Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2014

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

That would be very welcome. At the same time, I'm now confused over unsolicited, because the example Tom gave of.... Not to say that this is the norm, but the fact of the matter is, with the returning officers, etc., there are election day workers even within the system that exists and even more so when the government's changes to the central poll supervisors go back to the current system, we hope, where it is Elections Canada that has to recruit. Surely it's not all based on referrals in the way where the person actually contacts Elections Canada. There must be some other more general way in which they hear about people and have the right to be able to call them. If you say that's not unsolicited, then I have no words.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

What about the case where they went to the employment services office and picked up a list of people who were looking for work? Again, the phone calls to those people would be, in my view, solicited, because those people are saying they were looking for work, so they're not unsolicited. They're trying to call them as an employer.

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

They've put their names.... They've sort of given that kind of advance consent.

Okay, I'm not super worried about it if no one else thinks there's a worry here. It's just that technically I don't think most people realize that the reference back to that clause is not just to automated calls, which have most people worried. It's also live voice calls.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Well, I think I may be able to clear it up by calling the vote on NDP-16.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clauses 13 to 17 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 18)

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We're on to clause 18, and amendment NDP-17.

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

I'd like to move this amendment, Mr. Chair.

Although this amendment only deals with section 34, it's the same idea that is going to apply to section 35, so why don't I explain both even though the vote will only be on this one.

At the moment, we have a system under the Canada Elections Act whereby the first place party from the last election, the candidate coming up to the next election, is permitted to, I call it de facto appoint. It's basically giving a list of names of people to be appointed as deputy returning officers. The list can be as short as the person wants, so it ends up being an appointment.

For the second group, which is in section 35, not immediately subject to this amendment, poll clerks are appointed in the same way by the second place party's candidate.

That's the system we have now.

In this bill, another appointment has been granted to the first place party, and that's for the central poll supervisor. I'm not dealing with this provision, but it's to give everybody a sense that the system at the moment has these two appointments that at some level are meant to balance each other out—that's the philosophy—but it has now become unbalanced with the central poll supervisor having been thrown into the new act. We're going to get to that issue.

Nonetheless, the NDP is very concerned about continuing the system of politically oriented, politically sourced appointments. We think the time has come for Elections Canada to have the authority across the appointment system. This ended up being recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer after the Neufeld report. One of the reasons.... It's not just partisanization and/or the perception that the system can be politicized and that people don't necessarily understand the idea of balance producing impartiality, it's also to get rid of the role of parties and allow Elections Canada the full authority to be appointing all election day workers, which will enhance recruitment and training.

That is the rationale Mr. Neufeld used in his report for making this recommendation which the Chief Electoral Officer then took up after the Neufeld report.

What happens now under the system is that the Chief Electoral Officer or his or her returning officers have to wait until partway through the election to figure out who and how many they have to appoint, because the parties have up to a certain point to do so. It is one of the reasons for the irregularities that have been at the source of so much of the debate around this bill, because apart from a system that's overly complex on election day, the lack of training and quick training of recently recruited people is part of the reason. It's not just depoliticalization; it's trying to create one more way to lower the number of irregularities in processing voting on election day.

That's the background. This amendment is one of four, one way or the other, that basically ask us to adopt a system whereby, in this case, the deputy returning officer is appointed by the returning officer on the basis of merit, following a process that is fair and transparent. The same thing will be said in the next amendment on poll clerks. The same thing will be said on central poll supervisors and registration officers.

So that everybody understands, this is an attempt to depoliticize the appointment process, even though I recognize that in terms of this bill there are relatively few changes to this part of it, and it's only the central poll supervisor part that's really jacked up the political dimension.

There we are. I felt it was necessary to set that out because people may not exactly know the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Ms. May, this will also affect PV-20, as well as LIB-9, so maybe you'd like to make a quick comment, because we're going to run into, in each chunk of these, very good similarities.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I promise, Mr. Chair, to make this very brief, because they're substantially identical or similar. I wanted to add the following words from the Neufeld report to the record. It states:

—appointing election officers on any basis other than merit is inconsistent with the principle of administrative neutrality, and contrary to predominant Canadian values.

This was a principal finding based on Neufeld's review, and discussing what he described...that view as belonging to the vast majority of compliance review participants.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Christopherson, then Mr. Lukiwski.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Chair, throughout this process we haven't had much opportunity to really make improvements, in our opinion. Most of our time has been spent fighting against changes that we believe to be undemocratic. This is one area that is new. My understanding is that when we come to the central poll supervisor the government has heard loud and clear that's unacceptable, so we're expecting that appropriate voting reflecting that will happen in due course.

This has been in place since I got in politics. A similar thing exists provincially. It was based on exactly what Mr. Scott said. If you have two appointees, they cancel each other out. They're watching each other, and it creates a situation where the public's concerns.... We felt, as political people, and those who are with us, that it satisfied that need.

