Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Folks, we'll go ahead and get started. We have the minister here today. Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, May 4, we have Bill C-50, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act.

Minister, it's always great when you can come visit committee. I understand you have an opening statement and will be sharing some stuff with us. Please go ahead and introduce your guests and do your opening statement. We'll get to rounds to questions after that.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister for Democratic Reform]

Thank you very much, everyone, for having me here today. Before I begin my remarks, I would like to introduce Isabelle Mondou and Natasha Kim, both of whom work in the Privy Council Office. They are exceptional public servants and they know more about all of these subjects than I do. I'm very pleased to have them at the table with me. I feel assured to have them at my side.

Without any further ado, Mr. Chair, it's a pleasure to address the committee on the citizen voting act. The bill will strengthen Canada's democracy by reinforcing the integrity of the special ballot voting system and ensuring fairness for resident and non-resident votes. The citizen voting act proposes to reform the vote by mail procedures set out in divisions 3 and 4 of the special voting rules of the Canada Elections Act.

The last major update to these procedures was back in 1993. The citizen voting act is in keeping with the government's objective to strengthen the integrity of our electoral process. It builds on the rules enacted by the Fair Elections Act in June of 2014, a bill with which I know all of you are deeply familiar.

The citizen voting act proposes six key measures to reform the special voting rules in the Canada Elections Act and proposes objectives of integrity and fairness.

First, the proposed legislation creates a single process for residents and non-residents who vote by special ballot. Special ballot voting procedures applicable to resident and non-resident electors will be harmonized. Non-resident voters will no longer automatically receive a ballot at election time, mitigating the risk that ballots will end up with unintended recipients. The citizen voting act requires that non-resident electors wishing to vote by special ballot must apply for one at each election, just as resident electors do now.

Second, the bill stipulates non-resident electors will only receive a ballot for the address at which they last resided in Canada. Non-resident electors will no longer be allowed to choose the riding in which they wish to vote.

Third, the bill builds on the Fair Elections Act by requiring all electors voting by special ballot, both residents and non-residents, include in the application proof of identity and residence according to the rules that are similar to those set up in the Fair Elections Act. At the moment, proof of residence in Canada is not required for non-residents. This shortcoming will be remedied, and as with other Canadians, proof of prior residence will be required for expatriate voters.

Under the citizen voting act, resident and non-resident electors voting under the special voting rules will have the same three voter identification options available in order to cast their ballots: a government-issued photo identification with name and address; two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer, one with an address and both with a name; or two pieces of authorized identification with an oath or declaration of residence that is attested to by another properly identified elector from the same riding.

Fourth, the proposed legislation requires that electors voting from outside of Canada provide proof of citizenship. Currently, providing proof of citizenship is required administratively by Elections Canada for non-resident electors. The citizen voting act makes this a legislative requirement, including for resident voters temporarily outside of the country.

Fifth, the citizen voting act extends the special ballot voting procedures to the mandatory post-election audit that was introduced in the Fair Elections Act. As you will recall, we required that the Chief Electoral Officer appoint an auditor to ensure identification rules were administered in the course of a general election. That mandatory audit was to apply to domestic voting. The citizen voting act will see to it that it also applies to those voting from outside of the country. To this end, the Chief Electoral Officer will be required to engage an external auditor to carry it out, and he will also be required to report the results of this audit. The audit will look into election workers' compliance with resident and non-resident special voting procedures after every election.

Finally, the citizen voting act adds a new provision authorizing the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information such as the name, gender, date of birth, and address of persons who are not Canadian citizens, for the purpose of cross-referencing registrants in the national register of electors. This is to assist in deleting the names of non-residents from the register who are not qualified to vote. This suggestion came to me from the Chief Electoral Officer. He was concerned that there are people on the voter list who are not citizens, and one of the ways that Elections Canada can identify these non-citizens and remove them from the list is by having data on the identity of non-citizens who reside within Canada. So we have agreed to his suggestion and with the passage of this bill, we will permit the immigration minister to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with that data.

Before concluding my remarks to the committee, I would like to report that, following consultations with Elections Canada, and after looking at some of the issues that were raised during the debate in the House of Commons, the government will be proposing seven minor amendments to the citizen voting act.

First, the current bill provides that the Chief Electoral Officer may authorize types of identification issued by, among others, an entity that is “formed in Canada”. This ensures that identification documents must always be Canadian documents and thus reinforces the integrity of the identification procedure. Moreover, foreign-issued identification is likely to be harder to verify, and in some cases, it could be in another language. This requirement raises concerns that it would be difficult to determine whether an entity is Canadian. In particular, it has been argued that it would be difficult for poll officials to make such a determination.

