. She said that this is why enumeration is so flawed.

I'm not suggesting that the permanent voters list is a perfect fix, but I also don't think that enumeration is a perfect fix. It may have to be some sort of hybrid. I don't know. But I'd like to get your opinion on the permanent voters list versus enumeration.

[Marc Mayrand]

It's been a challenge for all electoral bodies in Canada, and I suspect for other countries too.

Canadians live very busy lives right now. They're trying to achieve some balance between work and personal life, and they don't often appreciate being disturbed during their personal moments. Our experience is that even though we do targeted enumeration before each election—in fact, we are looking at making it even more regular and not waiting for the election to happen—despite all our best efforts, the response to door-to-door enumeration is quite low.

Again, we're looking at alternative ways to reach out to electors to make sure they are on the register and that they keep their information current. We're always exploring other or new alternatives to facilitate this process. But again, enumeration tends to be costly and does not provide the coverage that we would all like to see in that regard.