Evidence of meeting #25 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.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Well, would it be in the public interest if there's going to be a law to say that you couldn't tell the public about that?
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
Well, I understand your point.
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
I like the idea of openness in this line of work, as much as it can be done.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
You've also said that investigations take quite a long time, and that it's difficult sometimes to get to the end of them. Mr. Côté told us that some investigations would be aborted because people could refuse to cooperate. It's almost like advice to people as to how to game the system. Go big so the investigation takes a long time. Tell people to refuse to cooperate, and do your calling outside the country because there's no prohibition against that.
Why would some people craft an elections act that sets things up like that? Do you have any reason why some would do that?
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
What I was describing, that we don't get the cooperation we should get from people, is a relatively new phenomenon. I found it very discouraging that people would make appointments to be interviewed and then would cancel them.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
I was impressed, Mr. Corbett, with your statement. I agree with you about the 60% of the people who vote who take this very seriously as a sacred right or an obligation. They want to have what you call a fair election, with a reliable result that we call the foundation of democracy.
How can we have a situation where the Securities Commission looking after the management of the stock market in the public interest, the CRTC, and Fisheries and Oceans looking after fish catches can compel witnesses to give information and fulfill an investigation but with this most fundamental, sacred foundation of democracy—having a fair election—enforcers, commissioners such as you were, and your investigators have no right to ensure that the fundamental democracy of our country has the same kind of powers to do the proper job, as you said, in seeking compliance. Does that make any sense to you?
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
Well, it's my obligation to bring it to the attention of members of Parliament. That's what I'm doing today.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
So, you don't see any reason why this should be any different? In fact, I would suggest to you that you probably think that elections and fair elections being run properly are of far more significance than some other aspects of our society.
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
That's what I believe for sure. This is much more important legislation than, say, the Fisheries Act, or I don't know what others. This is where democracy begins.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
So, Mr. Corbett, I do have one question that disturbs me. The recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer, in terms of the example you referred to of robocalls, is that the information be required to be kept for one year. Is that sufficient time? For example, if an investigator decided now that they needed access to the CIMS data from the Conservative Party going back to just before the last election, in April of 2011, there would be no problem if that didn't exist. But there could be the possibility that information would be required more than a year after an event, could there not?
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
I don't know that we've looked at enough events yet to determine that. We got complaints about robocalls, as you know. The first thing we would want to know is what kind of message the complainant got. Did they get the phone number of the person calling them? Is there some way we can confirm what they're saying to us? The complaints were not exactly all the same. We have to confirm the complaint is real before we're going to move on it.
So, I would presume an investigator would be quickly looking for the information in the data bank. If investigators had ready access to it, they could sort out the complaints if the person doing it had registered. But frankly, we just haven't had enough experience with it yet.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Harris. You are over your time.
We'll go to Mr. Simms for seven minutes, please.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Corbett, thank you for coming.
When I first looked at this bill, I saw the moving of the office into the DPP as an exercise in independence. But as I spoke to people and in doing a little bit of investigating, I realized that maybe that's not such a good thing, because it's more like an exercise in isolation. Also, from some of the stuff you said earlier, it seems to me that if you're working as the chief investigator and you're looking at getting all the information that you can, a lot of this information comes from DROs, poll clerks, and auditors—at least in the evidence that I see.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Even though the government says you would have every right to go to them, the access is not readily available. It seems to me that as an investigator within Elections Canada you exercised your independence, but at the same time you were able to see the red flags that went up from polling stations and divisions across this country.
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
I'm not sure whether you're talking about the monitoring role or the investigation role here.
Liberal
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
Elections Canada has a warehouse full of paper after an election. It is all bagged, and you sort through it to find this, that, and the other thing. That's available, but we need elections people to find it for us in the warehouse in order to get into it, to get access to it. This wouldn't necessarily be hindered if you were outside.
I'm more concerned about being able to draw on the expertise. Elections Canada is the only centre for federal election expertise in the country, if you want the lawyers and want to know how they do business, if you want to know how they run the election, if you want to know what the auditors are doing and how they apply the law.
This is what I would call applied law, not theoretical law. This is a statute that somebody has to implement in a real-life scenario. It's a learning experience in this organization for investigators: how do they do business? You want to be able to draw on the people who have been doing it for some time.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Does this go to what you said earlier, which I thought was very interesting, when you said that for the commissioner it's not about the prosecution as much as it is about compliance?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
That's what plays into this, because they have that field around them whereby they can go back and forth with the people who do the fieldwork, such as the auditors.
Would you agree, then, that this is an exercise in isolating a particular office?
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
Well, it's going to isolate it. Whether or not it's aimed to do that, it will.
We've had situations in which there was clearly a violation of the act. We went to the political party and said, “Here's what you have to do to make it right”, and they said yes, we will. And they did. So we went into a compliance agreement with them rather than a prosecution. This is the idea of getting compliance without prosecuting.
My colleague Mr. Côté is dead right. If you get into the criminal courts, the judge will have attempted murder sitting here, and other cases sitting there, and you're bringing him an Elections Act case. There isn't a lot of interest, if you want to know the truth.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
You mentioned that the DPP is far more concerned with Criminal Code offences than with this, which really involves a totally different mindset, if you consider the compliance issue.
Former Commissioner of Canada Elections, As an Individual
Exactly.
I'm concerned about the adversarial context that I see coming into elections matters from time to time, and I'm concerned that we have to prosecute.
Do you have any idea how many offences there are in the Elections Act?