Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2013

[Marc Mayrand]

First of all, we launched a limited service allowing electors to verify online whether they are registered and, if they are registered, whether at the correct address. They can also change that address if they want. Because of the way the act is drafted currently, these services are quite limited during an election campaign: you cannot register and you cannot move from one riding to the next during an election.

That's the purpose of the recommendations I've put forward to the committee. Having the real-time update for elections and offering the opportunity to electors to update their information will improve the quality of the lists.

At the same time, as we move forward, having the list available electronically at the poll will make sure that a person is not trying to register at more than one place for an election. Albeit that this is rare, if it happened, it would be detected through the system.

In addition to that, the system would automatically tell candidates' campaigns who has voted during the day. Right now, we produce small reports every 20 minutes, and they are cumbersome to fill out and not that useful for candidates, I understand. Adding a live update on who has voted would I think be much more efficient for campaigns.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

You say you're going to have the ability to have this as a pilot project in a byelection or maybe after 2015. Is that the timeline we're looking at?

[Marc Mayrand]

For 2015 we would like to introduce it as a pilot project in a few ridings. I don't want to wait. In 2015 I'm asking for full online registration services, so live lists at the poll as a pilot project, to be expanded across the country in 2019.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

There are going to be some who are concerned about the security around this process. We used to do door-to-door enumeration, where someone would actually come to the door and they'd get ID. A lot of people who have worked in politics for many years on the party side thought that was a much better system.

With an online registration system, I think there probably is some merit to it, but what steps can you take to ensure security around that system?

[Marc Mayrand]

We have devised an authentication system based on what exists currently that's available to us. Until we get a national authentication system at the federal level, we'll have to patch through a system of varied authentication.

To verify if you are on the list, you only have to enter your name, your riding, or your address. That will confirm if you're on the list. If you want to change your address, as we discussed with this committee a few years back, you will have to provide a secret to Elections Canada, which is your date of birth.

During an election, if you want to add a new registrant or add a change from a riding to another, we will ask you about your driver's licence, which is information we already have. That will allow us to authenticate who the user is.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I want to switch, just for a second, to the new voting model you've talked about piloting as well. When a voter walks into the poll, what is different? What will they see different in the new voting model as opposed to what we've done in the last several elections?

[Marc Mayrand]

Maybe a comparative I can use, the best illustration, is imagine going to a bank. Normally there's a reception desk at the bank and someone asks you, “What service are you looking for, sir or madam, today?” If it's a standard service, you're directed to the first teller who's available. If you need a special service, you're directed to a special office, special advisers.

In a nutshell, that's what we are looking to build. That's what the New Brunswick model is about. It's a system that's centred on electors as opposed to polling stations, a physical table where we're focusing on serving electors. The benefit of it is that it will reduce waiting times, especially at advance polls, where the lineup can build very quickly. The processes are more cumbersome there, so it's not rare to see people waiting for an hour, for example, at an advance poll.

This system will accelerate the processes; it will isolate those who need special or exceptional services. We will have a special track there, and they will meet with specialized officers who have received specialized training to deal with exceptions. I think that would give better service to the elector, be a more efficient use of resources, and probably fewer resources would be used in this model.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Madame Latendresse, you're up for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mayrand, thank you for your remarks. I would also like to thank your colleagues for being here today. We are pleased to be able to ask you questions and explore this issue a little further. Indeed, we believe it is extremely important.

In your reports and recommendations, you mentioned some pilot projects you wanted to implement to increase youth engagement in the electoral process. Today, you mentioned once again the possibility of setting up polling stations on university campuses and allowing more youth to work as electoral officials during the campaign and on election day. You know, and I believe the committee also knows, how important youth engagement is for me. It is also very important for the NDP.

We would very much like to collaborate as much as possible with Elections Canada in the context of such initiatives. For this reason, I am advising the committee that I am tabling the following notice of motion:That this committee:a) recognize that reports of the Chief Electoral Officer submitted to Parliament from 2010 onward demonstrate that, if Parliament does not modernize our electoral system in order to engage young Canadians, lower and lower percentages of eligible voters will turn out to vote in future federal elections; and

That this Committee conduct a comprehensive study before December 2013 on potential mechanisms to enhance youth electoral engagement in Canada, with the view to implement such changes before the next federal election, including: modernizing the online voter registration system; ensuring there are polling stations on university and college campuses across the country; recruiting and training more youth to act as elections officers; raising awareness about how and where to vote, especially among mobile college and university students; considering an electronic voting system; considering automatic registration; and removing barriers to pre-registering young people at age 16 as prospective voters, in advance of eligibility to vote at age 18.

Do you think the cuts to Elections Canada's budget will affect your recommendations and pilot projects?

[Marc Mayrand]

In our business plan for the current fiscal year and our vision for 2015, I talk about reducing barriers in order to make voting more accessible, for youth and young aboriginals among others. This is a priority for Elections Canada. We need to allocate the necessary resources to ensure we attain this objective for 2015.

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

Could you provide us with more details about your plans to set up polling stations on university campuses and reserves in an attempt to increase voting among these groups?

[Marc Mayrand]

We already have polling stations on reserves.

What we want to do in this case, is similar to what we offer workers employed by forestry, mining or oil companies, like for example the tar sands sites in Alberta. We provide special services there for voting. We would like to apply this model on campuses.

Let me hasten to add that we will not be able to offer this service on all Canadian campuses. We will have to discuss the issue with the main stakeholders in order to choose which campuses, community centres and friendship centres will receive this service from us.

