Okay, that's fine.
Evidence of meeting #5 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 voting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #5 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 voting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I just want to point out that these expenditures most likely reflect expenditures relating to by-elections during that year. They do not reflect expenditures linked to the election.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Perfect. Okay.
The next question is about the whole issue of students, the low student turnout and the confusion about where students can actually vote, given their fluctuating residences, etc.
You have some good ideas, and you've heard some ideas from the members here, but what about student-only polling stations in the educational institutions? Would the law as it now stands permit this? Would it require an amendment to the law? And do you think it's something that could possibly be part of the solution, if there were polling stations for students in the CEGEPs, the colleges, and the universities? And would you staff them primarily with students? They want that money, and it may be a way to draw in more of the student vote and to get more of them involved.
I am putting that out as a suggestion—and I have to say that this suggestion comes from my parliamentary intern.
And I have a final question.
In the small yellow box, where the report deals with pre-election spending on advertising, the second sentence in the third paragraph reads as follows:
Elections Canada considers that a householder that is in transit before the issue of a writ and has reached the stage where the member of Parliament no longer has the ability to stop its delivery prior to the issue of that writ will not be considered to have been used during the election period even if its actual delivery to the recipient takes place during the election.
Now according to Elections Canada, when is the member of Parliament no longer able to cancel the delivery of a householder?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
According to our interpretation, it's once these householders have been given to the postmaster here on Parliament Hill. After that moment in time, it's beyond the member of Parliament's control. This is one of the issues that the House Board of Internal Economy can review.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
That's fine, but this issue is not completely clear to me.
According to your interpretation and the information that was given to you, it's once the householders are in the hands of the postmaster of the House of Commons. From that moment onward, the member of Parliament no longer has control over the householder. So if these householders are then distributed to all the houses in a riding, after the dropping of the writs for a general election, it's not deemed to be an electoral expenditure. Is that right?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Yes, you're right.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Thank you. It might be a good idea to recommend that the House or the Board of Internal Economy send a letter to all members of Parliament to inform them of this. Or during the preparations for an election in the future, Elections Canada could inform all candidates at that time.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I've done that. I wrote to the Speaker of the House, who—
Liberal
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
The House can inform the members of Parliament. During an upcoming election, some members will run again, but not all candidates are members of Parliament. It would be a good thing if we knew that our householder was in compliance with the rules, and would not be considered to be an electoral expense; on the other hand, there could be 10 candidates running against us and they would not know that. That's why it would be a good idea to insert a note in the envelope that is given to all the candidates once they obtain their official status so that they are informed of this. That way, we could avoid pointless complaints.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Okay, duly noted.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Thank you very much.
I too would like to thank Mr. Mayrand for allowing us the opportunity to meet and discuss his report and some of the key issues that he's identified.
I have a couple of issues I would raise with you that I heard of during the election campaign and shortly after. One regards the workers who end up being on rotation, leaving their riding to work for a couple of weeks and then coming back, and that having the advance poll one week before the actual election date was perhaps problematic for some of them.
The second issue would be the clustering of the advance polling dates all around a weekend. I don't know if that's typical; I've never voted in an advance poll. I don't know if there are some requirements to do that around a weekend, but that was raised as well.
Also, looking at the clustering of advance polling dates, am I correct in my understanding that currently a voter could actually vote in an advance poll, travel to another location before the lists are updated and vote a second time in an advance poll without much recourse?
Would an electronic list-tracking system prevent such occurrences? Is this being worked on? What are the pros and cons, and what would the costs be to do something like that?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
On the clustering of dates, that is set out by the act. It requires that it be a Friday, Saturday, and Monday. I think there were some discussions and proposals in previous legislation to have the Sunday of that weekend also set as an advance poll date. That has not occurred yet. So yes, it's clustered. It's the weekend prior to polling day.
In terms of electors seeking to vote more than once, that's an offence, of course, under the legislation. You're entitled to one ballot only. Bill C-31 was designed to address some of those concerns, because electors still have to prove their ID at the poll each time.