We have noted the concerns and will be proposing to limit the application of this requirement to only electors voting by special ballot under divisions 3 and 4. This means that front-line officials at the polls will not have to evaluate whether a piece of identification was issued by an entity formed in Canada. Rather, this determination will mainly be required when Elections Canada reviews the identification documents provided by electors with their applications for special ballot prior to election day. In other words, it will apply to those voting by mail and those voting outside of the country, but not at the voting booth.

Elections Canada has access to more resources and will have more time than poll officials to assess whether pieces of identification have been issued by a Canadian entity. I believe this amendment will ensure not only that electors voting by special ballot provide Canadian identification to prove their identity and residence, but also that it will be easier for election officials to verify the acceptability of such identification.

Second, another concern that has been raised relates to the requirement in Bill C-50, the citizen voting act, that residents wishing to vote by special ballot using the attestation procedure to prove residency must obtain an attestation from another elector from the same polling division. For those listening who are not familiar with the complexity of local voting, there are electoral districts that each elect one member of Parliament, but within those districts are polling divisions that break down the voting locations where people go to cast their ballots. The reason that the distinction is important is that it is much more difficult to find an attestor who lives in the same polling division or even to know if that voter lives in the same polling division if you are voting from outside of the country and you are resident abroad. This is not a problem when you're actually voting at the polling division location because you're physically there and the person attesting is physically with you, and they would know very well if they are at their appropriate location.

That brings me to the proposed amendment.

Because the requirement would be problematic, we would seek to change the requirement for the fact that the boundaries of the polling divisions are not published by the Elections Canada website until 24 days before the polling day. To facilitate the process, we will propose an amendment to allow non-resident electors voting by special ballot to obtain an attestation from an elector from the same electoral district instead. In other words, anyone living in the same district would be able to act as the attestor for the non-resident voter lacking proof of prior address. They will not have to be from the same polling division. These electors will therefore be able to kick-start the registration process from the day the election is called.

The third amendment that we propose, Mr. Chair, relates also to the attestation process. Bill C-50 currently provides that as part of the attestation, resident and non-resident electors voting by special ballot may sign a declaration to prove their residence instead of taking the oath. Those who attest to the residence of an elector who are abroad may also sign a declaration instead of taking an oath. An amendment will be proposed to clarify that the declarations signed by attestors from abroad will not need to be administered by another person. Signing a declaration will be sufficient to prove or to attest to the residence of an elector. This will simplify the process for electors and attestors abroad.

The fourth proposed amendment relates to the proof of citizenship that electors voting by special ballot would have to provide, if making their application from outside Canada. We will clarify the language to specify that proof of citizenship is required when the ballot is being sent outside of the country rather than to special ballot voters within the country.

The fifth amendment relates to post-election audit. Bill C-50 proposes to extend the audit to include voting by special ballot and to give the auditor access to all documents necessary to perform the audit. A technical amendment will be proposed to ensure that the auditor has access to all documents necessary to perform the audit for voting at the polls as well.

Sixth, an amendment will be tabled to mitigate the risk of a voter identification card being sent to Canadians at an address at which they no longer live, which would increase the risk of such cards falling into the hands of people who are not eligible to vote in our elections. This technical amendment will provide that all non-residents will not receive a voter information card. Under clause 3 of the bill as currently drafted, that exception would apply only to some non-residents.

As amendment number 7, finally, we will propose an amendment for resident electors who vote in person through special ballot initiatives. For example, such initiatives could be held at hospitals, universities, or at remote work locations, as has been done in the past. An amendment will enable those electors, like electors who vote at the polls, to present an original piece of identification, and not only copies, as is currently provided by Bill C-50.

I hope that committee members will support these amendments. I believe they are sensible and that they are consistent with the goal of the bill.

I can just wrap up by highlighting the principle at stake here.

Mr. Chair, we believe that people should provide ID when they vote. This ID should show who they are, where they reside, and in the case of people living abroad, where they used to reside. Those people voting outside of the country should be required to prove that they're Canadian citizens. The Constitution does give every Canadian the right to vote, but that right is predicated on citizenship—explicitly predicated on citizenship—and so too should be the identification requirement for those who are casting a ballot from outside Canada's borders.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Minister, and thank you for bringing us this new information.

