Evidence of meeting #25 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 limit.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Marc Mayrand  Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Harry Neufeld  Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC

November 17th, 2009 / 11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Thank you very much.

You said there would be substantial savings in running parallel elections and referendums. Could you expand on that? Could you give us some indication of the cost of past referendums?

11:30 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

That's in 1992. I'm sorry, I don't have that number fresh in my mind.

I can certainly offer to the committee that I think the last election cost around $278 million. Included in that are reimbursements, so if you subtract about $50 million, it's about $225 million or so to run a general election.

A national referendum is very similar to a national election, so we're talking about a figure like that.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

The synergies are found within, so there would be costs attributed to it.

11:30 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

There would be costs, but much less significant because you're combining the events and so you don't need to rent places twice, you don't need to hire staff twice, etc., and that adds up very quickly.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Is there a ballpark number you could afix, with the synergies?

11:30 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

I would have to do that analysis. Knowing what the regime would be, I would be able to do that analysis.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

You said in your presentation, “The absence of referendum committees in an election period would reduce the difficulties and the risk of abuse associated with the participation of many types of stakeholders subject to a variety of rules.” Could you expand on the types of abuses you would see avail themselves in a situation like this, where they're paralleled?

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

I can only reflect what we observe now and what the sources of complaints are during an election.

I guess the most common complaint we receive regarding the third party regime is that these third parties do advocate a position that is often seen by others as being pro or against a certain party or a certain candidate. If you add committees to that, or let's say we have a regime with concurrent events and there are committees, third parties, candidates, and political parties, I think the risk is that it will only add to that perception from time to time that the line of demarcation between the various entities is not too clear. That's the concern I would have with multiplying the number of participants in the regime.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Go ahead, Ms. Jennings.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

Thank you.

That raises a question in my mind on the blurring.

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

I will add that in the current regime we have an unlimited number of committees. I believe it was more than 200 in the last referendum. Each of those national committees could spend up to $18 million in today's dollars. Again, that opens the door to all sorts of potential abuse, although I wouldn't say everyone would abuse it.

I'm sorry, go ahead, please.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

You talked about the danger of blurring between third parties and political parties in terms of the positions that third parties are advocating; for instance, during an election. There is a danger of blurring, because it would appear in some cases that they're supporting a specific political party. Have you thought about possible measures we might want to think about to at least reduce the danger of that blurring?

For instance, if I look at Ontario, any government advertising has to go through an independent screening process to ensure there is no blurring between the political party in power and the government. They're not allowed to use minister's photos, etc.

Would that be a potential measure? I'm not saying it would be perfect, but would it be a potential measure that this committee might want to look at in terms of ensuring, as much as possible, there is not that blurring between third parties?

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Please give a very quick answer.

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

I'm not familiar with the regime there. My immediate reaction would be to ask if there is a distinction between what happens during a campaign and outside of a campaign. During a campaign--and nothing is impossible--I'd have a hard time with submitting the advertising campaign of either the government or parties to a third party review, given the very short time of the campaign.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

I'm talking about third parties.

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

Even third parties.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Mr. Reid.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The first comment I have is not to the Chief Electoral Officer but rather to our analyst. I wonder if we could, for a future meeting, get a report on the implications of the Libman decision to all of us.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Yes.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

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

That would be very helpful.

With respect to the second question, we have gone through one experience, which was with the national referendum under current legislation. There were two previous experiences. We do this about once every half century, on average, in Canada. There were two previous experiences under different legislation, in the 1890s and 1940s.

But when the question comes up of up to $18 million per committee being spent, I wonder about our experience. Do you have any idea of how much money was actually spent by committees on the yes and no sides in 1992? From having been there—I was on the no side at the time—it sure felt like the yes side was getting a lot more funding. It didn't cause them to win ultimately.

I wonder if we have a sense of those numbers. That's on the theory that the past is a good guide for the future.

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

I have very rough figures here. Together, the 241 committees collected $12 million.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

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

For both sides.

Do you have any idea, roughly, of what the yes and no sides were at that time? Is that in your numbers?

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

Yes, I have that and I will share that with the committee. It was a little over $11 million for the yes side, and $800,082 for the no committees.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

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

Okay. That's what it felt like at the time.

That actually makes an interesting point, from the scholarship regarding funding of referenda in the various American states. California, which is bigger than Canada in population and GDP, has most major decisions made by means of a referendum. They're constitutionally forbidden to put on spending limits. The scholarship seems to indicate that money, at least for the yes side, tends not to actually win referenda. I'm not sure if the numbers for the scholarship are different for what happens on the no side of various propositions. Anyway, that's an interesting observation.

The more fundamental question is this. It's not that difficult to establish that if one were seeking to overcome some kind of funding limit, you could have multiple no committees and work it that way. My suspicion is that as a practical matter it would be very difficult, unless one went to the system that Quebec uses, where you have umbrella yes and no committees. If you don't do that, I think as a practical matter you have to accept that you're not really going to have spending caps. You could presumably limit who can contribute, freeze out the businesses and unions, but you can't ultimately control the overall spending on the yes and no sides. That's my impression.

Is that roughly your impression?

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Marc Mayrand

If you have an unlimited number of committees, as provided by the current regime, again, we could look at this comparison, which is not perfect, which is looking at the third party regime currently. Again, there are no limits on the number of third parties who can register for an election, but they are all subject to a threshold limit. It's much smaller. I think it's $250,000 or $350,000 for a national campaign for a third party and no more than $3,000 per electoral district. That's a model that maybe could be adapted, to some extent.