Evidence of meeting #23 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
Professor Thomas, thank you very much for appearing. I've followed your work since I was an undergrad political science student and right through to law school. It's a pleasure for me to ask you a few questions.
First, on pages 10 and 11 of your report to the committee, you mention 100,000 vouching transactions and go on to say that those are mainly made up of young people, aboriginals, and various groups. Where did you source that figure?
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I believe that information was offered by the CEO of Elections Canada and by Mr. Neufeld in his report. I think a number of studies suggest those are the groups that tend not to vote as often and have to rely on the device of vouching.
Conservative
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
I think in fairness you're merging two areas of studies.
Mr. Neufeld quotes from his conformity audit. I'll take you through that. It's in annex C of his report. It was an audit ordered after the Etobicoke Centre byelection Supreme Court case. That conformity audit was conducted with 1,000 random polls from the 2011 election, 10 from Etobicoke, and then 50 from the three byelections in 2012, including my riding of Durham in Ontario. So a total of 1,160 polls were randomly sampled.
We've heard a lot about vulnerable groups being impacted. That's not part of the conformity audit. The vouching that was suggested to occur at a 95% confidence level was 120,000-plus vouching transactions.
Mr. Neufeld reported that of those transactions, 95,000-plus had errors, serious ones right through to some cases with multiple errors giving a rate of 42% to 80% errors. Do you think that's an acceptable error rate for a G-7 country, Professor Thomas?
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I'm not an expert on the methodology used for the compliance audit. I know there has been an ongoing disagreement between the minister and Mr. Neufeld over the significance of the findings, and there have been some exchanges in the media between Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Neufeld where they've disagreed and the argument has been that the Neufeld report has been used selectively. I guess my bottom line on—
Conservative
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
I'm quoting from it here, professor. Given time, could I ask you to undertake to review annex C and provide some clarification on pages 10 and 11 of where you source your number, and the groups impacted?
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I'd be happy to do that. I would just say that if you go back several decades, people voted without any voter identification and there was more trust that nobody would be engaging in voter fraud, as it's become known. So we've changed in our culture of trust within Canada.
Conservative
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
Yes, I read an international report, part of which was about, “Canada: From Trust to Documentary Identification”, or something like that, about the last two decades of election law. Quickly, you referenced the Manitoba example, which has an identification requirement. Certainly only four jurisdictions permit vouching at a provincial level, and municipalities, at least those in Ontario, do not permit vouching. So do you believe it's possible, given your experience in Manitoba and in these other jurisdictions, to have a proper and democratic election with an identification requirement?
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Yes, I think it has happened in Manitoba over the last two general elections. According to the experts in and around Elections Manitoba and me as a commentator, I have not encountered any problems with it. There are alternatives to vouching, but I think there are sufficient safeguards, protections, built into the vouching process that there isn't the likelihood of widespread fraud. I hear the message from the proponents of Bill C-23 now saying it's the potential for fraud. If you're balancing the potential for fraud and ensuring people the greatest amount of access to the vote, I would think that vouching would still be satisfactory and acceptable to most Canadians.
Conservative
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
I agree there's been too much discussion about fraud and proving it or not, but if there's a serious irregularity that leads to the potential overturning of the result, those are the two aspects the Supreme Court looked at. If that irregularity through fraud or any other means leads to an overturned result, is that not as bad for shaking confidence in our system as nefarious cases of fraud that we try to identify?
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Well, you're never going to have a perfect election that's conducted without any administrative problems that arise.
One of the problems is it all happens on one day and it often involves the use of hundreds of thousands of people who have been trained in a very short period of time. What I read in the Neufeld report was a suggestion that we simplify and streamline the reporting requirements, and we ensure adequate training, and even then, as I say, it's not going to be perfect.
We don't want to exaggerate the irregularities that arise because it just isn't that serious a problem, and if it intimidates voters, if it gives rise to people having second thoughts about voting, that's not the outcome we want. We want a stronger democracy, not one in which more people are turned off.
Conservative
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
I only have a minute left.
You're an election observer. You have watched for years. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that in the last general election there were 27 ridings that had a result of less than a 1,000 vote margin between first and second. Mr. Neufeld's report suggests that there are at least 500 errors per riding as a result of registration problems and vouching problems. Given your experience in Manitoba and by looking at other jurisdictions, do you think it's reasonable when Elections Canada's own report shows a 42% to 80% error rate with vouching, that we look to move past that type of registration at voting?
Conservative
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
You can do more on the front end in terms of improving registration. I didn't know the number, about 27 or so, whatever it was. I'd have to think some more about that. I will get back to you on that. I'll give you a comment on that in writing.
Conservative
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Mr. Chair, I'm going to just speak for four minutes, if you could let me know.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you so much.
I'd like to thank all three of you for extremely well-prepared presentations. I appreciate that.
