Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2014

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

That's quite important. It's a little bit confusing to read.

Just so that everybody understands what I think I've just understood, this general provision that says that for greater certainty, he may advertise for any other purpose, that's any other purpose but informing electors about the exercise of their democratic rights. On that purpose, he may advertise only in those terms, correct?

[Marc Chénier]

That's correct.

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

What's important to know here is that the government hasn't gone back to any general right for the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate by any means, including advertising, to encourage people to vote. It's about the mechanisms of voting. As long as people listening don't think that this “for greater certainty” clause has miraculously come in and allowed the Chief Electoral Officer to start doing what he did before, it won't, so that's clear.

That's something I really regret, because I thought on this clause this is where we were going to get a real coming together of the minister's perspective and civil society's and the opposition's perspective.

I said from the beginning, from the very first day, March 10—I think it was March 10 when the minister was here—can't we have these two things sitting side by side? Can't we have the old section 18 with the general mandate and the new section 18 with this very specific focus sitting side by side?

Unfortunately, the choice still has been made not to do that, with the limited exception of students in schools for a program and a general idea that you can advertise, but you can't do it on something called the exercise of democratic rights. Good luck to the courts figuring out that line on purposes.

Those are my real concerns.

I would ask the Privy Council guests one other question. This is definitely for the record. If a court ever were to look, I would hope that it would look at your answer.

In your view, is what Mr. Lukiwski said accurate in the sense of exactly the way the minister also said nothing in this affects the right of the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate about anything else? He can produce research and publish it. He can have press conferences. He can have news releases. Nothing in this will affect that. Is that correct?

[Marc Chénier]

The restrictions in the clause are with respect to advertising, specifically advertising for the purpose of informing electors about the exercise of their democratic rights.

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

So any of the confusion that was caused by the start of the old 18(1) has been clarified by saying this is only on advertising now and that it's not intended and does not affect the Chief Electoral Officer's right to communicate more generally.

[Marc Chénier]

That's correct.

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

Okay. These are important clarifications, I think, for everybody to know we're on the same page.

I think I'll stop for the moment, but I'm really concerned that we've only gone this far.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Scott.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Chair, I want to make sure that I've got this completely right.

The current section18 restricts the.... Right now the Chief Electoral Officer, under the current law, can talk to anybody he wants about anything he wants, encourage people to vote.

The government brought—

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

Any kinds of programs.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Any kinds of programs, anything he wanted to do in partnership that would help encourage people to vote.

Proposed section 18 in the tabled bill restricted that massively.

Then the minister came out, and I bring that quote back into play, when everybody reacted and said, “Wait a minute. You're going to handcuff the Chief Electoral Officer that way. You're going to deny him the right to do an important part of his job, which is to motivate Canadians to vote and explain to them why it's important.” All that came up. Then the minister said in terms of the CEO's ability to speak publicly, he can say “anything he wants”.

The amendment speaks to public education and information programs to make the electoral process better known to students at the primary and secondary levels.

I just need to be clear with this. My question, through you, Chair, would be this. Does that limit all their public pronouncements about encouraging people to vote and giving motivation and all those things? Are all those activities limited to just elementary and high school students as opposed to right now they can speak to everybody any time?

[Marc Chénier]

I think the purpose of proposed section 17.1 is to allow the Chief Electoral Officer to implement civic education programs and specifically with respect to students at the primary and secondary levels.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes. My question went a little further than that, sir.

Right now, my understanding is—I'm a layperson, so I'll use layperson's language—that the Chief Electoral Officer can partner with any group in Canada and can initiate any program that's directed to any segment of the population or the general population with the sole purpose of trying to instill in people why it's important to vote. That's my understanding of the current law. Bill C-23 as tabled all but eliminated that.

The amendment the government is bringing in, which I would think is supposed to honour the commitment that the minister made publicly, only releases the CEO. He's got everything right now, and in the current bill practically nothing, and now proposed section 17.1 would open it up and allow the Chief Electoral Officer to do these information and education programs, providing they're only targeted to primary students and secondary students.

