I will move amendment NDP-20. This concerns the registration offices.
The system in question within the Canada Elections Act and tweaked by Bill C-23 again involves a system of appointing after nomination lists from parties; those lists can be closed, so that becomes, de facto, pure nominations. Again, to be consistent, this is a whole package, which this would have been if we'd been succeeding on each vote, and it states, “Each registration officer shall be appointed by the returning officer on the basis of merit, following a process that is fair and transparent.”
I should also say that if the government MPs had been onside with this, towards the end of these amendments this would have been NDP-22, closing out the package. Having listened a bit to what the government was saying on their own concerns, we would have proposed the following: that the Chief Electoral Officer shall publish guidelines on the criteria and procedures associated with appointing electoral workers on the basis of merit, following a process that's fair and transparent.
We would have put in a “for greater certainty” clause showing that persons associated with political parties and persons nominated by candidates of parties in any election are fully entitled to be appointed on the same basis as any other person. Also, we would have created a mechanism, not a cumbersome one, but a basic way in which parties could direct people to Elections Canada or the returning officer to make sure they are considered under this process.
If we had succeeded with deputy returning officers, poll clerks, and now the registration officer—I've realized that we're not going to succeed—we would have been trying to assuage some of the concerns of the governing side, in that this process nonetheless would have produced appointments of election day officials that are, in our view, let's just say, fit for the 21st century.
We do think that elections commissions around the world generally are responsible for the appointment of election day workers. Scrutineers are the party's business. Election day workers should be Elections Canada's. That is why this is the third of the three amendments, and I hereby move it.