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

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Good morning.

I would like to remind all of the members that we're here today under Standing Order 108(3)(a)(vi), matters relating to the election of members to the House of Commons. We have some guests with us today. We are in public today, so we will remember that as we move forward.

I would like to call on Monsieur Mayrand to give some opening remarks and introduce the people he's brought with him, and then of course afterwards we'll have time to ask him some questions.

[Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to appear before the committee today to discuss the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada on the 40^th general election of October 14, 2008.

My report deals not only with the general election but also, as required by the Canada Elections Act, with matters of significance that occurred in the previous general election which, I believe, should be brought to your attention.

I am accompanied today by Stéphane Perrault, Senior General Counsel, Rennie Molnar, Associate Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, and Belaineh Deguefé, Director General, Outreach, Communications and Research.

My introductory remarks will be brief. My purpose today is to listen to your feedback and respond to your questions, particularly those regarding the report I submitted to you on February 2, but also any other matter related to the election. I will then be able to take your comments into account as part of the ongoing improvement process that we have set up at Elections Canada to administer elections.

The 40^th general election was the first general election that I administered since becoming Chief Electoral Officer in February 2007.

According to the feedback we have received to date, the administration of the election generally met the highest standards of service expected by Canadians. There were, of course, a number of incidents that arose which will need to be addressed. However, they should be considered in the wider context of delivering a major event.

My report indicates that there are key areas that merit your attention: first of all, the administrative processes described in the act, the voter identification requirements and, finally, political financing rules.

Over the years, the administrative processes have become more complex, especially given the short 36-day calendar for an election. The legislation is prescriptive in nature and provides little flexibility in the administration of the various processes that underlie a successful election. For instance, any delay in the short timelines to set up Elections Canada's local offices risks compromising our service to electors and candidates. Our capacity to recruit and train election workers and their ability to fulfil their duties are also affected by the legislative framework.

The second area posing some challenges is the new voter identification requirements, which were administered for the first time during a general election. Preliminary evidence from our post-election telephone survey of electors indicates that a clear majority of electors were aware of the new requirements and did not experience any problems when voting. However, we know that certain groups of electors, including seniors, students, aboriginal people living on reserves, and homeless electors face particular challenges in proving their identity and address. The need to ensure consistent application of the new requirements by election workers is another challenge that will need to be addressed.

The third area that merits your attention is the administration of the political financing rules. Successive legislative reforms in this area have resulted in complex financing rules for election participants and a significant regulatory burden. We have heard much anecdotal evidence about this issue from various political entities, and I believe opportunities can be found to streamline the process and to reduce the procedural burden on participants.

To conclude, I would like to draw to your attention that while the Canada Elections Act requires that I report to Parliament within 90 days following the return of the writs, a thorough assessment of the election cannot be accomplished in this timeframe.

My office is presently conducting a series of post-election evaluations. These will help us to further identify and establish priority areas that may require improvement. These findings will be part of an integrated report that I intend to submit to this committee later this spring. I also intend to submit to Parliament by the end of the year a report containing my recommendations for the better administration of the act.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this time my colleagues and I would be pleased to answer questions that you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Proulx, would you like to lead us off?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Mayrand. I would like to welcome you and your team of experts to the committee.

I must tell you that I spent a few hours reading your report. I must tell you that, for the first time, I feel that the report reflects what we actually experienced during the campaign. The report includes the positive aspects, but also those that were not so positive.

You were correct in stating that the issue of voter identification was one of the problems encountered. You noted in your report that employees are given three hours of training. Clearly, this is inadequate. I am under the impression that the training you provided or tried to provide focused almost exclusively on the exceptions rather than on the general rule.

For the most part, there are two categories of people who agree to work at a polling station. First of all, there are the election workers who have been doing this for a long time. These people show up for their training and they half listen to it, justifying their lack of attention under the pretext that this is the eighth or fifteenth election they've participated in and therefore they are familiar with the song and don't have anything new to learn. With respect to the workers who fall under the second category, they are there simply because they want to pick up their cheque at the end. I say this with all due respect for these people. However, this does constitute part of the problem.