I want to start with Mr. McLaughlin. Your comment that it's not just the mechanics of voting but the importance of voting that needs to be messaged, I think, sums up everything you said so well. Forgive me for the question I'm about to ask, but you do have an experiential base. You mentioned the Lord commission. For the record, with the observations that you bring to this, what stints and involvements did your life in politics include?
Strategic Advisor to the Dean, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Some were better than others. Let's see, I was on the Kim Campbell campaign in 1993, a surplus of democracy, I might point out there. I've been involved in federal politics from 1984 through to 1993 working for various ministers, Prime Minister Mulroney and Minister Clark, on constitutional issues. I worked for Premier Lord as deputy minister, intergovernmental affairs, and policy and planning around the cabinet office, and also was chief of staff briefly on democratic reform. I worked for Minister Flaherty as his chief of staff. In the last five years, from 2007 to 2012, I was the president of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. I've worked in a policy and small “p” political environment, also in a partisan environment. I've been in campaigns. I've done door-knocking; I've worked on buses, and all the rest of it. It's a bit of both, but not recently in a partisan way.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
I just want that to be on the record, because I think it's a background that's extremely important, that informs what you had to say.
Professor Dawood, I'm not sure if you know the work of Richard Hasen in the United States, his book called The Voting Wars. I'm going to give a few quotes from him. I wonder if you could comment, first of all, on billmoyers.com, where he says:
For my book The Voting Wars, I could not find a single case in the last generation where it's even remotely possible that impersonation fraud...[what we're calling voter fraud]...without the collusion of election officials was responsible for changing an election.
He goes on to say:
This kind of fraud is extremely rare. A recent News 21 study looked at all election-related prosecutions over the last decade in all 50 states, and found at most 10 cases of prosecutions....
It's no surprise that the numbers are so low, because voter impersonation fraud is an exceedingly dumb way to try to steal an election.
—versus other methods, that's my editorial comment.
He says, “On the other side of the ledger, how many people could be disenfranchised by these laws?” He's referring to voter ID laws.
Do you have any comment on that perspective? What's going to happen on the disenfranchisement side, versus what people think they're gaining by having stricter voter ID requirements?
Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
It's interesting. Professor Hasen actually believes the voting wars have now come to Canada, now that he has taken a look at the fair elections act. He's of the view that the same sort of dynamic is happening here, where requirements for voter ID are actually leading to vote suppression, and that there is, again, in Canada no evidence of voter impersonation fraud. But there is significant evidence that there will be thousands of people who are eligible voters who will be disenfranchised.
I would just like add to the conversation by noting that it's not the ID that's the issue. It is proving current address, which is much harder. That is really where it gets difficult for a lot of groups, such as students who move or seniors in residential....
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
You had your four minutes, Mr. Scott. Good timing.
Mr. Christopherson, you have three minutes.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Continuing with you, Professor Dawood, in your remarks you talked about Bill C-23 failing to provide the commissioner with the power to compel witness testimony and, in addition, receipts and supporting documentation. Vouching is a crucial issue, because it means a lot of Canadians aren't going to be able to vote.
There are other critical issues in here. I wonder if you would comment on that. My understanding is that of $66 million spent in the campaign by the national parties, $33 million was reimbursed by way of the rebate system we have and not one receipt has to be provided. There are no receipts and there's no ability to compel testimony to determine whether or not the submissions were accurate.
Could you comment further on that, but with a view to a Canadian who may be listening? A lot of people are getting cranked up about this. They hear about the vouching, but then they say that doesn't affect them. Can you start to give a reason why other Canadians should care about this bill? Also, what are your concerns in that area of compelling witness testimony?
Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I think it's essential that Elections Canada has the ability to make sure the political parties are actually providing evidence about their election expenses, given the fact that $33 million is returned to political parties. I can't imagine in any other setting that you ask for reimbursement without providing a receipt. Certainly where I work at the law school, if I want a reimbursement, I need to provide receipts to show I've actually spent that money.
Elections Canada really can't do its job of ensuring the caps have been met without actually having financial documentation. How else are they supposed to know the rules are being followed?
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
What's really strange is it wasn't that long ago when there was a rule eliminated. It used to be that members of Parliament and senators could submit, without a receipt, up to $25 for a cab ride if they were going somewhere, particularly to the airport. They cut that out, because they said, “Whoa, wait a minute. Who could possibly be okay with the idea of giving $25 to somebody without a receipt?” And here we are, $33 million and nobody needs to give a receipt.
You didn't mention the issue of compelling witnesses, because you were very focused on your answer. By the way, the government voted for this unanimously and said they'd have it in place months ago, but it's not in the bill, the ability of the commissioner to compel testimony. We know right now in the robocall scandal that they can't get anybody from the Conservatives to give any testimony. Where do you go if you can't get testimony and you don't have documentation? I'd like your thoughts please.
Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I think this seriously hampers the ability of Elections Canada to actually investigate effectively any kind of electoral infractions. Without this ability, which other organizations such as the Competition Bureau do have, it makes it very difficult for Elections Canada to actually follow up and get to the bottom of problems like the robocalls affair.