Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 2nd, 2014

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

I also just want to use the next 30 seconds to inform our guests....

Thank you for listening to the account of my colleague across the way of what previous witnesses said. I want you to know that one of those witnesses did indeed imaginatively draw a Venn diagram in his own mind where somehow the health card became the ultimate piece of ID. He seemed to have absolutely no idea that address is required as one of two pieces of ID, if you don't have a card that has both on them. It was the most unconvincing piece of testimony I've heard in my two years since being here.

As for the other gentleman, he was a distinguished scholar from the U.S. who did not say there's no relation. He did not say that. He ended his testimony by saying his claim was that voter ID is not the driving force for voter turnout. So for you to try a second time around to put on the record testimony that was not given....

Anyway, Professor Lenard, you did have a chance towards the end of your remarks to talk, succinctly, to a number of other aspects that you're concerned about: partisan selection of people, election day workers.... You mentioned also your concern about fundraising.

Could you possibly elaborate just a little bit on why you see those as problems?

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Yes I'm happy to. The short and the long version of the issue of public financial contributions is simply one of giving Canadians who have more money greater access to the vote. Every time the government decides to increase campaign contributions rather than decrease them, which is what they should do, they're making a decision about whose voice should count more. I happen to think that every voice should count equally, so I am opposed to policies that increase the amount of money that any individual Canadian can give.

With respect to partisan poll workers, contrary to what I said to Mr. Richards in my previous answer, in this case I think it's really good to draw on American evidence. It shows that where the poll workers are partisan, it is more difficult for people for all kinds of reasons—there's lots of evidence for this—people who are of the non-dominant party, the non-incumbent party, to get access to the vote. They're more likely to be turned away. They're more likely to have their ID rejected as invalid. It looks to be as a result of political maliciousness that these things happen.

I organized a conference when I was at Harvard University in which we invited election scholars to have a conversation about which practices were best in Canada and the United States. It was widely agreed that the non-partisanship associated with the running of elections was the thing that Canada was best known for. This is something we should protect because it is something that the world should model. It's not something that we should reduce or change.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I heard a comment from the chair and I think he's right that we already do have some partisanship in our selection process for parties getting involved. This bill actually deepens it with the central poll supervisors. All in all, if you had a look and I also know that you were involved in the letter of 160 academics across Canada as pointing out a range of concerns.... From what you've heard from testimony, the seeming unwillingness of this government to listen to anybody through these hearings, etc., what would be your advice on this bill? Do you think this bill should be going forward, or should we be starting all over again?

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

I definitely think that we should be starting all over again. I think it's really disingenuous of the government to say that the reason for these changes is that we're trying to increase public confidence in an electoral system that people have a lot of confidence in, and that the way they perceive to do this is by constructing an elections act that massively changes what electoral politics looks like in Canada and then refuse to have a public conversation about it. I have no understanding of how that is a confidence builder. That's clearly a confidence reducer.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I only have about a minute and a half left, so I would like to just use part of that to table a notice of motion if that's at all possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Use your time in your own way.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It in effect would be a motion to kill this bill.

I think we've seen non-stop articulate reflective condemnation of this bill from all quarters. Whether it's voter ID rules, or undermining Elections Canada and the Chief Electoral Officer, the massively problematic fundraising exemption, the undermining of the commissioner for Elections Canada by moving that office to the Director of Public Prosecutions, all sorts of fetters on his work, not giving him the powers that have been requested, total focus on citizen fraud, and not on the kind of fraud we thought was going to lead to this bill, consequently, I would like to give notice of a motion that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs present a report to the House of Commons recommending that Bill C-23, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments to certain acts, be withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker, this is just a notice of motion and at some point we will move that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you. Will you let me know ahead of time when that time might be?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

You had about five seconds left, but now that I've talked, I'm going to use it up right now. Thank you.

Mr. Simms, you're on for seven minutes, please.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Thank you very much.

I'll start out with Professor Lenard. I have a very blunt question from the beginning. In light of section 3 of the charter, is this bill a problem?

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Yes. That's the blunt answer. Do you want me to say more? Yes, it's a problem.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I'd love you to elaborate, yes, but I appreciate—

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Fundamentally what I think is that if there were fraud in an electoral system, it should be eliminated. In fact, if there were anything harmful about the electoral system, I would think it should be eliminated.

But there is no evidence of fraud or harm, and when you propose to eliminate a harm that doesn't exist and you weigh it against the harm that would be created.... In this case, the harm that would be created is the disenfranchisement of Canadians, some of whom are vulnerable—and, as Mr. Quail pointed out, not all of whom are vulnerable, just people who showed up with the wrong kind of ID at an election poll.... Many of my students don't have ID with residential requirements on it, but they are fine—more or less fine, anyway—young, upstanding adults who intend to participate in the democratic process.

