Thank you.
I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to replace our national director, who was not available to attend.
One of my roles at the office is that of dealing with regulatory compliance. I have been at the Liberal Party of Canada for 16 years, and while my focus is on the financial side, we had our political operations staff also go through the report to provide us with the input to respond today.
I'd also like to acknowledge that Elections Canada did seek the opinions of the party on this about a year ago and then followed up in December with a session for all the parties that had made submissions to them to discuss their points of view and also seek additional aspects of the recommendations we made. That was much appreciated.
We have comments on 10 points. I'm going to limit my discussion to those 10 points.
I will start with recommendation I.9 on partisan signs outside polling sites. Similar to what my colleague at the Bloc Québécois said, the limit of 100 metres from the entire property presents possible difficulties, particularly, say, in a smaller community with a large shopping mall in which both the returning officer and the candidate have located their offices. We would be amenable to a distance of 100 metres from the front entrance with such signage on public property. We don't think there should be a limitation on private property.
On recommendation II.1, documents supporting the parties' financial returns, if you will allow me, I'd like to read our short two-paragraph submission to Elections Canada on that. We said:
While we acknowledge that the “Chief Electoral Officer does not receive any documentary evidence of the expenses listed in the return”, he does receive an independent Auditors' Report on the Registered Party Return in Respect of General Election Expenses and the Registered Party Financial Transactions Return.
Rather than Elections Canada using public funds to re-audit financial records that have already been audited by a public accountant, we would recommend that the Canada Elections Act be modified to include a broadening of the scope of the audit, including specific procedures if warranted, and require the auditor to provide a specific audit report to the Chief Electoral Officer that will meet the needs of the Office. If you do proceed with this recommendation, we would respectfully suggest that any changes in the Auditors' Report be agreed to with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants prior to changing the statute.
On recommendation II.2, reimbursement of election expenses when limit exceeded, we believe a graduated system of reduction would be more appropriate, perhaps in a manner similar to that used for major league baseball. For example, an expenditure of up to 10% in excess would be dealt with on a $1 for $1 reduction. But an expenditure of--and I'm using these as guidelines or suggestions--perhaps 10% to 25% might be dealt with on a $1 for $2 reduction, etc., moving forward.
On recommendation II.3, failure of deregistered electoral district associations to file outstanding financial returns, we believe the current environment for deregistered EDAs is sufficiently embarrassing to a party and, as such, do not believe the harsher penalties are warranted. In the last year and a half, I believe, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer has stepped up the enforcement of compliance with the act for the EDAs. As a result, we've seen a number of deregistrations, and I think the parties have started to notice this.
On recommendation II.5, offences for filing a campaign return with false or misleading statements or filing an incomplete campaign return, there are a host of reasons why a candidate may wish to present themselves in an election. Financial acumen does not need to be a mandatory requirement. A candidate relies on the integrity and professional capability of their official agent, especially given the ever-increasing complexity of the political financial regulatory framework. Even if a candidate were made responsible for filing a false or misleading return, those candidates without a financial background would be signing blindly. As such, we do not believe this measure will achieve any positive outcome.
Regarding chapter II, number 8, treatment of candidates' outstanding claims, we agree with the recommendations and suggest that Elections Canada go one step further and eliminate the unpaid claim approval process for the regular day-to-day operations of a party and electoral district associations. In their report, they mention that they weren't touching parties' electoral district associations. We believe they should look at those as well.
On chapter II, number 9, extensions of time for filing financial returns, we agree with the recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer and believe the second option of a graduated penalty would be most appropriate. That ties back into our graduated penalties for over-expenditures as well.
Next is chapter IV, number 10, judicial recount, notice to the returning officer. Given the possible disagreement of the returning officer and the candidate regarding a judicial recount, we believe that the recommendations should be modified to require the notification of the returning officer within 24 hours of having filed the judicial application.
Regarding chapter IV, number 11, removal from the national register of electors by an authorized representative, we believe this recommendation should be modified to only remove the name once the elector is deceased.
For recommendation chapter IV, number 12, commercial value deemed to be nil, we agree with a more precise definition of commercial value being deemed to be nil, but question whether the definition should be broadened to limit these contributions to a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada. As an example, currently a landed immigrant who has not received their Canadian citizenship or their permanent residency status is allowed to participate in the electoral process--by driving electors to the polling station, say--in a manner similar to the example on page 118 of the Chief Electoral Officer's report.
We believe these types of contributions should be allowed to continue. Otherwise, the effort involved by an official agent in determining the eligibility of the contributed goods and services would increase the administrative effort to monitor these types of situations, which we conclude is the opposite intention of the exemption provision. Additionally, we're concerned about the $200 limit being tracked on a cumulative basis. To do so would require the official agent to develop a tracking system for all levels of contributed goods and services under $200, which again seems to run against the intention of the exemption provision of reducing administrative requirements of small amounts.
Those are our 10 points.