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

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

The way the bill is currently written, without this amendment, what problem specifically would you see?

[Marc Mayrand]

The bill requires that there be, first, supplementary staff hired. We believe it may not be required in each and every case. We think that in many cases simply using the regular staff who are already on the location should be enough to deal with most situations.

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

If I'm hearing you correctly, one of the concerns you had with the original bill is that there might be a need to hire additional staff, with not only the financial challenges that would present but the human resource challenges. You're saying that if this amendment is passed, it could alleviate some of those pressures.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, absolutely.

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

Thank you very much.

I have no further questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You have four minutes left on your time, if you wanted to share; otherwise, we're going to move to Madame Picard.

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

I'm not sure if any of my colleagues have a question.

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

Perhaps a very brief comment, Mr. Chairman. It won't take all four minutes.

Further to the discussion between Mr. Lukiwski and Mr. Proulx, I just want to observe that the fact the Liberals have changed their position does not preclude their changing it once again and going back to their original position. That would be par for the course.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Order, please. Order.

Let's try to stay focused on Bill C-6.

Madame Picard, please. Seven minutes.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Mayrand.

Your proposed amendment to Clause 4 consists in replacing lines 20 to 26 of the English version. Could you give us a more detailed explanation?

[Marc Mayrand]

There are two purposes to this amendment we are suggesting, one of which has perhaps been left aside in our discussions to now. The idea is to extend the application of this provision to advance polling stations. Indeed, the clause as it now stands applies only to those sites where ordinary voting is held. It would seem appropriate to us that advance polling stations also be offered this flexibility.

Furthermore, the proposed amendment aims at allowing the best possible use of the staff already in place. As it is presently drafted, Clause 4 deals only with additional staff. We however believe that, in various cases, there would be no need to hire additional staff to administer the act. Those cases where such a need could arise would be rather isolated.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Which means that in order to ensure the necessities of a polling station, a returning officer having to be absent for an hour, for a justified reason, could be replaced by persons already on duty there.

[Marc Mayrand]

The returning officer could be replaced by an information officer or some other person on site when things are slow, for example.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

In other words, if a woman whose face was hidden had to be identified and if no female returning officer were available, another member of the on-site staff could be called upon.

[Marc Mayrand]

That is correct.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Merci beaucoup, Madame Picard.

Mr. Dewar, seven minutes, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests for being here again.

The first question I have is to go back to when we were looking at this issue before. I had asked in committee how many instances of voter fraud or concerns about voter fraud there had been prior to the byelections in Quebec, how many instances of voter fraud or potential voter fraud had occurred vis-à-vis citizens voting and having their faces covered, and I believe you said there were none.

[Marc Mayrand]

No cases were reported to us, and we haven't received any complaints in relation to the byelections in September.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Further to that, on the issue of potential voter fraud, how many cases of voter fraud or alleged voter fraud were there in the last three elections, to your knowledge?

[Marc Mayrand]

Very few.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Because we dealt with this on Bill C-31, my recollection was that there were three or potentially four. I say that, Chair, just because the nature of this bill and the bill we'll be dealing with in the second hour hinges on Bill C-31 and I think it's important to underline that.

It is our party's contention that this bill and Bill C-18 are creatures of Bill C-31, and if we didn't have a flawed Bill C-31, we wouldn't have Bill C-6 or Bill C-18. That's the reason for my inquiry and for my statement.

So what we have here, and I've said this before, is the solution looking for a problem and we've certainly found them. This bill seems to be analogous to a hammer killing a fly. I look at the amount of money we've spent, the amount of time we've spent to deal with what I am understanding is a problem that hasn't existed, and I hope we'll hear from witnesses from the community.

Specifically, Chair, and to our panel, I haven't encountered one person who has been unwilling to unveil when she has come to exercise her franchise. Are we aware or are you aware anecdotally of...?

[Marc Mayrand]

Well, in the three byelections in September, we had 70 electors who attended voting stations with face coverings.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Oh, I'm sorry. I stand corrected on that anecdote.

But prior to that, and I'll be very specific, there had been no concerns from Muslim women who wore niqabs about unveiling?