Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 1st, 2014

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

Could I speak to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You may speak to that. You can.

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

I just want to say what an incredible job Scott Simms has been doing on these amendments. This is one of the better amendments that I have seen and we are pleased to support his amendment.

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

That's so going in my householder.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Could you say anything about my identical motion?

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

Well, Ms. May, too.... Great minds obviously think alike.

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

Thanks, Tom.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Oh, Mr. Scott wants in.

I thought the chair recognized you very well too.

Go ahead.

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

You'll see there's no NDP amendment here and I'll be honest with you. The reason is that we trusted the government to put this amendment in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's going in a householder.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I did notice you waited until Mr. Christopherson is out of the room to use those words.

We will vote on Liberal-26.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That, of course, passes all like amendments.

(Clause 62 as amended agreed to on division)

(Clause 63 agreed to on division)

(On clause 64)

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Government-17....

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thank you. Yes, I do move that.

It's another part of the attestation package and this is just about keeping the oaths that are going to be sworn by people who have not adequate identification on residence. Anyway, keeping all the oaths in a separate envelope will allow the returning officer to compile the names of those who have taken or co-signed an oath to verify there are no duplicate names. If you recall in the last election, when we discussed with both Monsieur Mayrand and Mr. Neufeld and others, they keep saying there were 1,200 people, I think, who were affected, but that was an approximate number because they didn't actually open up the envelopes and count and verify to an exact number. They just did a random sample, a random audit, and approximated.

We're saying that's probably not the best way to do it, so keep all of those people who were signing and attesting oaths in a separate envelope so when an audit is done after the fact they will have actual numbers. They will be able to take a look at every single oath that was taken and attested. That's all it says. It's just enhancing the integrity and security of the vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I will call the vote on G-17.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I love the love in the room.

(Clause 64 as amended agreed to on division)

(Clause 65 agreed to on division)

(On clause 66)

We're at government amendment G-18.

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

Chair, it's similar. It's part of the attestation package. It requires that the separate envelope that we just talked about, containing all the oaths, be sent to the returning officer along with a sealed ballot box and other envelopes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

So it's just to carry on from the one before.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 66 as amended agreed to on division)

(On clause 67)

I have PV-39, Ms. May.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This relates to a recommendation from Mr. Mayrand in relation to bingo cards. People who are not familiar with voting day procedures won't know what we're talking about, but those of us who have been candidates know what they are. It's the information about who has voted and who hasn't voted on the day of the election. They allow poll workers for the various parties to run around and collect them, figure out who has voted and who hasn't voted, and call out your vote to make sure they get to the polls.

Bill C-23 does something that hasn't been done before with our election laws, which is to allow the cards produced on these days to be collected by the parties afterwards for additional personal information that they build up on the voting base. The purpose of my amendment is to remove this use of bingo cards as a further intrusion into personal information and also as creating a risk that the Chief Electoral Officer has mentioned, that this could, in some circumstances, require the returning officer to unseal a ballot box. The recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer is that this provision should not be included in the bill.

My amendment seeks to change clause 67 on page 34 by just shortening it up. It would delete the lines around the representatives of the candidate’s party, and the providing after polling day, and read as follows:

with one copy of each statement of the vote in respect of the candidate's electoral district.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm seeing no discussion on it.

(Amendment negatived)

We now have G-19.

No, wait, I now have NDP-38.1, which has to do with the next clause, I think.

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

With the amendment from Ms. May having been voted down on the government side, therefore this new procedure....

The Chief Electoral Officer also recommended what Ms. May had put forward. Since that's not going ahead, he then said that we need a technical amendment. On this one, I don't know why I guessed in advance, but the government hasn't put in a technical amendment on this. Basically it would make it workable, apparently, from the perspective of Elections Canada.

The amendment reads as follows:

(1) If the copy of the documents prepared under paragraph 162(i.1) is missing, the returning officer may open the ballot box and the envelope that contains the copy of the documents. (2) The returning officer shall not open an envelope that appears to contain ballots.

I sought legal advice from counsel at Elections Canada, because this is a very technical point. This is exactly the wording they said would accomplish the goal of making sure that when these documents are passed on, if any are missing then they'll know where to go to open an envelope to find them. That's all this is seeking to achieve. I'm going to plead a kind of ignorance in the sense that it's very technical, because I don't understand enough about which envelopes things get put in and which don't.

I'm wondering if the government had looked at it, because it was one that—

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

I wonder if we could just let that stand until perhaps right after question period. I haven't seen that before, Craig, so I wouldn't mind taking a look at it if I could.

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

I'm happy to stand it as long it takes to.... The point being that apparently there could be issues because there's no authority for Elections Canada to open the ballot box, except when expressly given authorization. This would be the authorization needed if these documents were missing. That's what it's intended to do. So when we consult, that's the purpose.

We can stand it.

(Amendment allowed to stand)

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll come back to it after we come back, which then gives me G-19.

Mr. Lukiwski.