Is that correct?

[Marc Chénier]

That's correct.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

All right.

It's hard, Mr. Chair, to extrapolate from 17.1 as presented and as defined by our staff and the minister's commitment that he could say whatever he wants. I see the member shaking his head and I'm willing to listen when we get that chance. I asked rather methodical questions. He has the power to do this now with the general public but Bill C-23 all but shuts it down completely, and 17.1 pries it open, but only to the extent of primary and secondary students. They still can't do partnership programs with other community groups that target other populations that are not in secondary school or in primary school.

Is that correct? If you need to further refine that, I'm listening.

[Natasha Kim, Director, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office]

There would be a distinction between public education and information programs that would be developed and implemented and speaking publicly on other topics. There's also advertising, which is limited in the bill. There are different layers to it, but in terms of public education and information programs, that's what's limited to primary and secondary.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Are you able to give me an example of something that qualifies as education and information programs that is not geared to primary or secondary students that currently works with the Chief Electoral Officer?

[Natasha Kim]

I'm not personally aware of any. Student Vote is the most popular one.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Right, and that was one of the squeaky wheels. Good on them for being able to make that case, enough so that we have what's in front of us here, but it doesn't go anywhere near far enough, certainly not by the standard that the minister set out in what he said.

I'd like, Chair, for the record—and no, this is not the beginning of a redux—to note that the Native Women's Association of Canada came before us, and I want to very briefly quote their comments that relate directly to this:

I also want to talk quickly about NWAC's working with Elections Canada. Basically the changes we see happening to the current section 18 of the Canada Elections Act, which provides a broad mandate for Elections Canada with respect to public information and engaging with electors, would limit the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate with electors to provide information through unsolicited calls. We had hoped in the future to deliver the guidebook we're developing for aboriginal women and girls about voting and to [do] work with our provincial and territorial member associations in a way that could be described as similar to this. This would prevent us from doing that work.

I haven't seen anything here that says they would now be able to re-engage with that.

Next is Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, former chief electoral officer, who came here as an individual. He said:

The Chief Electoral Officer must retain the authority to reach out to all Canadians, to speak to them about our electoral democracy, the importance of our constitutional right to vote, and the methods and the values at the core of our electoral system. He speaks without regard to partisanship. Candidates and parties do so typically in a partisan manner with the legitimate purpose of obtaining their vote, which is not a problem.

He also said:

The Chief Electoral Officer must be able to sustain important endeavours by academia such as the Canada election study, and by NGOs such as Student Vote and Apathy is Boring.

If I might parenthetically say so, Chair, the Student Vote one, to the best of my knowledge, would be captured by proposed section 17.1, but on the comments from Apathy is Boring and the concerns they've raised, they would still be shut out from having educational partnerships with the Chief Electoral Officer, which they now do.

To continue, he also said:

In total disclosure, I chair the latter's advisory council. We have a major problem of participation in our elections. Less than 40% of young people between 18 and 24 actually vote in this country right now.

Again, if I may stop and just point this out, this bill, the amendment to the bill, the prying open of the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate with Canadians, would still not deal with young people between 18 and 24 years, except those who are still in high school.

To continue, he said:

The Chief Electoral Officer must retain the authority to provide the information requested by the media, and to share any information he deems pertinent with Canadians at any time. His overarching concern is the integrity of our electoral system. Any concern by a political party can be raised at the proposed advisory committee of political parties for consultation. It can also be raised at this very committee at any time.

Let me be clear. Absent the rescinding—

Note, Chair, that he didn't say “amend”. He said:

Let me be clear. Absent the rescinding of the proposed section 18 in Bill C-23, Canadians will lose their trust and their confidence in our elections. That is not acceptable.

The government has not respected those views. They're not reflected in this amendment. Once again, the government is trying a little shell game. They're trying to leave the impression that they've understood how wrong...although it's hard to believe they made a mistake since the bill was so terrific. They've acknowledged that it's wrong. But this doesn't do the trick. It's a very small part, very, very small.