Canadians have spoken clearly on this one. I appreciate Ms. May reading that, because I think that more accurately reflects where we are. This is one, possibly the only one, where we're not pointing fingers and we're not saying the sky is falling, as it is with most other aspects of this bill. In this case it really is, let's take that principle of no, you're not going to add one more person appointed in a polling station to the mix of officers who are presiding in that location. It's good that we're stopping this new role, but let's take the full step and remove the political process completely, the partisan process, from the appointment of these officers.

Canadians have spoken loud and clear. Regardless of how we feel about the idea that they cancel each other out, they don't buy it, they don't like it, and we have a chance to change it. We in the NDP are agreeing that making that change would be a good move. We would hope the government would see their way clear to following through on their notion that the central poll supervisor shouldn't be added as an appointee. Let's do the whole job properly and go all the way and remove political appointments. Keep it under the purview of the CEO. Make sure everybody is trained to the same standard, is held to the same standard of accountability.

In my view, Canadians got it right this time, the parties got it wrong, and we have a chance to fix it right now. Hopefully, the government will be listening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Chair, there are couple of things.

With the amendments to the central poll supervisor, which, you're right, David, will be coming forthwith, it really maintains the status quo. That's the bottom line here. The appointments, as always, will remain the same. There are no changes to the central poll supervisor's provision. We'll ensure that there's no change on that when we vote against the amendment, right? It has worked well. I think it has worked well. It has been proven over time that it has worked well. I see no reason that it wouldn't work well in the future.

I only want to make one comment, and that's to a comment initially made by Craig on the time required to train poll workers, and on another comment, David, you had made on whether we can't just enhance the current system. We have made an enhancement, certainly, on the training, because we've gone from day 17 to day 24 before polling day. A full week more will be allotted to training poll workers, which I think will go a long way to enhancing and improving the system and some of the logistical problems we saw in the Neufeld report of the last election.

We've recognized that. We've recognized the fact there needs to be more time given to training poll workers, and we've added that into this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

Mr. Simms I know will want to speak pretty clearly.

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

I just want to weigh in on this a little bit. I know—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

And don't forget you asked me about being allowed to get up and wander around. That's very nice.

Go ahead.

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

That's very nice of you. I'm sure my doctor feels the same way.

I want to add on this. I want to get outside the fact of the two people in each particular polling division. Yes, you have the one party, or the second-place party. The points brought up by Ms. May are poignant, because in a modern democracy like this I don't know how far it goes. I suspect it does not, and I think this is probably one of the practices which internationally, people would look at us and be awfully suspicious of it. That aside, I don't know why if that balance works you would go even further with a third person that would tip the scales in one particular way. I don't quite understand the logic of that, if the original logic was to appoint someone who is of one party and then appoint the other person at the very same poll from another party. You've simply tipped the balance in a direction that defeats the original intent.

I know one of the other intents is that it probably alleviates a lot of the responsibility of the returning officer for finding people. That is certainly one of the benefits that you have to look at and consider if this system is eliminated. The intent here, as was read in the Neufeld report, I think is valid.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Scott.

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

I'd like to be as helpful as possible in making our way through these. There is this amendment and the others where we're trying to do what I've described. It seems pretty clear that the government doesn't want to go that route but is wanting to deal with the central poll supervisor that we have pushed hard on as being overreaching. At minimum it unbalances the system that existed. It is one of the announcements that Mr. Poilievre made on Friday, so I would simply ask Mr. Lukiwski if it is clear how we're going about getting rid of the change, so we can vote as quickly as possible.

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

Yes. I think I slipped a note to you earlier, Craig, and told you that procedurally, at least as I understand it, the best way to deal with this on the central poll supervisors is that the government will be voting down clauses 23 and 44. In other words, you can't simply delete them. It's out of order to delete an amendment, so the only way, really, to get those amendments off the table is to vote against them. So the government will be voting against those two clauses in order to achieve the goal of reversing the initial thought on central poll supervisors.

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

What were the clauses again?

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

Clauses 23 and 44.

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

Will that accomplish the intended goal?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's all that's in those clauses. Is that correct?

We'd have to look at clauses 23 and 44, but if all that's in them is the references to the central poll supervisor and they are voted down, then they wouldn't be there in the final legislation.

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

Having said that, Craig, there's a number of amendments that form part of that package to deal with everything as we go along. On an overarching kind of 30,000 feet above sea-level view, we recognize that with respect to the arguments provided on the central poll supervisor, we are prepared to make the amendments, as Minister Poilievre said on Friday, to deal with that. The method in which we're going to deal with that is as I have indicated: we'll be voting against those two clauses, and any subsequent clauses that interact with them will be dealt with in a similar fashion.

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

I guess what I proposed, and I'm not sure we can get to it, was to vote through our requested amendments. Hopefully, we can get to yours tonight. If not, we'll start first thing tomorrow.