If someone was not carrying the pieces of identification included on the printed list, it was not clear to everyone, at least not to the staff, that these people could prove their identity in another way, but taking an oath.

We have such cases in my riding, cases involving couples, not necessarily elderly people, where the husband could vote, but not the spouse, because she did not have a driver's licence or another piece of approved identification. However, this woman was not told that she could take an oath, that she could do so because she was accompanied by her husband, who was duly registered and carrying the requisite pieces of identification.

This shortcoming is in part owing to the short training time, which is three hours. You're trying to give an election law course to people who are more or less prepared or attentive. You dealt with this issue in your report. You should be very aware of the fact that, for the next election, training will have to be improved.

There is another problem with respect to the employees. Your report indicated that only 33% of the deputy returning officers, poll clerks and registration officers working on the day of the election had been appointed from the lists provided by the candidates. This percentage was higher in my riding.

Recruiting is very difficult. It drains human resources and takes up a tremendous amount of time. I always make jokes about this at every election. The fact remains, however, that there are always people who make a commitment and take the training, but on the very morning of the election, for all kinds of reasons, decide that this is not worth the trouble and no longer want to work.

The whole issue of compensation is another problem, and you touched on this in your report, Mr. Mayrand. Moreover, you increased compensation depending on the location in the country and in accordance with requirements. We must pay careful attention to the issue of compensation. First of all, compensation should be increased. Secondly, we must resolve, once and for all, the whole issue of taxation of these earnings. People often change their minds after training when they find out how much money they will be paid.

The people come back to us and say that they are going to be getting employment insurance or welfare and that the amount they are going to be given, that they're going to have to declare, is so insignificant, if I may say so, that the effort just isn't worth the bother. As you said, these are very long days. Consequently, I think that we are going to have to take certain issues into account.

At the very end of the campaign, I was discussing matters with the returning officer in my riding's local office. To my great surprise, I saw several employees packing all kinds of documents, including electoral lists which had been used during the campaign, into boxes. They told me that they had to send these to the head office rather than use a shredding system. From what I could gather, this was a waste of money. Indeed, other government officials award contracts to shredding companies. These companies show up with their truck and certify that everything has been done. That avoids us having to spend days packing up all kinds of documents and sending them out. Sending the documents from my riding to your office must not cost a lot of money in terms of transport, but from Victoria to Ottawa, that must cost quite a pretty penny. So this is one aspect that should be looked into.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Out of your seven minutes, if Mr. Mayrand would like to answer he now has about 15 seconds.

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

That's long.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Right.

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

All he has to say is that he agrees with me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's as simple a solution as you can get, but we'll give him a little time. Let's have a response.

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

I will get back to that issue later.

[Marc Mayrand]

All right. You have raised some important issues, issues that are essential to the smooth running of an election. We did indeed note that improvements needed to be made to the training provided. Obviously, because of constraints in the legislation, we have to recruit the 200,000 or so workers we need two weeks before the day of the vote, which leaves very little time for training. Training is limited to three hours, but we have to provide workers with training on all aspects of the election process and not just on specialized tasks. So we have to be realistic and understand that even if we focus on voter identification, the time dedicated to this issue was not adequate. We are therefore going to have to improve our training techniques.

As for the issue of recruitment, we have noted that if you go east to west in the country, the reference rate for deputy returning officers on polling day declines. In fact, it falls to 2% in Alberta and 3% in British Columbia. I would like to point out to the committee that returning officers cannot recruit actively before the 17^th day prior to the election. So, if so few names are referred, that makes the returning officer's job and challenge that much greater. You touched on the issue of compensation. This will be one of our priorities over the next few months. We are going to look at the rates and propose the required adjustments so that the governor in council can set a new excise tax.

I have noted your comments regarding the shredding process. I will look into this matter. If we can improve the process and make it more efficient, we will do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you for your comments.

Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Monsieur Mayrand, for appearing here with your officials.

I want to talk briefly on an issue--and I know, as a committee, we'll probably have many questions on many issues--that I know concerns all of us and all parliamentarians, and frankly all candidates across Canada. It relates to voter turnout. I note that, once again, we had a decrease in voter turnout this year to under 60%, which is almost unconscionable.