Last on this page—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Christopherson—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I said on this page. You have to listen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

How many pages might there be?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

There are sufficient, but no more.

I want to also reference a letter signed by 160 Canadian academics, and in it they said this:

Bizarrely, the Bill forbids Elections Canada from promoting democratic participation and voting through “get out the vote” campaigns.... This gag on Elections Canada would make Canada an outlier among liberal democracies, instead of the global leader it is now.

If I might, Mr. Chair, I have one more item, and then I will have finished.

During the course of hearing our witnesses, colleagues will recall that this card was handed out. Some of you will recall it. It was a card that was given out actually during the Quebec election. Just to try to jog memories, this card, put out by a number of partners, says:

Top 5 reasons to vote in the Quebec election:

1. Your vote is your voice. Use it. Loud and strong.

2. 98 371 Aboriginal people live in Quebec - our numbers add up on ballots.

They go through the list, ending with the fifth point:

5. Aboriginal youth voter turnout is only 50% of the Canadian average. Our voice should be much louder.

That was this card. We were all quite impressed with it. In fact, I just happen to have the Hansard from that day, and it's interesting. My colleague Mr. Reid said:

But I really wanted to ask you about this card you handed out. This is really good. I followed, as everybody did, the Quebec election. I had not seen this until today....

On the other hand, I look at what you have here—and I gather this was done with the CEO's cooperation? It was a joint effort?

The answer was, “Yes”.

Mr. Reid went on to say:

I can't determine what accuracy this has, but I'm really impressed. I wonder if you could tell us more about this effort, which, as far as I know, is not being replicated at the federal level and perhaps should be.

Mr. Cormier answered:

So my goal, eventually, is to get this out.

He meant the card.

Obviously for the federal elections in 2015, we're going to go big. We've shown that it actually works really well. What's interesting with this particular version is that it was done in cooperation with the National Association of Friendship Centres, and it was targeted to aboriginal youth in Quebec, who are known to have a very low voter turnout.

I offer to government members to say I'm wrong, but to the best of my knowledge, this couldn't be done, because this would have the CEO involved in education and information programs in partnership with a group that is not targeting primary school and secondary school.

Having said all that, Chair, is Mr. Lukiwski on the list? Are you going to speak, Tom? We have lots of time.

I only ask because I did pose a scenario and said if I have this wrong about this card, I'd like to hear that from the government, but that's not going to happen if they're not going to speak, which means the answer is no, and it means that I'm right that this program couldn't be done at the federal level because proposed section 17.1 would limit the Chief Electoral Officer to implementing public education information programs to make the electoral process better known to students at the primary and secondary levels.

I already asked the experts whether or not under this bill all the things the CEO is currently doing he couldn't do except this, and they said yes. So I'm pointing to this information program that we were all so impressed with, particularly the government members, who thought it was a terrific idea, to use their favourite word, and yet, the amendment made would deny the Chief Electoral Officer partnership in this program.

Again, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons shakes his head and says no, and if I'm factually wrong, I expect to be set right. I would never try to make a debate on something that's not what I believe to be factual or correct. I'm still not hearing that they're going to take the floor and correct it or say, “Give us a chance, Dave, and we'll show how wrong you are”. So I have to assume that the fact is that under the existing legislation this partnership can happen. The government members, as well as the opposition members, said it was a good outreach tool to encourage people to vote, in this case, aboriginal people.

Government, through the minister said, “We're going to let the CEO talk to anybody, say anything he wants, totally unencumbered.”

When we look at 17.1, this can't be done under the amendment, so either the government now starts reflecting, in amendments and votes, the word of their minister, or Canadians need to know that the muzzling of the CEO, except for a tiny itsy-bitsy little crack in the door, is still shut down, and that all the quotes that I read in the beginning about the damage to our democracy and the damage to the ability of Canadians to be encouraged to vote are all accurate, and the damage is there and this amendment does not fix it at all.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Madam Latendresse, I can't believe that your colleague hasn't said everything, but please—

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Chair, when do we get on the list?