I'm going to Mr. Reid, for a seven-minute round of questions, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here. I thought this was a pretty good bill to start with, but your amendments, which are very conscientious, are much appreciated.

I want to go back to the very last amendment you were talking about. You said in your comments that you could now present original identification and not only copies. Is it the case that as things stand prior to your amendment, if I show up with an original document it's impermissible, but if I have a copy of the document it is permissible? Is that what you meant to say?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I think this deals with the wording of the existing statute, which suggests that copies are allowed. But that statute, probably as a result of an oversight, did not mention original documents.

Is that correct? Do you want to clarify that, Natasha?

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

It's just a clarificatory amendment. It does specify copies, because in most cases when you're mailing in your documents, it would be by a copy.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Okay. It's just that I'm used to hearing that I need to have my original. If I don't have my original driver's licence with me in my car when the police pull me over.... It's that sort of thing. I'm not used to hearing the reverse. It's interesting that it can actually arise in the law.

Minister, one of the things that has been a frustration to me as we've gone through this bill and the more general updates that you made to the Canada Elections Act about a year ago is that in critiques of the legislation, critics have been happy to point out the constitutional right that all Canadians have to vote and to stress the importance of going to extraordinary measures to make sure that every Canadian who is constitutionally permitted to vote is not deprived in some form or other of that vote, without any regard being given to the fact that there is another side to this problem.

In the event that someone gets to vote illegitimately, to vote in more than one riding, to “riding shop” and choose to have their vote go not to the riding in which they resided when they were last in Canada but rather to the riding in which their vote is most likely to make a difference.... If that sort of thing can go on, then other Canadians can have their vote devalued to nothing by seeing the outcome of that election manipulated.

This never gets mentioned, yet it is clearly the deprivation of every Canadian so affected of their right under section 3 of the charter to have a vote and to have that vote count. I'm glad that you continue to fight this fight, notwithstanding the fact that many of the advocates neglect that key aspect of the issue at hand.

I want to focus a little more closely on the issue of riding shopping. At this point, what will happen, as I understand it, and I'm seeking your confirmation on this, is that, if I leave the country—currently, I live in the town of Perth in Ontario—and want to vote in a future election, I will always be voting based on the address I was last at in the town of Perth, regardless.

So if that town is moved from one riding to another via redistribution, I am attached to that location, not to a particular riding. Is that correct?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

That's right, yes. It's at the address at which you last resided.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Right. To be specific, it's the specific address. The street address would be what I am attached to, effectively.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

That's right.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I appreciate your amendment. I think it's a good amendment, specifying that an attestation only has to come from someone who resides in the same constituency, rather than the same polling division—or poll, as we would colloquially say.

But I have to tell you that I don't think this is a major impediment anyway. It's true that riding maps only come out 24 days before the election—a source of frustration to all candidates, regardless of party—but having gone through a radical redistribution in my past, I can tell you that polling division boundaries don't change. The number that is assigned may be changed. It was poll number one in the old riding map and following a redistribution it's now poll number 50 or 60, but poll boundaries actually don't change.

So while I applaud this, I think this was a bit of a non-problem that you've been presented with, and I wanted to alert you to the fact that this is not really a substantive practical issue.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thanks for that observation.

Mr. Chair, what we had in mind here was not so much that the polling divisions change, but that, in fairness, most people, even politically astute people, don't know what polling division they live in. If I'm voting from, say, the UAE, and I call my friend, who I know lives roughly in the same community—he lives 10 blocks away—he doesn't necessarily know whether I live in his polling division or not. I think there might end up being some confusion in which people would have someone attesting for them who lives three blocks outside of the polling division.

Most people know what riding they're in, generally speaking, or which MP they have, so they can connect those dots a little more easily. But we thought it might be a little bit cumbersome to try to track someone down, then ask them for their postal code, and then go to Elections Canada to make sure that it's exactly the same polling division. We didn't think there was any integrity lost by broadening out the attestation eligibility to the whole riding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll go to Mr. Christopherson. I think you're sharing some of your time.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Assuming there's any to be shared, that absolutely is the intent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You've said that in the past. It has always worked out, that's true.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

And my colleague understands.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for coming here today. We appreciate it.

Jumping right into it, the first obvious question we've had of witnesses, including the Chief Electoral Officer, was whether or not the international registry is broken. Nobody so far has said that there is any kind of problem with the existing registry to lead us to eliminate it.

That would be the first question. I'm going to ask you three, and then my colleagues will deal with some of the amendments you've suggested.