One of the things I also note is that there has been a relatively steady increase in voter turnout at advance polls over the course of the last few elections. In the last Parliament, the government introduced Bill C-16 on expanded advanced polling days. That was never passed. It was relatively gutted through committee and never passed by Parliament.

I'm wondering if you have an opinion on whether more advanced polling days, increased opportunities for voters to cast ballots prior to election day, could have a positive impact on voter turnout.

[Marc Mayrand]

I would simply say that yes, it's a disappointment to observe the turnout rate. I think that there are many factors at play there. Some of the factors directly relate to Elections Canada, which has the responsibility to ensure that voting is as accessible as possible for all electors and that we reduce or remove any administrative barriers that exist.

In terms of increasing the number of advanced polling days, there was draft legislation that was tabled in the last Parliament. At that point, I believe we had commissioned and tabled a study from an academic discussing the possible impact of advanced polls. There's no clear indication that it would materially affect turnout. Again, nobody can say that it doesn't. More opportunities normally would lead to more participation, but you cannot make an automatic link with the increase in voting days.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Unfortunately, you're probably quite correct. There's no empirical evidence that says it will, but you pointed out quite correctly that there's no empirical evidence to suggest it wouldn't.

I wish we had the opportunity to try to find out whether it did have an impact. Beyond that, what other plans do you have? Clearly, if this decrease in voter turnout continues, it's not inconceivable to think that within a few years we'll have fewer than 50% of eligible voters electing governments in this country. That would truly be a tragedy. What plans does your office have, if any, to try to deal with this decrease of voter turnout, this apathy among voters? How can you assure this committee that your plans will have some positive impact prior to the next election?

[Marc Mayrand]

Our mandate and authority in that regard is somewhat limited. One of the concrete initiatives that we plan to have ready for next fall is that we will be looking at advanced polls in rural ridings across the country with a view of making it more accessible to rural electors. That's one administrative measure that we can put in place.

At a broader level, we're seeking to better understand the phenomenon and what factors motivate electors to participate in the electoral process. Some of these studies will be coming out over the next short while.

We are also engaged with other electoral bodies across the country, because the phenomenon is not unique to the federal election; it is also very much present at the provincial and municipal level. So we'll see how we can combine our efforts to reach the youth, especially, which is a segment of the population that tends to vote less than other groups.

Beyond that, I think it will require the involvement of many other players, and some of the key ones are here around this table. Parliamentarians, educators, and parents all have a significant role in fostering greater engagement of their fellow citizens in our democratic process.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

How much time have I got left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

A couple of minutes.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I'm pleased to hear you say that you'll be engaging in some studies to try to find the root cause for voter apathy. It's tough to improve voter turnout if you don't know the reasons why voters are not turning out to begin with. I applaud you for that, and hopefully those studies will reveal some information that you will be able to employ.

You also mentioned in your presentation that you plan to put some practices in place that might increase the voter turnout in rural Canada. Have you identified statistical information that indicates that rural Canadians are voting less than urban Canadians?

[Marc Mayrand]

We're in the process of doing that. That's what we will do over the next few months, and we will engage political entities in the ridings that would be affected, but right now we're looking at turnout rates in advanced polls in rural areas to see whether it's geography--the distance to the poll and things of that nature--that may be affecting the participation.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Finally, I've always been a believer in the fact that education is the primary factor in terms of increasing voter turnout, and you'd mentioned in your remarks that you have plans--and correct me if I'm wrong--to increase the educational outreach component of your office to try to get into schools more frequently, to impress upon school children of voting age and younger of not only their right but their privilege and their responsibility to vote. Could you elaborate on that?

[Marc Mayrand]

We would certainly like to work with our colleagues across the country in that regard so that we can agree on some sort of common civic curriculum regarding the electoral process that could be made available to school boards across the country.