In the long term, I believe technology would make us improve service to electors, but also build better integrity and better trust around the processes. I certainly can foresee a day when we would have electronic lists available in the polls, and when a name gets struck, it's struck off across the riding and across all ridings. But there's a way to go to get there. Hopefully we will all be witnessing the occurrence of that new technology in the next five years, I would say--unless you give me a fixed date.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
You've answered my question. Currently if all that's required is to show ID, someone could go to an advance poll and vote and then visit another advance poll in the same riding and vote again. We don't require residents to go to certain advance polls.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
No, no. You have to go to the advance poll that's linked to your address. You cannot just show up at any poll. You have to go to the site that's assigned to your residential address. That's the only spot you can go to.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
So then that couldn't happen, where someone could--
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
No. That would involve a fair bit of fabrication. It couldn't happen by mistake either.
Conservative
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Mr. Mayrand, you will be looking into Ms. Jennings' suggestion that we inform all candidates that the outgoing member of Parliament could send out a householder in which he or she boasts and criticizes the government, and that all of this could be legal. I have some reservations about this.
Perhaps you should rather be managing complaints. If a candidate from another party accuses the outgoing member of Parliament of using his or her franking rights to send out a flyer, you would need only send that individual a copy of the decision made by the Speaker of the House of Commons stating that this is legal. I have serious reservations about Ms. Jennings' suggestion, but she does have the right to make it.
I will conclude with a combination of three different subjects, which are unrelated. This is a combination plate, because I have to leave to eat a combination salad before the end of the committee meeting.
First of all, I would like your legal experts to look into the following situation. Apparently, the French and English versions are not identical regarding the right of members of Parliament to register on the voters' list of their riding on voting day. It seems that the English version is much clearer. A member running for re-election is permitted to vote in his or her riding rather than in the riding in which he or she lives. However, it seems that the French version is ambiguous. Could you look into that, because your employees are much more bilingual than I am.
Second, serious consideration should be given to allowing representatives and list runners to require only one power of attorney that is clear and signed by the candidate or the official agent and that would allow them to go into the different voting places on the same day. At the moment, a power of attorney is required for each voting place. Sometimes, the list runners may visit 29 voting places in urban communities. They are running around with a pile of powers of attorney in their pocket. Simple rules could be applied. Why complicate things when they can be done simply? I should mention in passing that this is what is done in Quebec. The list runners or the representative have a single power of attorney for the entire voting day.
Third, I would like to talk about the issue of leaders voting in polling stations with the media present. I have an excellent memory. I remember the news reports of June 28, 2004. You were not the Chief Electoral Officer at the time, but it is never too late to correct a mistake made by your predecessor. During one of these news reports, there was footage of Mr. Martin, Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton casting their ballots. You are going to accuse the Bloc Québécois of playing the victim, but what I am telling you is true; I could play the recording for you if you like. The only leader who was not filmed voting for broadcast on the news was the member of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, the leader of the Bloc Québécois. His returning officer had enforced the spirit of the act to the letter. However, in the three other provinces or three other voting locations, the leaders were filmed as they voted and this footage was shown on the news reports that day.
I think the rule on this should be stated clearly in the act. We should allow the media to film leaders casting their ballot. In any case, the people in the media are very competent. They will not start scanning or zooming in to film other people who have come to vote.
I am familiar with this reservation, because I threw one of my famous fits on this with Mr. Kingsley. His reply was that the cameras would identify voters. The cameras can film leaders smiling as they put their ballot into the box. By the way, there was footage of Mr. Obama voting on the news last November, and Mr. McCain as well. I will give you an example of an even newer democracy. Recently, President Karzaï was shown voting. If the cameras can film leaders voting in Afghanistan and the United States, I think the same could be done in Canada.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I think this did happen in October. After the introduction of a protocol, authorization was finally given to film party leaders voting at their polling stations. This is mentioned in the report, and I think the committee will want to look at this, because it was something new. On the other hand, I had as many complaints because some candidates would have liked to have had the same media coverage. I think this is something the committee will want to look at at some point—namely, setting clearer rules in the act to determine what the media can and cannot do in polling stations.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
I would remind you that the act is silent on this.
