Evidence of meeting #29 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 ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
It is not nearly as frequent as in Quebec. It's actually quite infrequent.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
How long does it take between the time that a question is approved by council and submitted to the Chief Electoral Officer and the time it's ready to be rolled out?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
There is a deadline in the Municipal Elections Act in Ontario. The question has to be approved by the council and submitted to the Chief Electoral Officer by the end of March in the calendar year of the election. Next year, Ontario will hold municipal elections in October, so the question would have to be approved by council and submitted to my office before the end of March.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Then it would be run simultaneously.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Do they always run simultaneously?
Conservative
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
Yes, and our election period is 26 to 32 days. We would need the question prior to the start of the process.
Conservative
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Blanchet, I am going to ask you three questions to flesh out the answers you gave a little earlier.
In the case of a federal referendum, it may happen that a province decides to hold a referendum under its own rules because the question of residence could have a major impact on the outcome. However, some electors may be disadvantaged because they can't exercise their right to vote.
How can we make sure that these two situations are taken into account in any future legislation?
Chief Electoral Officer, Élections Québec
If it is a national referendum, held Canada-wide, I think the rules in the federal Referendum Act should apply. There absolutely has to be harmonization, so people all have the same right to vote, in that situation, so the rules do not vary from one province to another. If the referendum is held under the national Act, certainly there will be no problem in that regard. Again, I recall the problems we saw in the 1992 referendum in Quebec. The Quebec Act did not have an actual residence rule, while the federal Act had one. As a result, about 10,000 electors were unable to vote.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
You spoke earlier about the text that your office prepares in a referendum campaign. Is that text, which states the positions of the two umbrella committees, defined in the act? Is the act quite clear as to the content of the text, or is it only when the referendum is called that your office decides what rules will apply in that regard?
Chief Electoral Officer, Élections Québec
When a question providing for a referendum is introduced in the National Assembly, there are 18 days before the government issues a writ instituting the referendum. During that period, and of course once the writ is issued, we have a good idea of what the question will be. However, it can be amended during a 35-hour debate, which takes place in the 18 days between when the question is introduced in Parliament and when it is adopted. Obviously we work on preparing the rules we will ask the yes and no camps, the umbrella camps, to follow in presenting arguments for one option or the other. At the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, we make sure that each camp's text is fair and is written in somewhat the same way, and that the arguments are set out in somewhat the same order. That's what we do.
Chief Electoral Officer, Élections Québec
Yes, it's case by case. In the example I have here, the yes and no arguments each comprise about 20 pages presented by each of the camps in support of its position. We made sure that the number of pages and characters was approximately the same, and that the case was mounted in approximately the same way.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
When you propose that the financing rules be the same for general elections and referendum campaigns, does that mean that the legislation should consider the umbrella committees to be registered political parties, in making the financing rules?
Chief Electoral Officer, Élections Québec
The rules are not necessarily the same. For example, in the case of the rules that apply to referendums, the act provides for maximum spending of $1 per elector. So if there are 5.5 million electors, each camp may spend $5.5 million. For the funds that each of the committees may have to hold its referendum, there are different rules. There is a government subsidy of $0.50 per elector. That is what was decided for the 1995 referendum. Another $0.50 may come from the political parties, which may therefore also be deposited into each camp's fund. Individuals may also make contributions, to a maximum of $3,000. Again, certain amounts can be calculated in that way. The amounts are therefore not the same, the rules are not identical. However, if it were to be decided to hold an election and a referendum at the same time in Quebec, it would have to be ensured that there is a watertight contract between the referendum rules and the election rules. That can be done, but it is not easy to do.
There is the very recent example of a provincial election campaign that took place in a local riding in Quebec, more specifically the riding of Rivière-du-Loup. It prompted quite a bit of discussion. One of the parties decided to organize a big political meeting in Rivière-du-Loup at the same time as the election, although the meeting was first supposed to have been held in Drummondville or Sherbrooke, if I remember correctly. It was relocated to Rivière-du-Loup to take advantage of the time an election was being held. You can imagine the complaints we got about that. A distinction had to be made between expenses relating to the big happening in Rivière-du-Loup and expenses relating to the election, to support the candidate in the race. It was done very transparently, but I can assure you that it was done under very close scrutiny.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I have two questions, maybe three.
On umbrella groups, I know that in Quebec you have already used the notion of the umbrella organizations. I believe that Mr. Holland expressed the view—I stand to be corrected, but I believe it was him—that even though they didn't have it in Ontario, he would prefer... He was quite alarmed by the polling they did afterward that found a majority of people saw his office as being biased, and that troubled him greatly.
Second, do you think there should be a baseline of public funding so that everyone starts from the same level playing field, or should it just be those who are interested on one side or the other who contribute if they want to?
December 1st, 2009 / 12:45 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
Given our experience in Ontario, I would concur with my predecessor's view. One of the issues I know he was very troubled about was the fact that, as you alluded to, Elections Ontario was perceived to be biased because of the role they performed on the public education front.
The legislative framework established by the regulation under the Electoral System Referendum Act did not provide for umbrella groups. In fact, it provided for what were called “registered campaign organizers”.
In Ontario we had ten registered campaign organizations sign up. They were any entities or individuals who collectively were going to raise or expense more than $500. There was no public funding provided by the government. As in Quebec, there was no ability on a per capita basis for the political parties to make donations to these registered campaign organizers, as well.
So I do concur with my predecessor's view that, yes, having umbrella organizations would be preferable. I think the most recent example occurred in B.C., and it is a prime example of where, in their second referendum, they did in fact provide for an equitable funding to the yes and no campaigns. From my perspective, I would certainly make a recommendation that you give this some serious consideration.
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
Perhaps I'll answer.
In our plebiscite in 2005 we really did have an umbrella organization, and I probably should have mentioned that.
The electoral future commission had been set up for about eight months prior to the plebiscite. They had an office with staff. They held several public meetings. They had newspaper ads, print ads, TV ads. Householders went out explaining it. And what they did all the way through the process was explain what we have now, the first-past-the-post, and what they were proposing. So this was done by that commission. The role of Elections P.E.I. was really just to administer the plebiscite the same way we would a provincial election. That was very helpful.
