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.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I see.
Monsieur Blanchet, we already know, because you have them. If they work, would you stay with them?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Élections Québec
In Quebec, we have umbrella committees that work well. They allow for a very proper line to be drawn between the options and for the position of each of the advocates of those options to be stated. For us, that is how it is, and that is how it is going to stay.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Good.
I'll try to squeeze in one more quick question.
With regard to the changing of the election system itself, the political parties agreed to stay out. The politicians stayed out. In any other issue that is very emotional, is it practical to think that politicians and political parties can stay out? How practical do you think that is, particularly if you held a referendum during an election period, but even outside? Should we build those walls to keep them out, and could it work even if we did?
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I would suggest, given the experience in Ontario, that one of things that was very noticeable in some of the survey results was that the electorate was looking for the politicians. There's a great deal of trust in their politicians. They were looking for the opinions and viewpoints--
12:50 p.m.
A voice
What?
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
There's a great deal of trust in the politicians, on what their view on the proposition being put before them was. And the silence actually, we believe, based on the survey results, had somewhat of a detrimental effect to the populace really becoming engaged in the actual question.
So I do believe there is a significant role for the politicians and the infrastructure that the political parties bring in play in actually expressing their views on these various issues, because they do on so many other platforms leading up to the election within our Canadian democratic process. I think there's an expectation from the electorate that they are looking for those views, as well.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
I just have two points.
Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being here today to help us with this study.
First, with P.E.I., do you go from the national voter registry, or is there an enumeration or a provincial enumeration?
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
What we've had in P.E.I. for the last two provincial elections is a register of electors. We print that off and we go door to door doing a confirmation of what's on that register. And then there's a voter registration period that updates it. Then following the election, anyone who voted but who wasn't on the list will also be added.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Okay. And there was a provision to add additional names, even after the confirmation of the list.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
Yes.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Okay. Good.
Were you pleased with the list? Was it fairly accurate?
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
Yes.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Because a voters list... If you talk to anybody around this table, there's always a concern about how we can improve the voters lists. It's something that continues to run through.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
I think that being from a small jurisdiction also makes a difference. People will take it personally if they're not on the register of electors. They feel as though they have been left off for some unknown reason, so we make every effort we can to get everyone on, as do all the people involved.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Mr. Essensa, you made the comment about external powers wanting to exert some influence and telling you that you should be more pro or more con, or whatever the situation was. Could I get a comment from the three of you?
It's a tight situation. You want to encourage people to come out and get involved in the process. You want to share information with them as well as as you can, but when you're sharing that information, I would imagine one side would be very cautious about what you're saying about the other side. Is there a process? Do you have the sides sign off on how you're going to market the event? Could you tell us a little bit that goes into how you promote it so that it doesn't become contentious for you? Each of you might want to comment on that.
12:50 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
The challenge I see in the 2007 referendum in Ontario was the role Elections Ontario was charged with playing, which was to be the primary vehicle for public education of the electorate in the province on the referendum question. Balancing that with the neutrality role that my office and my predecessor had to play was, as I mentioned in my speaking comments, challenging, because both sides at various times in the process indicated their displeasure that we weren't promoting the issue as appropriately as possible.
Perhaps the greater issue is, as my colleague from Quebec mentioned, that the umbrella groups or committees seemed to work very well in B.C. in their most recent referendum this past May. They provided more of a vehicle to actually provide the information to the electorate, and they could be either for or against the various issues, as opposed to having your neutrality body, your chief electoral officer, as the primary source of public education.
12:55 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Élections Québec
Of course the role of the Chief Electoral Officer is to make sure that the referendum is carried out properly and there is access to the polling process in the referendum. However, there is a line between that and having them promote the referendum campaign, as was done in Ontario. I would be very uncomfortable in that role.
The system where the yes committee and the no committee promote each of the ideas is much preferable, rather than leaving it to the administrator of the election, who can obviously be accused, at one time or another, of taking a position in favour of one option or the other. That is a system I would not like to administer in Quebec.
December 1st, 2009 / 12:55 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.
I'll very quickly respond. I would agree with that also. I wouldn't want to have unanimous consent from all our parties on an issue.
A filter we built into the plebiscite was that when they wanted to reduce the number of polling stations, we asked for that to be in regulations, so when it came to us, those were the rules we had to follow.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Cuzner.
I have Mr. Albrecht for a couple of minutes.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll try to be brief. I have two short questions for Mr. Essensa.
You commented briefly in your opening statement about a Taxpayer Protection Act. In our notes for the last number of weeks there has been a statement about the Taxpayer Protection Act in Ontario prohibiting in some circumstances the raising of taxes, or the establishment of a new tax, unless they have been previously approved in a referendum.
Either there's a very narrow definition of “some circumstances” or there is a way around this, because I'm convinced that taxes in Ontario have been increased without a referendum a number of times. Can you help me understand what that's about?
This was from 1999 on.
12:55 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
To be perfectly honest, on that particular question your interpretation is correct. I'm not in a position to actually go into it in depth and comment on whether that has been abided by.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
I have one other quick question.
You mentioned that your department is also in charge of the wording on municipal referenda. In a situation such as fluoridation of water, there could be six or eight or ten communities all dealing with the same question in an upcoming municipal election. Would it fall on you to have the identical question in all six or eight of those communities, or could you approve different questions or different formats of the question, even though the issue was identical?
12:55 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
The legislation does allow that I could, in fact, approve a different question based on the information that was provided from the local council or the local jurisdiction.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you very much.
Those were all the names I had on the list.
I thank all of our witnesses today for all they have been able to share with us. It's helping us with our study of the Referendum Act. Thank you for coming.
Is there anything else from the committee members for committee business today?