There are people who will find it more difficult to vote, and I can't see any reason why a government would make it more difficult to vote when there is no evidence that any harm is being perpetrated. Why would you do that? What possible reason could you have to restrict access to the vote? Government's job is to protect that right by enabling people to vote, by providing as many different ways as possible for citizens to vote, to encourage them to do so.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I want to expand on that for just a moment, but before I do—I'm running out of time—I want to go Mr. Quail, if he would like to comment on this as well.

[James Quail]

[Technical difficulty--Editor] ...existing rules for voter identification with vouching violate section 3 of the charter.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Quail, I'm sorry, I didn't get the first part of your statement. Could you repeat what you just said?

[James Quail]

Yes. In British Columbia, both our B.C. Supreme Court and our Court of Appeal have confirmed that the existing rules before this bill came along violate section 3 of the charter, but the court was convinced that it would survive the section 1 test, which looks at whether there are measures that make it minimally impairing and so on.

As I said in my opening comments, a key part, really the cornerstone of the government's argument to save the old rules was the existence of vouching; that there was a safety net available to people who wouldn't have the ID. That was a significant part of their argument. It's still our position that the pre-existing rules are not justified under section 1, but if you remove that piece, it seems to me that what's left is in serious doubt. It's not clear to me that the courts would see this as passing constitutional muster. I think it's a very serious problem.

On the other hand, as I said in my comments earlier, what's missing is a reliable safety net and a rule that says that if you can't have anybody vouch for you and you don't have ID, you can swear a declaration confirming your identity and your residence—it's a criminal offence to swear a wrong one—and confirming that you're a citizen and that you're in the right place to be voting. Then you get to cast a ballot. That would do the trick.

That was our argument. It was rejected earlier by the government, but I have heard in the CBC reports that the the minister is now perhaps blinking on that issue and that the bill may undergo some amendment to reinsert this mechanism.

To my mind, with that amendment, the legislation would not violate section 3 with respect to the voter identification requirements.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Thank you for that, Mr. Quail.

I want to go back to Professor Lenard again. I want to go to your international experience. We know that in the United States this has been a big issue in the past year. I understand that perhaps their qualifications for a particular elector are far more stringent than our own, but what was the genesis of this? Is this how it all started, through disenfranchising voters by eliminating things such as vouching?

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

I'm sorry, I can't answer that. I don't have the expertise to answer that question.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Do you think that in this particular case, by eliminating vouching, we are going to a level that is only going to become worse because of the stringent requirements of ID? As one of the persons who was before us as a witness said of the 39 pieces of ID that they are putting in this bill, most are irrelevant for the most vulnerable in our society, and in many cases maybe even for the not so vulnerable. As was pointed out, without a driver's licence, it's tough.

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Yes, I agree with that.

Mr. Quail said that most Canadians have driver's licences. In fact, I think the last number I saw was that 85% of voting-age Canadians have a driver's licence. There is actually quite a large proportion of Canadians who need to find some alternative way to vote.

There's an easy solution to your question, which is that we can expand national ID. The government can provide cost-free, easily accessible national ID that can be used to vote. This is what a recent U.K. report suggested, exactly this. That the U.K. should have more stringent voting requirements but that they must be accompanied, in order to avoid accessibility problems and in order to avoid violating political equality, what should happen is that the government should fully fund and make extremely accessible national ID, which would be a solution to the problem.

We have a direction. The Canadian government has moved in that direction by issuing VICs, and the bill proposes to eliminate VICs. But that's exactly the wrong thing to do, if what you're concerned about is protecting the integrity of a system by requiring identification.

I don't see anything wrong with people identifying themselves. People should be required in certain situations to identify themselves. But if identification is required for voting, then the onus is on the government to make sure that the ID is provided easily and free of charge.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

So you think that something similar to the voter identification card on a national basis would serve as an alternative.

One example that was talked about concerned the Australian method. The Australian method, of course, is that if you don't have any ID, you vote but you provide an oath in writing, and it is sealed with the ballot and checked at a later date. I personally like that, because then people are not discouraged once they're there, even though they have no ID. Their vote may be discounted because they don't match up, but at least they're not told to go home and come back later.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Simms.

[Prof. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Sure. I think that's a better solution than what is offered.

Fundamentally the problem with having invited me is that I don't see any problem with the present system, except that it's not permissive enough. I would encourage more permissiveness, but that's not the political mood right now. So in light of the fact that we're moving towards stricter ID requirements, I think the answer is either keeping VICs legal and expanding their usage or providing some alternative form of national ID.