Another initiative that is also mentioned briefly in the report is Student Vote, which runs a parallel election during the federal election across the country. In fact, they reached out to 3,000 schools and colleges and to close to 500,000 students who participated in the process last fall. One of the issues we have is that there's no continuity around this. Normally those events are around the election. I think one thing that we need to pay more attention to is what happens in between elections. Education is a continuous process, and it can't just happen haphazardly once every two or four years--hopefully four years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll go along with that.

Monsieur Guimond.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My colleague, Mr. Proulx, was very greedy and put both hands into the candy dish. I will try to come up with other questions. I was asking myself the very same questions with respect to the recruitment of election staff, training, compensation, etc.

Instead I will talk about the fluidity of the vote. You are no doubt concerned about the decrease in voter turnout that we observed during the last vote. If we look at the past five or six elections, we can clearly see that we are on a downward slope. I would imagine that the members of your team and you are looking for ways to encourage participation, but we have to go beyond advertising and the Internet. People who show up must at least be able to exercise their right to vote. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. I could spend the next 24 hours giving you examples. I once talked for 5 hours and 45 minutes during a filibuster... But still Mr. Lukiwski broke my record!

I'd like to give you a little example. Polling day was beginning but the list of voters was not contained in the polling boxes. That caused a 40-minute delay. As a result, 50 people who were waiting in line left, and it so happened that this occurred in the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, my leader's riding.

I can tell you many other similar horror stories. We need to speed up operations at the polling booths, and I do know what I'm talking about. Perhaps not all candidates do that, and I do not claim to be the only one to do so, but on the day of an election, I begin at 9:30 and I travel 351 kilometres; I visit nearly 70% of the polling booths in my riding. I then vote in my area at 8:00 p.m. So I begin at 9:30 and I make the rounds, I shake hands. By the way, we need to clarify the legislation so that it stipulates that candidates are entitled to enter the polling offices and shake the hands of all of the election workers and candidates. We've had a problem, and I have too. Election workers checked with the returning officer and were told that this practice is tolerated but that the law was not clear on the matter. This clarification needs to be made.

In some locations, it can be 6°C outside, particularly when the election takes place in the fall. When it's raining and 150 people are waiting outside in the rain, it means that people have to be determined if they want to vote. You are a father, Mr. Mayrand, just imagine a young couple in their 30s who are starting to lose interest in politics and are beginning to get fed up with politicians. The man asks his employer for permission to leave at 4:00 p.m. instead of at 5:00 p.m. He is with his spouse, they are in the car, they've picked up the kids at the day care centre. The kids start squabbling and crying. They get to the polling station and see 150 people waiting outside. In your opinion, will they stop in order to vote? No, they will not go. The reality for them is about the routine of homework, bath time and all that this entails. I am giving you this example of a young couple in their 30s, but there are also a lot of baby-boomers who have other activities, whether it be bridge lessons, poker, a hockey league; you can think of all kinds of activities.

Basically, I think that the process does not run smoothly enough. You would almost think that some individuals feel compelled to slow things down in certain locations, but at any rate, the system is not working well, not in the vast majority of locations. Sometimes, the polling stations are managed properly.

I would like to mention a small detail that would save six seconds. While one voter is marking his X in the polling booth, we could invite the next person to identify himself. So when one person leaves the polling both, the other is ready to go in. But no, no one else can go to the table until the person in the polling both leaves. This is a detail and I am no expert as you are, but you should consider this issue. I would like to hear your comments, and I have many other questions that I can ask you after that.

[Marc Mayrand]

My report did not describe the problem the same way that you did, but it did refer to the need to review the way we manage voting locations. The legislation states that these tasks are to be assigned to two individuals who are responsible for managing the ballot box and all aspects of the voting process, which can result in the situation where people are waiting in line in front of the poling table while the people working at the next tables are unoccupied or waiting for voters to show up.

Over the next few months, I would like to look at alternatives in order to facilitate the voting process, while at the same time maintaining integrity, and add a little bit more flexibility to the distribution of tasks. Among other things, this would enable us to serve electors better and it would also make it easier to recruit and train people, if we were to specialize the tasks in a polling station.

I do intend to make recommendations to you on this matter by the end of the year. Obviously, numerous changes need to be made to the legislation. I hope that we will be able to discuss these changes at that time.