Evidence of meeting #15 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was returns.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Order, please.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, February 26, 2009, main estimates 2009-10, today we'll be reviewing vote 15, the Chief Electoral Officer, under Privy Council.
We are in public today.
Monsieur Mayrand, I'd like to welcome you here today.
We'll let you start with your opening comments, and you'll introduce the people you brought with you.
May 26th, 2009 / 12:05 p.m.
Marc Mayrand Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am please to appear before the committee today to discuss the 2009-2010 Main Estimates for my Office. I am accompanied today by Gisèle Côté, Chief Financial Officer, and Hughes St-Pierre, Senior Director, Corporate Services.
As I am sure the committee is aware, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer is funded by two separate budget authorities.
The first, an annual Parliamentary appropriation, provides for the salaries of permanent, full-time staff. It is this component that the committee is considering today.
The second is the statutory authority that draws directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This authority funds all other Elections Canada expenditures. These include the cost of electoral events; maintenance of the National Register of Electors; political party allowances; and public information and education programs.
For the Main Estimates I am presenting today, our appropriation is $27.4 million—representing the salaries of some 394 full-time employees. To provide some context to these figures, I will briefly describe some of the challenges Elections Canada is facing, and summarize our priorities for this fiscal year and beyond.
The current operating reality presents our agency with three significant challenges.
The first and perhaps most obvious relates to the fact that we have had three general elections in roughly four years, each returning a minority government.
Our mandate requires that we be ready at all times to deploy the substantial resources and carry out the broad range of activities associated with an electoral event—all of which must happen within a period as brief as 36 days.
In the last Parliament, there were no fewer than 25 confidence votes—requiring Elections Canada to maintain a high state of readiness for an extended period.
A second, less visible challenge is the impact of electoral reform, and the uncertain volume of new legislation in this area. The 39th Parliament, for example, included passage of legislation related to fixed date elections; the Federal Accountability Act; and new voter identification requirements. The process of electoral reform continues, as we saw with the tabling last month of BillS-6 dealing with the issue of loans to political entities.
In this same context, I would note recent public discussion regarding a potential referendum on the topic of Senate reform. To ensure we are prepared for such an event, we are in the process of updating the regulation that adapts the provisions of the Canada Elections Act for a referendum. We expect to share those with the committee before the summer recess.
Finally, as I have mentioned to this committee before, Elections Canada has initiated a full review of its existing IT environment, which has reached the limits of its capacity and cannot be augmented further to meet new requirements. This is a major undertaking that we anticipate will take another two years. It impacts all sectors of the organization and most of our business lines.
This change is required so that we are in a better position to respond to the current and future expectations of stakeholders and deliver on the next generation of electoral services.
These significant challenges--successive minority governments, ongoing legislative reform, and a largely exhausted IT environment--along with other emerging and ongoing responsibilities, have placed increasing demands on our personnel and our capacity. We continue to supplement our organizational capacity with term and temporary and contractual resources. While all departments rely on these stopgap measures from time to time, our increased dependence on these vehicles is neither desirable nor sustainable.
Our plan is to conduct a comprehensive A-base review of our programs, as well as a review of the internal allocation of resources. The aim is to establish appropriate and sustainable funding and staffing levels to effectively deliver on our legislative mandate and strategic priorities.
I intend to share the results of this exercise with the committee, as it is likely that additional long-term funding may be required so that the agency can continue to fulfill its responsibilities.
Turning to priorities for the current fiscal year, we will continue to focus on completing all activities related to the 40th general election, as well as preparing for the next one.
With regard to the most recent general election, we expect to complete and share with the committee an integrated evaluation report later this month, in fact in June.
I also intend to provide a recommendation report to Parliament before the end of this calendar year. These, along with the statutory report I discussed with this committee in February, will complete the reporting cycle prescribed by the Canada Elections Act and will point out the specific areas for both administrative and legislative improvements.
In addition, we continue to process parties', candidates', and third parties' financial returns for the 40th general election. Election expenses, returns of all parties, and receipt of quarterly allowances have now been received, audited, and reimbursed.
Regarding candidates' returns, we plan to honour the service standard commitment made by my predecessor. We expect to have final reimbursement by August 13 for all completed returns that were submitted by the February 13 deadline. This would be for returns that present no significant errors or omissions or compliance issues, and provided, of course, that official agents answer inquiries in a timely manner.
As you know, there were 1,602 candidates in the 40th general election. At this time we have identified 680 candidates who will be entitled to a final reimbursement. In fact, 931 received a preliminary reimbursement. As of yesterday, we had completed 101 audits of returns entitling the candidate to a final reimbursement. This compares to 95 such audits completed for the same time span following the 39th general election. Generally, a total of 255 audits have now been completed.
In parallel, we will have to re-establish full readiness for the next general election by September 1, 2009. As we do so, we will be ready to implement some improvements to the electoral process. For example, we will increase the number of advance polling stations in rural areas, with the objective of improving accessibility for electors. Other improvements will include making incremental changes to the list of acceptable pieces of identification; proposing amendments to the tariff of fees to increase the pay of election workers; and improving training and manuals for our field staff.
We will also continue to make progress on long-term priorities, including our strategic plan, namely renewing our information technology infrastructure to offer enhanced electronic services to electors, such as provision of online registration; conducting an A-base review to identify efficiencies and establish appropriate resource levels; and implementing our long-term human resources strategy. As we pursue these, we will seek to advance our strategic objective of trust, accessibility, and engagement.
