Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 24th, 2009

[Marc Mayrand]

On the last point, on the defamatory information, normally that's a matter that would be brought to the attention of the commissioner. I cannot confirm today whether it has actually been brought to his attention or whether there is an investigation going. I'll validate that when I return.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

May I ask who would bring it to his attention? Would it be Elections Canada?

[Marc Mayrand]

Normally we would get a complaint. Probably the victim of the defamation would bring it to our attention, either to Elections Canada or directly to the commissioner.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Okay.

[Marc Mayrand]

On the issue of a candidate who withdrew, again the act is relatively clear. It sets deadlines, and again the name may have stayed because it was too late to withdraw it.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

My understanding is that it was within the limits. It was during the first week.

[Marc Mayrand]

I would have to look into it. I know there has been at least one other case across the country. In some cases where it's too late to withdraw, the party cannot cancel the endorsement.

The other side of that situation is that the votes will be attributed to the party for the benefit of determining allowances.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So they would get monetary credit?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

None.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You're kidding. Your watch has to be wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Now you have no time left.

Mr. Albrecht.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Mayrand as well for the report and for coming today. Also, I'd like to commend you for your initiative in meeting with us, as members of this committee, to discuss specific issues. I found that very helpful. I was also made aware of a number of situations in my riding in which complaints had been delivered to your office and on which your office had followed up personally, and I want to thank you for that.

In your remarks today, you say that your office is presently conducting a series of post-election evaluations to help further identify and establish priority areas that may require improvement. I'm not sure if the initiative came from your office to do the 15-minute surveys. On January 21 I received a letter indicating that we were welcome to participate in a 15-minute survey to evaluate our experience as candidates. I chose to participate in that, and it was somewhat helpful, although I will say that it would appear to me that it would have been far more helpful if either my official agent or my campaign manager had done the survey, because many of the questions....

Is that too fast?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We just lost it again. Apparently we are having some trouble with those desks and that translation.

Let's try again and see what happens.

Go ahead, Harold.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Just to recap, about the survey that was conducted by the way of candidates, I'm just wondering if you are also going to be doing one—or maybe one has been done—that would ask similar technical questions to the campaign managers and/or official agents. I think they would have been in a better position to deal with most of the questions, which were more technical in nature. We were going door to door, we weren't in the office and were not able to observe some of the issues you're referring to here.

[Marc Mayrand]

Again, this was a new initiative this time around, carrying out the survey with candidates.

With agents, we do run a training session and we have a feedback session at the end of the training. That was done right after the election.

Unfortunately for campaign managers, they're not necessarily known to us. We would need to get your input in identifying them. I entirely agree that sometimes they would have a better on-the-ground understanding of the issues.

You should know that we will share this with political parties at the advisory committee of political parties later in the spring. I'm sure I will be getting more feedback from representatives of the parties during the session.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

A little bit.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I noticed on pages 26 and 27 of your official report, where you're speaking about the special ballot initiative, the numbers there dropped almost 50% between the 39th election and the 40th election in terms of the special ballot.

It was my observation, anecdotally, that there wasn't the same initiative that went into the general information. I noticed that you're intensifying efforts to specific electors, and you identify those. But in terms of the general voters, there were many people who were not aware that the opportunity was there to vote any day up until...was it October 7? I forget the exact date.

[Marc Mayrand]

Register and vote until polling day.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Do you have ideas as to whether or not that could be re-implemented? It could be one small piece of increasing the voter turnout. Granted, it's 200,000 votes, but that's 200,000 votes.

[Marc Mayrand]

I think what happened was that the previous election was a winter election, and there was a broader effort to reach out to electors, especially snowbirds and people who were in transit during the campaign. We did not repeat that same effort during the last election. We went back to an out-of-season election, if I can use that expression.

It is something that we would have to consider for the next election. Again, it has its limitations, but it could be an effective alternative for voters to cast their ballots.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Just as a final question, you mentioned the Student Vote program. Has there been any study to follow up in those areas where Student Vote has been conducted consistently or for any length of time? Has there been any effort to follow up in those areas, those ridings, to compare whether or not the voter turnout among the younger population is any different from the areas where Student Vote had not been conducted?