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

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, colleagues, for your questions.

Perhaps I may ask for two clarifications. When a mail-in vote is cast, would you not agree that there's more time to check the accuracy of the voter in a mail-in vote versus on election day, when the voter is right in front of you?

[Marc Mayrand]

There is a time period, but often it's very limited because this is done through the mailing system. When you think of electors sending their vote from some foreign country, some countries don't have the mailing service we are used to here. There is a bit more time to validate the information but, again, no verification with external sources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Can I ask for clarification? I think someone mentioned that visual ID would only be the face, and if ID was not presented with a photo on it, then nothing further could be gained. I would like to use this example. If somebody hands in two pieces of valid identification without a photo, and it says on there “Mrs. Smith”, if the person in front of you--I don't want to use the word “veiled” because that's not my concern--shows up in a Darth Vader outfit, you would not be able to tell if it was male, female, or the age of the person under that costume. Am I correct in assuming that? So there is more.

[Marc Mayrand]

It could be, in many cases, and again that's why in September we required all electors to--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Colleagues, I appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple of my own questions to clarify.

Colleagues, if you could put your Bill C-6 folders aside, we'll move right to Bill C-18, which is verification of residence. We already have an introduction of our experts at the end of the table.

Perhaps I could offer Monsieur Mayrand a moment of introduction to this bill. We will then move to our rounds of questioning, colleagues, beginning with seven minutes.

Monsieur Mayrand, please.

[Marc Mayrand]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, I will be brief.

I am pleased to appear before the Committee to discuss Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (verification of residence).

This bill would allow electors in rural and northern regions of the country to establish their residence before voting. Bill C-18 responds to concerns that I raised with the minister and with you, Mr. Chairman, in October 2007.

Elections Canada worked closely with the government to develop the proposal before you today, and we appreciate the promptness with which the issue was dealt with.

The bill addresses two problems.

The first one is the fact that a large number of electors have no civic address. The majority of these electors reside in the Prairie Provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the three territories.

The second problem is that those electors, as well as many electors living in the same areas who do have civic addresses, use their mailing address on most of their identification documents. In both cases, the electors would not likely be able to provide proof of their residence at the polling station, as is now required by the Canada Elections Act. Nor could they rely on someone from the same polling division to vouch for them as their neighbours will be in the same situation.

Bill C-18 provides that electors with no civic address or with pieces of identification that have a mailing address instead of a civic address can establish their residence if the information on their piece of identification is consistent with the information that appears on the list of electors. In this regard, Bill C-18 builds on and uses information contained in the list of electors for each polling division. As you probably know, the list contains the names of the electors residing in that division, their physical address, and their mailing address if it is different from the physical address.

In cases where the deputy returning officer, poll clerk, or a candidate's representative has a reasonable doubt regarding an elector's residence, the elector will be asked to take an oath as to his or her residence.

Electors who have not registered before polling day could be vouched for in the same polling division by registered electors who can establish their residence using the process described earlier. When vouching occurs, both electors will be required to take an oath as to their residence.

As I indicated in my letter of November 28 to the minister, I am satisfied that the changes being proposed in Bill C-18 would provide the necessary flexibility to resolve the particular challenge facing electors in rural and northern areas. As a result, they would be placed on the same footing as electors in other regions of the country.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I wish to express my full support for Bill C-18, and I hope it becomes law in the very near future.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Mayrand.

Are there questions, colleagues, from the table? Is there anyone, for seven minutes? You can share your time or whatever you'd like to do.

We'll have Madame Robillard first, please, and then Mr. Lukiwski.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Mayrand, I would simply like to reconfirm something.

I listened to your opening statement. It is you yourself, as Chief Electoral Officer, who alerted us to this problem. You state that you worked closely with the government to develop the bill that is before us. You believe that this would solve the problem of all of our fellow Canadians, especially those living in rural areas, who do not have a civic address. You believe that this will solve the problem.

Is that your position?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes. In my view, this would place all electors in the same situation, whether they live in rural areas or elsewhere.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Good. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Merci, Madame Robillard.

Does anyone else wish to share time? No.

Mr. Lukiwski, go ahead, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to go back to what seems to be my favourite subject, and that's the power of adaptation. I'm going to ask you a question similar to what I did with Bill C-6, because I think this is far more serious, or potentially could be far more serious, in terms of disenfranchising up to a million voters. Hopefully we have widespread support for this bill around this committee and within our respective parties.

My question would be, if this bill is before Parliament but not passed, not given royal assent, and a byelection or general election occurs--and we're potentially talking millions of people if it is a general election--what would you be prepared to do then, Monsieur Mayrand? Would you be prepared to use your power of adaptation to enact the provisions contained in the bill, even though it was not passed into law, to ensure that rural voters, particularly, wouldn't be disenfranchised?