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

Very well.

I would like to hear more about electronic registration. Can you tell me what this will change for the younger population?

[Marc Mayrand]

We see that the youth registration rate is approximately 72% whereas the national average is 92%. There is therefore a considerable shortfall in that regard, for all kinds of reasons. The current system requires the voters' consent before they can be registered. We know that in British Columbia and in other provinces, if voters do not express their desire to not be registered, they are registered automatically.

Moreover, motor vehicle registration offices and sometimes Revenue Canada send us information on young voters. Nonetheless, in order to register them we have to have their consent.

We write to these young people. Every year, 300,000 letters are sent to them from our offices. Unfortunately, the response rate is minimal. They would probably answer email more than correspondence on paper. We see that the lower the registration rate, the more difficult it is during an election campaign for them to know how and where to vote.

Our strategy therefore is to improve the registration rate, including that of young people and young aboriginals, with the hope that this will encourage them to participate more in the process. In that way, it will be easier for them to exercise their right to vote.

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

Am I mistaken—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Madame Latendresse. Your time is complete.

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thank you very much.

How much time do we have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll go five minutes with you. I've been very generous here so far, I guess.

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

I have a couple of questions, but briefly I want to go back to the personation issue and some of your remedies for it. I don't know whether I'm understanding it correctly—and I use the word “personation”, as opposed to “impersonation”, just to be accurate. You've talked about bringing in some sanctions against people who personate either elections officials, party officials, or candidates. Is that correct?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes.

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

I'm going back to the case we saw in Guelph last year, which to my knowledge was the only documented illegal robocall case in the last election, in which the Liberal candidate at that time sent out a robocall. Actually, it wasn't an automated call but a live person on the.... No, it was a recorded call. Not only did they not indicate that it was the Liberal candidate's campaign team phoning, but the woman who recorded the call used a fraudulent name. In other words, she didn't identify herself accurately; she used a different name—which to me indicates it was intended to be deceptive, but nonetheless....

Would that extend to and be captured under your recommendations? They're not trying to personate an election official; they're not personating, obviously, a different election official, but they are conducting what can only be considered to be an illegal robocall.

Would that situation be captured under your recommendations?

[Marc Mayrand]

The case was sanctioned by the CRTC under specific rules. As put forward, the recommendation would not cover such a situation. Again, we have to be careful....

First of all, I didn't hear the call itself, but I think in all sorts of promotional activity there are all sorts of fictitious characters being used, by all campaigns and all candidates, and I wouldn't want these as being characterizations of personation.

In a nutshell, the recommendation put forward would not cover the example you mentioned.

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

Okay—although I think it should. But that's fine.

The other thing I want to get to is something that you've identified on the compliance side of your report. Basically, it deals with the issues that you've identified, the problems that you've identified, in polling stations across Canada in the last election. I think it even infers that some of these problems were far more widespread than that, and went back a few elections, where there were a lot of difficulties with procedural non-compliance at polls.

Even though your report suggests that you don't think it really impugned anybody's right to vote, didn't stop anybody from voting who should have been allowed to vote, clearly there were some problems that could affect the integrity of the vote.

I congratulate you on coming out with the report, identifying that you had some internal problems, but why did it take so long to identify those problems? Do you think the problems were mainly a function of the people who were manning the stations really being volunteers with poor training? Can you give us some sense of why the problems occurred, and more importantly, what you're going to do to try to fix them in the future?

[Marc Mayrand]

With respect to the timeliness, I should point out that it's the first time Elections Canada has done any sort of post-event audit of what occurred at the polls. I'm not aware that any other electoral management body, either here in Canada or around the world, does any such audit. In fact, there's an old saying among EMBs that you don't want to look under the hood.

That being said, I thought that given the issues that were brought in the Etobicoke situation, we needed to understand what was the state of the land and how we could address it. That's what Mr. Neufeld did.

It's complex; there are many contributing factors. One thing is that the whole system was designed for Canadians in the neighbourhood to serve their neighbours in allowing them to vote. That's great, when you think of it.

I don't think we can blame those people, who have extraneous working conditions—poor pay, long hours, very complex procedures, with limited training because of the constraints that exist, and, increasingly, clients who may be difficult to serve at times.

I think our approach is to say, no, we need to address the many contributing factors. For the short term, we've put forward some recommendations to address it for 2015. We know that will not be enough, however. We need to do more. We need to redesign the whole voting process. We need to rely more on technology to ensure compliance than on human behaviour. There will always be human behaviour, but we need to minimize that.

I have examples that occurred and came to light in Etobicoke.

One was of a mother showing up with her daughter at a poll, before neighbours who knew them. The daughter didn't have a piece of ID, so she needed to be vouched for. The staff did the procedure, but instead of putting the name of the mother, they put the word “Mother” on the form.

That's an irregularity. But I don't think anybody would challenge the validity of the vote that took place.

In a nursing home, for example, for whatever reason, the electors, the residents, needed to be vouched for. Well, they were vouched for by a staff member, I believe it was a nurse, who certainly knew the residents, who knew who they were, who knew that they resided there.

But that's an irregularity. The nurse certainly didn't reside in that home, so technically she was not allowed to vouch for them, and therefore the vouching was irregular. I think everyone around this table would agree, however, that these people were legitimate electors and should have been allowed to vote.

So we need to rely more on better training, and specialization of tasks, but also on technology to deal with those matters.