To conclude, Mr. Chair, I would like to assure the committee that while our capacity is being tested by the current operating reality and successive minority governments, my office will continue to ensure the highest service standards as expected by Canadians.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will be happy to answer your questions.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay. Fantastic.
We'll start off with Monsieur Proulx. He was here long before everybody today, so we're going to give him first shot.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Absolutely; “long” means two minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good day and welcome, Mr. Mayrand, Mr. St-Pierre and Ms. Côté.
Mr. Mayrand, according to your notes, your Office's budget has increased by $9.1 million compared to 2008-2009, with $6.1 million allocated to build organizational capacity to deliver programs in light of recent legislative amendments and to support IT requirements.
What have the remaining $3 million been earmarked for?
12:10 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
The funds will be used to complete all activities related to the last general election. The first figure that you mentioned, which is more in the order of $5.3 million for the coming year, is further to an increase in appropriations approved by Treasury Board in June of last year.
The Office's budget was increased primarily to allow for additional resources further to different legislative amendments over the course of previous years. The second figure mentioned represents an expense associated with statutory appropriations arising from the cost of holding general elections, including evaluation costs, follow-up costs and post-event costs.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Must you contend with this kind of expense after each general election?
12:10 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
There will always be costs associated with post-event activities that may not necessarily have been budgeted for.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Yes, this will likely happen regularly.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
When you appeared before us on February 24, we discussed a range of topics as well as factors that could result in additional expenses. I listened to and read your presentation.
You intend to consider further the recommendation to adjust the salaries of election workers. We also discussed on February 24 the possibility of improving training. Currently, election workers receive three hours of training and some maintain that this is not enough. There was also some discussion of election manuals.
Other subjects were also broached. You said you planned to submit a more-detailed post-event report to us shortly. As you may recall, that aroused my curiosity. You informed us that you wanted to do some evaluations of new telecommunications technologies. I assume your findings will be included in the report that you plan to present.
12:10 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
It is possible that we could eventually recommend some legislative changes.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I made a suggestion at the time and you say you would give it some thought. Have you had time to think about it?
Mention was made at the time that all of the documents used in the 308 ridings during the campaign were returned to your head office. I had suggested that it might be considerably more cost-effective to shred them.
Have you had time to consider my suggestion or would you prefer to discuss it at a later date?
12:15 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
We will continue to give this matter some thought in the coming months.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Yes, but there are a few things that I need to point out to you. By law, the documents must be returned to head office. Sometimes, we need to distinguish between statutory documents and purely administrative ones. Often, it is easier for us to have them returned to our office. However, it there are ways to cut costs, we will certainly consider them.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I really appreciated the opportunity to come and tour Elections Canada not that long ago, and I recall that we had an opportunity to ask a number of questions.
Looking at your estimates, I guess I might imagine that an annual budget looks a little different in the year of an election, but perhaps not, given our current reality and the need for Elections Canada to be election ready. I know you highlighted that for us when we toured Elections Canada. What impact does needing to be election ready have on your budget? What is the cost to Canadians for us to have Elections Canada election ready for who knows how long?
12:15 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Again, there are various phases. We have to be ready to run an election at any time, and there are some costs described in the main estimates regarding that.
What's happening is that as the temperature gets a bit higher and there is more discussion about a possible election, we have to go beyond simply being ready and start deploying resources. That can be pretty expensive. I'll give you a very simple example.
If after analysis we believe there's a good chance of an election being called, we need to identify offices for returning officers. We will not rent them until the writ is dropped, but what we do is in the area of telephony, because we need about 25 lines for each of those offices and we need the offices to be operational within 48 hours. In order to do that, we have arrangements with telecom operators to put lines to the point of demarcation of possible offices. It's really to get ready to further deploy if the writ is dropped.
There are, therefore, incremental steps in the readiness process that involve at some point moving toward deployment of resources, mostly in the technology area, that need to be deployed from a central location to the 308 ridings. These costs can be quite substantive. That's why I referred to the 25 motions of confidence. I haven't done the exercise, but you can assume that during the last Parliament each of these involved some deployment costs.
These may vary from time to time. For example, for inquiry support we need about 200 staff. Again, these staff are basically hired for a period of eight weeks or so. We need to get them on board to be trained a little bit before the writ is dropped, two to three weeks before the writ is dropped. So again, depending on the environment, depending on the likelihood of a possible election--which is a judgment call--we may start recruiting those staff to train them. But again, if the writ is not dropped, the costs are incurred, but the people will not be used. Unfortunately, we are not sure the same 200 people will be available when the next call is made.
These are some of the factors that are at play when we talk about readiness. There is a significant impact on costs.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize, Mr. Mayrand, for missing the last part of your presentation.
You stated the following at the top of page 3 of your speaking notes: “The 39th Parliament, for example, included passage of legislation related to fixed date elections [...] I congratulate you for showing some restraint and for speaking these words without laughing. This legislation which provides for fixed date elections is a joke. Prime Minister Harper disregarded it at the first opportunity when he called general elections last fall.
If the minority government is not defeated, when will the next general elections be held, according to the fixed date elections legislation?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
The scheduled date would be October 2012.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
12:20 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Either on the 15th or 16th, but I'm not 100% certain.