[Marc Mayrand]

Without reiterating my earlier response, I think there are important distinctions here that would apply. First of all, any adaptation here would be to facilitate the right to vote, not to restrict it. So that's one of the main considerations here. My preference is still to see Parliament adapt the legislation, hopefully as tabled, but again I understand we have a minority government, and we have byelections that can be called at any time. Some of them will have to be called in the next few months.

Again, even though my preference is to see Parliament adapt the bill, I will have to consider adaptation if the bill has not been enacted prior to an upcoming byelection or general election. I must say that any adaptation would be billed along Bill C-18, so the solution would be around what is being proposed in Bill C-18.

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

I don't want to put words in your mouth, and I understand your reluctance, perhaps, to make an unequivocal commitment to use your power of adaptation, but do we have your commitment--again, so it's on the record--that you would do whatever was available within your purview to ensure that there would be no disenfranchised voters as a result of the gaps contained in the original Bill C-31?

[Marc Mayrand]

I would say yes, because I think this is an unintended consequence of Bill C-31, and I don't think Parliament ever intended to disenfranchise such a large number of electors.

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

Thank you. That's all I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

Would any member from the Bloc wish to have some time for questioning? Madame Picard, do you wish to ask any questions? No? Merci.

I think that ends our round of questioning, so now we'll go to our second round of questioners, and this will be for five minutes.

Mr. Reid, you're up first.

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

Thank you.

The question of establishing people's residence relates to the ID they have with them and the way in which the ID is written, but I'm wondering to what extent it also relates to the question of enumeration. We've had extensive discussions in this committee--a bit today, and also on days when you weren't here as witnesses--regarding the merits of more widespread enumeration. Sometimes they are in terms of enumeration in areas of high turnover, or in areas where people are unlikely to have the kind of normal residential identification that others would have.

In one case, in fact, when we were debating Bill C-31, an amendment was put forward to take this into account with regard to aboriginals on reserve by allowing a wider use of ID. The subject also came up in the context of students and the homeless in particular. It strikes me that perhaps persons who are rural voters might--or perhaps might not--fall under this category in which it would be beneficial to assist them with this type of problem.

Given that we are facing a situation in which we could be going into an election or byelections without having this bill fully passed, would more extended enumerations--either full enumerations in the case of byelections, or just more extended partial enumerations--assist in dealing with the problem you've identified?

[Marc Mayrand]

It would be only part of the problem. Our problem is that we have those electors assigned to a polling division, meaning that we know where they live and reside. The problem is that the places where they reside don't have a civic address; hence the civic address, which is required under the act, will not find its way onto documents that are required to establish residence at the time of voting.

I want to insist on that aspect. When we talk about a million electors who could be disenfranchised with the legislation, it's not that those electors are not assigned to a polling division, either through revision or various processes we have in place to associate electors with the place of residence; their problem is that they don't have any documents to show the place of residence as a municipal or civic address.

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

Isn't the problem, Mr. Mayrand, that I live at 123 Main Street somewhere, but I get my mail delivered somewhere else?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's another part of the problem, if you'll allow me.

There are a million electors who don't have what we generally understand as a civic address. We also have other electors who have a civic address but use a mailing address. They have all sorts of reasons. Bill C-18 will deal with both groups, allowing them to use their mailing addresses to establish their residences because of the correlation we can make to the list of electors.

With respect to enumeration, again I'm not sure it would necessarily be a fix to this problem, because it's the non-existence of civic addressing that is the problem. That having been said, we do enumeration in high-mobility areas and in those remote areas where, again, there's difficulty from time to time. In that regard, I invite candidates to help us define the areas where we should be doing more enumeration. We do that very early in the campaign, so we're getting input from parties and candidates as to where they think we should focus our enumeration efforts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Are there any other members around the table?

Mr. Lukiwski, you have one minute on this round. We can go to another round if we have time.

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

That's fine.

Again it goes back to enumeration here. I'm not sure if this is not dealing necessarily with Bill C-18 and disenfranchisement, but we talked about enumeration perhaps not being the best solution because people don't answer their doors, they respect their privacy, and the like.

Currently the situation is that when you file your income tax return, there's a voluntary checkoff box to allow you to indicate whether you want your name placed on a permanent voters list. Am I correct? I'm not sure whether we could do this or make this into law, but if that were a mandatory requirement, how much benefit do you think it would be? I know there are people, frankly, who on advice of accountants or whatever just don't check off that box. If everyone who filed an income tax return were required to check it off so their names could then be placed on a list, would it solve anything?

[Marc Mayrand]

About 83% of taxpayers consent to sending us the information year after year. Again, making it mandatory would align us, maybe, with other countries that make registration obligatory for electors.

Of course, while the tax return is one of the main sources to keep the registry current, it does not deal with those who are not taxpayers. We would still be missing them. But it's the most useful tool we have right now to keep the registry current.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

I do believe we'll go to another round here, because I'm seeing members from all sides.

We'll start with Mr. Proulx.