Not at this time.
Evidence of meeting #79 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #79 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The government announced that they were introducing a bill that was meant to fix some of these problems. Were you consulted on that piece of legislation?
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It seems to me that you would have something to say about this, being the Chief Electoral Officer, having spent a lot of time on this, and being an expert in this field. I'm surprised that the government felt that briefing the Conservative caucus was okay, but that not briefing you on legislation to fix our electoral system was a good idea.
You're an ally in this. This is the point of confusion that I have. Maybe you have similar sources of confusion. One would assume that in restoring confidence.... Some people have said that we need to maintain the confidence of Canadians in our electoral system. I would think after the robocall scandal and Pierre Poutine there would actually be an effort to restore confidence, so that when people vote in an election and someone is elected, they know they were duly and legally elected and fraud wasn't committed.
I think Canadians are rightly concerned that the integrity of the system has been weakened. Would you agree with that statement?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
I think the events of the last general election are certainly cause for concern for Canadians. They've told us loudly and in large numbers. That being said, in the current system we have different mechanisms to ensure that elections are run properly. There's access to the courts. So far, the courts have maintained the elections.
But I do agree, and that's why I'm coming forward with those additional recommendations today. We really need to modernize our legislation. We're out of sync with the times. It has not been looked at carefully. We need to bring it from the 19th to the 21st century.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You say from the 19th to the 21st century. That's a big jump.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We only get to bring that, though, if there's political will to do it. You can make all the recommendations you want. You don't have the powers right now to stop fraud in the 2015 election campaign, unless, as you said, you get legislation in time. You say that spring of 2014 is sort of your drop-dead date. Would any legislation that comes after that be of use to Elections Canada in order to make sure that fraud isn't committed in the next election? You're up against the clock.
11:50 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
We are up against the clock. We have a fixed date, and yes, we need to know what are the rules of the game well ahead of the game being played.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay.
We know what the problem is—“we” collectively—and we have solutions that are on offer, both from your office and from Mr. Scott, who, in introducing his legislation, took some of those recommendations and put them into a proposed bill.
Yet we don't see the legislation. We asked the minister about it yesterday. He went back to his “in due course” or some sort of expression that means nothing.
11:50 a.m.
A voice
It was “the not too distant future”.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Excuse me: the not too distant future. I get them confused.
If the political will is absent, you can't do your job.
11:50 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
It's increasingly difficult to meet Canadians' expectations with regard to the fairness and integrity of the electoral process if we don't modernize our legislation.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
By “modernize”, you just make it so that people can't commit fraud. That's what you mean.
11:50 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
No. I mean that we need to start looking at the way the voting process is designed. We need to introduce technology into the system. Nowadays, I need signatures, documents, papers, and all of these sorts of things that are not aligned with the times. Canadians deal less and less with paper. They want to deal with us electronically.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
For my final question, is it lawful for a senator to campaign during the writ period and also claim expenses? Does that now involve your department? Does that involve your office?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
The Elections Act provides rules as to how you can choose to participate in campaigns. Whether you're a senator or an MP, we have a handbook that describes pretty precisely what has to be reported in returns from candidates and for parties. The costs incurred in campaigning in favour of a candidate or a party need to be reported as election expenses.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
May 28th, 2013 / 11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Mayrand, for your great presentation and for the great recommendations you are proposing.
By the way, in regard to my profession, I am a licensed professional engineer, so I am not, like many of my colleagues, a distinguished lawyer. My preoccupation during the last election was to respect the law, because if I did not respect the law, I would lose my licence, and that licence is very important for me.
When you are looking at the database.... I'm asking about the voter database. How are you keeping this database updated? There are a lot of changes, and I think this is due to the mobility of our people. It is very important to have a good database. In that way, you are avoiding exactly the things we are looking at avoiding, such as avoiding fraud and other unnecessarily negative events. That is my first question.
Second, how are you updating your administrative changes? Obviously we are evolving, and the need for administrative changes is evolving with time. When was the last time you updated the administrative changes that are under your purview and your powers?
Also, when did you update the procedures? There are the procedures, for example, for requesting the times in regard to how, if you have an election violation, you are proceeding to lay a charge or to do something that corrects the situation.
11:55 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
With regard to the register of electors, we continuously keep it up to date. We get information from various sources. I'll just name the main ones.
We get information from CRA. When Canadians file their tax returns they can tick a box, so that information comes to us. If they have changed their address during the year, that will be noted in our register.
Similarly, we get information from drivers licensing bureaus in most of the provinces and territories, which again will update us on various changes of address.
We also get information from Citizenship and Immigration Canada with regard to new citizens and we get data from the vital statistics bureaus, which provide us with the names of deceased electors.
This information is provided regularly and is constantly used to update the register. That is between elections.
Again I would point out that in any given year, the information for 18% of electors changes in the register. In order to correct that 18% variation and make sure that the list is up to date for elections, we have various revision procedures that are prescribed by the legislation.
During the election period, electors can contact their returning officers to update their information or to register. They can be visited in specific neighbourhoods across the country as a result of targeted revisions. Finally, they can register on polling day at the poll.
That is how the list is constantly being updated. We're proposing that, with online registration, it will be easier for electors to register and update their information. They will not have to contact the returning officer; they will not have to wait for registration on polling day, but they will do it at their own convenience. Under secure measures, they will be able to update their information and ensure that they have the VIC with their right address and will be directed to the right polling location.
I'm not sure whether you want me to continue that story.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
I would suggest that we update our administrative procedure continuously. We are committed to constant improvement of our processes. We engage political parties, we engage Canadians, we engage parliamentarians on these matters. We have discussed with this committee Vision 2015, which discusses very specific initiatives designed to improve the administration for the next general election.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for being here today.
As someone who has been involved in politics on the political side as a campaign manager, I know that there have been many criticisms—I'm sure you have heard them—of the accuracy of the electoral list and the changes that constantly have to be made.
You said here today that you're hoping to use technology to correct some of the problems that exist with the current list. Can you speak a little more in depth to the ways in which you see technology helping make that list a little more accurate?
