Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2013

[Marc Mayrand]

As I indicated in my opening remarks, I remain available to the government if it wishes to solicit my advice or my opinion on certain aspects of the reform.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Mayrand, for the last few remaining minutes, I would like to ensure that your recommendations do not allow any loopholes to be included.

First of all, you recommend much larger penalties for impostors who are posing as Elections Canada officers. We are talking about fines as high as $250,000 and longer periods of incarceration, if necessary.

Yet, during the last election, in a riding next to my own, certain people posed as Liberal Party representatives. In the Mont-Royal riding, where there is a large Jewish community, people received phone calls on the Sabbath. Mr. Cotler is quite certain that his team would not have committed such a terrible mistake.

Are you also going to discuss impostors who pose as members of another political party?

[Marc Mayrand]

As formulated, the recommendation would cover the situation you just described. The communicant would be guilty of misrepresentation, whether it concerned Elections Canada or another political entity.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Very well. I just wanted to ensure that was clearly stated in the text.

[Marc Mayrand]

It is included in the report. That should be clear.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Very well. I will take a closer look at it. That is not how I understood it.

You recommend that telemarketing services should keep records of all communications made in Canada during the election. Why is it only during the election? It may also disappear outside elections. Now, for some years, we are in permanent elections in Canada.

[Marc Mayrand]

We're trying to achieve a balance. The rules that are provided would cover all telecommunications.

With regard to the retention of documents, again, we are concerned that it not be subject to the will of this committee and Parliament that we limit intrusiveness in the operation of telemarking companies. Again, there are different standards nowadays that apply. There is no uniform industry standard, and I don't believe there are formal regulations that govern the retention of the types of records we're looking for, so we have curtailed the recommendation to the specific issues we were facing.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

I have a concern about that. We may look at that more carefully when we see the bill to determine if it is something we should revisit.

I have another point close to this one. Your next recommendation, on page 39 of your report, states that companies should preserve specified records if required by Elections Canada—if required by Elections Canada. However, on page 27 of the report, you state that some companies don't keep records unless billing is required, first, and they do it for a short period of three days. Three days is a very short time for a complaint to Elections Canada and to be sure that the data is not destroyed before that. Why not have an overarching rule that states that telemarketing services should keep records whether or not we are in or out of a writ period?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's something again that the committee and Parliament can consider. I think it would probably require some consultation with the industry as to why they proceed the way they do.

In terms of the practice right now, it's a well-established standard in the industry that telecommunication companies—not telemarketing companies—do not keep records unless they charge for communications. You end up in the interesting situation where you use land phones for which there are no charges. There's not necessarily a record of the communication coming into your home, but if you receive a call from a wireless, there's probably a record of that transaction.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

I have other questions, but next time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mayrand and your folks, for being here today.

I have more than one area I would like to discuss with you, but one of the things I understand is the nominating of officials to work at elections. Certainly, I know in my riding—and I suspect in others—many of the returning officers have a very difficult time in finding the people to recruit and to staff.

I know a number of times they have indicated that it is the responsibility of the candidates from all parties to produce lists of appropriate people to staff there. In your recommendation you're indicating you'd like to take that nominating process away. How would you fix the problem of not having enough poll staff?

[Marc Mayrand]

There are maybe a few points. The act requires the returning officers to go to the candidates who ranked first and second in the last GE to recommend personnel. The returning officer has to wait until 17 days before election day to get those names from candidates.

The reality is that over a few election cycles now, the number of referrals by candidates have been declining significantly. In fact, nationally, barely one-third of the electoral workers are identified by candidates, and in some parts of the country there are none at all. That significantly impedes a returning officer from starting recruitment much earlier and then providing the proper training in a timely manner.

The situation we face right now is that the recruitment is done at the last minute—two weeks before election day—and suddenly a returning officer who has to recruit about 800 workers needs to train them during that period. Again, during that period—I'm saying 17 days, but there are only seven days before advance polls, so within a week—they have to identify all the workers they need for advance polls, train them, ensure that they are qualified, and then assign them to polling stations in the various districts. It's a daunting task for them, and it's an issue or a situation that continues, with poor compliance with basic procedures at the poll.

I think Mr. Neufeld recommended changing that, and I'm coming back to this committee today saying that it's time we get rid of that rule.

That being said, candidates and parties can always direct people to our website recruitment tool, and their referrals would certainly be considered by a returning officer.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, because my group is one that refuses to hand over the names; it takes away from our workers and our support.

[Marc Mayrand]

Exactly.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I just wonder if you have a system or a plan whereby you're going to staff the polls where we've had this difficulty?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, we do. We'd start earlier. For the last election we introduced an online recruitment tool. We got over 40,000 applications online, and that will continue to grow as we promote it with Canadians.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you.

I come from a law enforcement background, and I have a great deal of difficulty with the suggestion that an accused has to cooperate with somebody who's conducting an investigation. It's never been my experience in policing. No one has to cooperate.

I'm wondering if you can point to any other legislation in which someone accused of something—it doesn't mean they're guilty of anything—has to provide the evidence that you feel would go towards proving or disproving your case.

[Marc Mayrand]

I have not been talking about accused individuals. Every Canadian has rights guaranteed by the Charter of Rights that says no one has to provide evidence against himself or herself.

What I'm looking for is the authority and power, which exists for the vast majority of provincial electoral bodies, as well as for the Competition Bureau and many other regulatory agencies, to require a person to attend an interview if that person, in the view of the investigator, may have in his or her possession information that is relevant to an investigation. That power would be exercised only with the authorization of the courts. It's not a free ride for investigators—quite the opposite.

Again, if in the course of an interview an individual provides evidence that may be against their interests, the interview has to stop. They have to be told right away. In any case, the information cannot be used against them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Cullen.

Try to keep it to five minutes. We were a little generous there.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I'm sure the generosity will extend.

A free and fair vote lies at the heart of our democracy, hence our spending some time here today. Thank you for your work on that.

There are obvious problems and loopholes that need to be fixed. Fraud has been committed, as was commented on by my friend and by Judge Mosley—coordinated, systemic, and widespread. I would suggest that the Conservative Party didn't do itself any favours in that case, and that the judge also noted in his own recommendations, as you've said, that there was some sort of trench warfare in trying to deny the justice. I'm curious now that my Conservative colleagues are concerned about the principle of justice delayed being justice denied.

You issued a report in 2010, more than a thousand days ago, with some recommendations that would help fix the holes in our electoral system. Is that true?

[Marc Mayrand]

There were certainly a good number of recommendations that would have helped us over the last few years.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You recently issued another report, some five weeks ago, with more recommendations. Has the government consulted with you on incorporating some of those recommendations into legislation?

[Marc Mayrand]

No, not at this time.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You haven't been consulted?