So the first question is: if it's not broken, why are you fixing it?

Second is the issue of only being able to apply for your ballot after the writ is dropped. For the life of us, we can't figure out why on earth the government would want to limit the application for a ballot until after the writ is dropped. The Chief Electoral Officer spoke to the difficulty and time-consuming nature of checking all of these applications to make sure everything is okay. Then to say that you're going to limit it to after the writ is dropped.... Why not allow it at any other time? What is the big prohibition against allowing people to register some time before the actual writ is dropped?

Also, Minister, you made reference to proposed subsection 143(2.11). You offered a modification, I believe, about the chaos that's going to happen as a result of using language about ID issued by an entity “otherwise formed in Canada”. Originally in the bill, this was going to change in all voting stations right across Canada, not just when voting outside Canada. I understand you're limiting it, but that still just limits the chaos.

The Chief Electoral Officer has said that he doesn't understand why on earth you would have to bring in language that makes it so unclear. Here's what he said, exactly:

First, it's not clear from a legal point of view what this actually means.

I'm making reference, of course, to identification that's “incorporated or formed by or under an Act of Parliament” or of a legislature “or that is otherwise formed in Canada”. We didn't know what that meant.

We asked the Chief Electoral Officer. He said:

First, it's not clear from a legal point...what this actually means. Certainly, it is broader than simply entities incorporated under Canadian law, but what exactly is meant by “otherwise formed in Canada”? Does it include entities incorporated abroad but registered in Canada? What else does it include?

I cannot see how election officials, especially deputy returning officers at ordinary polls, will be able to decide whether a particular bank or credit institution, such as Amex or Visa, was incorporated or formed in Canada.

This is at ordinary polls, but it is still applied to polls outside Canada. We need some clarification there.

I have to say that, as much as Mr. Reid seems to be quite enamoured with this legislation, as far as we're concerned, really this is just the unfair elections act, part 2. There's nothing here, in our view, that helps. In fact, the Chief Electoral Officer started out:

It is clear that these new rules will make it harder for electors abroad to vote.

Now, I remember that this government didn't have an awful lot of respect for the Chief Electoral Officer. When the government completely changed all of our election laws, he wasn't even consulted. But Canadians still care what he says. Given, Minister, that you're saying it's going to help and he says it's going to make it harder for voters to vote abroad, I suspect most Canadians are going to trust an officer of Parliament, the Chief Electoral Officer, rather than the sponsoring minister of Bill C-23.

There are questions in there, Chair. I will leave it to the minister to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I know there are. Sometimes you do a very good, effective pause, so I just wanted to make sure that wasn't one of them.

Minister.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

It is great to be back in committee with you, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I swore you'd be back, Minister.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

All right.

The first question related to the international register of electors. What we propose is to fold its contents into the general voters list. That is because the whole basis of this bill is that we would treat international electors the in same way as special voting electors. In other words, if you have a family member who votes from Florida while they're away as a snowbird, their name is in the basic voters list. As a result of the citizen voting act, an elector who permanently resides in Florida would have the same practice in casting their ballot as your relative who's a snowbird. They'll be following the same rules and the same procedures, and therefore, we propose they be part of the same list. The contents of the international register of electors are not being destroyed; they are simply being put into the voters list, where we have one list instead of two.

The second question dealt with the requirement that a ballot be ordered after the writ is dropped. We haven't found this to be a problem with special voting so far.

Mr. Christopherson, for many years people have voted from all around the world using what's called a special ballot, because they're residents of Canada but happen to be abroad during the election period. They have been very successful at ordering a ballot, receiving it, and casting it by mail before election day. I haven't seen a reason we need to change that. The rule will remain as it has always been, that a ballot is ordered once the writ is dropped and cast before the close of election day.

For your third question, the special voting rule, could you remind me what the actual question was?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Which? The third one?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We're going to run out of time right now.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It was on the “otherwise formed in Canada” unique legislation.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Oh, yes, okay. That's a good question.

The bottom line is that, if you're an international elector voting under the special voting procedure, your ballot will actually go to Elections Canada's headquarters, where there are the resources to ascertain if you are using identification that was formed in Canada. Now this would occur not when the vote is counted but when the ballot is applied for. They have the resources and the time at Elections Canada headquarters to verify whether the identification was formed in Canada. That's something that you can't expect to have as a capability at every voting station across the country. We acknowledge that practical difficulty with the amendment we propose, which ensures that this rule does not apply to those people who are voting in person at a Canadian voting location.