Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2012

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I mean the cuts to training provided to political parties on the new rules, since there will no longer be any subsidies. What are you going to do? Will you need a bigger percentage for the next election?

[Marc Mayrand]

Obviously, we haven't figured out the budget for the next election yet. Far too many things could happen in the interim. As I mentioned, a new priority recently came to light with everything that happened in Etobicoke-Centre. We have to revisit the processes for recruitment, training and procedural compliance at the polling station level. We will be undertaking that exercise in the next few months. If the committee accepts our invitation to visit our headquarters in September, I will be able to give you more details at that time.

Whatever a more in-depth examination reveals will determine how we satisfy the need to implement a quality control measure in real time.

An election lasts one day. We hire 230,000 people and there are no do-overs. Often, that is the first and only day when these people work. So we are going to have to find some way of handling this. Implementing quality control measures throughout election day is likely to be expensive. We are going to consider the situation carefully, do our analysis and come up with proposals in due course.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You touched on the issue of students and their apathy when it comes to election day. What is done about that? It's a fact that, during the last election, a lot of students, in universities especially, did not have time to go to the polling station and produce the necessary proof because the election was during their exam period.

Where will you focus your efforts to ensure that voting is easier for students?

You also mentioned that you have 360 indeterminate employees, but you did not mention casual or term staff. Do you have a budget for such employees? How many do you have?

[Marc Mayrand]

To answer your second question, we have somewhere around 140 staff who are either casual or term. They are paid under statutory authority not through parliamentary votes.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So they aren't affected by the cuts.

[Marc Mayrand]

Some of them may have been affected by the $7.5-million reduction. They already know.

As for young people, all kinds of initiatives have been proposed in order to strengthen and improve the information provided to them. More specifically, one initiative we are considering for the 2015 election is to set up polls on university and college campuses across the country so students can vote by special ballot. That is one major initiative to make voting more accessible to them.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Is my time up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have nine seconds left.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I would very much like to know whether the cuts had an impact on casual and term staff or just permanent employees. I would like to have that information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

We have very little time left. Mr. Williamson, you can have one question, asked and answered in one minute.

Mr. Comartin, I will do the same thing for you, or for someone else here.

Go ahead, Mr. Williamson.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Good day. It's good to see you again, Mr. Mayrand. I salute you for the deficit reduction measures you have taken.

You said, “We will be considering options for expanding the use of the voter information card as proof of identity and address.” What is that?

[Marc Mayrand]

We did that in the last general election in seniors homes, for example, as well as on reserves across the country. We also introduced it for students residing on campus. In all cases, these are defined electors living in a limited, very restricted area.

It was very successful for seniors, who often have issues establishing their identity and address. In that case, we allowed the voter information card to be used in combination with another piece of identification in order to meet the requirements of the legislation. Many seniors don't drive any more and they don't have a driver's licence. In many cases they don't have many documents left with them. They are maintained by family members.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

You are not proposing any kind of national identification card, then?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's another discussion. That's not part of what is being proposed.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I just want to make sure I close that one right away.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Madam Latendresse, you have a minute to have a question asked and answered, if we could, please.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you. I will be brief.

Still on the topic of voter turnout and students, I know that some pilot projects were in place during the 2011 election, in certain campus polling stations.

Did you observe a higher turnout among younger voters in the pilot project locations?

[Marc Mayrand]

There weren't any pilot projects at the federal level. Some provinces have initiated them on a more or less large scale. But that was not done federally.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Do you have any statistics showing better voter turnout in the provinces?

[Marc Mayrand]

Not off the top of my head. I will be meeting with most of my colleagues in July. That will no doubt be a topic of discussion. I know that most of my colleagues are looking at repeating and expanding that experience during the next election.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right, thank you.

Sorry, but we have run out of time.

Mr. Mayrand, thank you for your invitation to come visit you this fall. That will still be easy while you are in downtown Ottawa, but I see you are moving to Gatineau, so I will get more exercise when we walk over to see Elections Canada in 2014.

[Marc Mayrand]

Or maybe after.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you for coming today. Thank you for helping us with the estimates.

[Marc Mayrand]

I trust you will discuss the question of my future appearance in June.