Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 2nd, 2015

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you for that clarification on the electronic voting system.

I also wanted to ask Professor Frank a few questions and thank him for being here.

In your opinion, is Bill C-50 an adequate response to the court ruling? Is it the response you expected, yourself being a stakeholder in this matter before the court? Do you think the government's Bill C-50 is a satisfactory response?

[Prof. Gillian Frank]

Thank you for your question.

I find the response disappointing. It seems to me, again, that it is an attempt to make voting more difficult for newly enfranchised expatriate Canadians. That is my reading of what this bill is about. The previous system, as I understood it, and based on the testimony we heard during the court hearings, seemed adequate to accommodate these new voters. I wonder what has changed and why the need for it.

Is it an appropriate response? It seems to be a strategic response, but I'll leave it for others to decipher what the strategy is and what the end game is here.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I am going to continue along the same lines. You may suggest something else, but do you think that simply removing the restriction concerning the five years of residence abroad could have been a simple, quick and adequate response?

[Prof. Gillian Frank]

When we first brought the lawsuit there was an option to change the rules. Also, Megan Leslie, an MP, introduced a private member's bill asking for the five-year rule to be stricken. There were opportunities along the way to make it possible and available for expatriate Canadians to vote, regardless of duration abroad.

At every turn this government has chosen to fight our attempts to be re-enfranchised, and they continue to do so. I see Bill C-50 as an extension of this ongoing court battle. The short answer is yes, there were opportunities to strike down the five-year rule.

I believe I heard you ask earlier about what could have been done or what other responses were possible. Any number of responses were possible. The most welcoming would be to court Canadian expatriate voters, welcome them to the fold, to embrace them as members of the polity, and to campaign among us to solicit our votes.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

Thank you, Professor Frank. I would also like to thank Ambassador Chapuis. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for being here today and for your testimony on the study of the bill.

There are no other questions at the moment, and we have a few minutes left. Does anyone have a brief question to ask? If not, we will suspend the meeting in order to move on to the next panel of witnesses for the next hour.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

It's for you, Mr. Ambassador. There was one question I didn't have a chance to ask. I see that it appears this applies specifically to the out-of-country expatriate voters. They're required to reside there for three years prior to being able to obtain registration and vote. Am I understanding that correctly, what I'm reading in our briefing notes here? Is that accurate?

[Nicolas Marcel Jacques Chapuis]

No. You register.... You need to be a permanent resident. You cannot register if you are a tourist.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay, so that's what that was referring to.

[Nicolas Marcel Jacques Chapuis]

It's not a question of visa. We ask for un titre de séjour. In English, it's a residency permit by the foreign country.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay, understood. I wanted to make sure I was understanding that correctly.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

You have a quick question, Mr. Christopherson?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Excellency, you mentioned that anyone can register in the year prior to the election, as long as it's done by the end of that year. The proposal before us is that expats can only apply after the writ has been dropped, after the election has been called. Our concern on the opposition benches is based on expert testimony from Elections Canada. There's a real question as to whether or not those registrations can be processed adequately, given all the checks and balances that have to happen in time to allow an individual to vote. That's one of our concerns.

Given that you have something that makes a lot more sense, can you give us a sense of how it would work in your system if people couldn't apply to register until the election began, rather than your current system where they have to register by the end of the previous year?

I realize it's speculation, but if you could, Excellency.

[Nicolas Marcel Jacques Chapuis]

I have two reactions on a hypothetical. First, it would be very difficult in terms of human resources to process registrations in a specific window. Already our system allows citizens to register at any time. Unfortunately, we see many compatriots registering at the last minute, and of course, political parties push the citizens to register. That's already hard on our staff. If we had to limit that, this would create a tension in human resources.

Second, we would have an upheaval of the representatives of these French citizens abroad, saying we were limiting the possibility of their exercising their democratic right.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's our concern, and our officials have said that this runs the risk of disenfranchising people. This is driving us crazy. We already have a registry. It's being abolished—it's not broken—and then you can't even apply to vote until after the writ is dropped. It looks to us as if it's just more of this government's intent to have fewer people vote. They like the idea.

That's us. That's political. I don't expect you to respond to it, but clearly that's what's going on. It's yet one more step in voter suppression, to try to keep as few people as possible voting on election day, which the government knows historically and demographically is to their advantage.

I thank you, Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Once again, I would like to thank the witnesses.

We will suspend the meeting to welcome the next witnesses.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

We are resuming the meeting.

We are continuing the study of Bill C-50. I would like to thank the witnesses very much for being here today.

If everyone is in agreement, I will start with Mr. Paterson and Mr. Biggar because they are appearing by video conference. That way, we can at least be sure that we'll hear their opening remarks in case a technical problem arises. We will then move on to Professor Milner.

To start, I invite Mr. Paterson of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to make his presentation.

[Josh Paterson, Executive Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is a non-profit, non-partisan group whose objectives are to promote, defend, sustain, and extend human rights and civil liberties in Canada. We have a long history of defending voting rights and the principle of voter equality. For example, we were an intervener in the Frank case at the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and have applied to intervene in the current challenge to certain provisions of the Fair Elections Act.

One critical case that we brought was Dixon versus the Attorney General of B.C., in 1989. In that decision, the court held that to give some voters less weight than others ran counter to the charter principles of equality and democratic governance. At the time, it was Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court Beverley McLachlin who wrote in her opinion that “the right to vote and participate in the democratic election of one's government is one of the most fundamental of the Charter rights. For without the right to vote in free and fair elections all other rights would be in jeopardy.”

We believe this bill will jeopardize this right. It will place undue impediments on the right of Canadians living abroad to vote in federal elections, and we believe it will be found to be unconstitutional as a result. While the Frank decision sets the stage for maximizing citizens' ability to participate in our democracy and recognizes and extends the constitutional right to vote, this bill has the effect of limiting that right and limiting the participation of Canadians abroad in their own governance.

If Parliament is determined to legislate beyond a simple deletion of the inoperative provisions from Frank, we have no objection to the requirement that an individual prove they're a Canadian or that they establish their place of last residence. We do, however, share with the Chief Electoral Officer and other witnesses the concern that the requirement to register only once an election has been called is likely to disenfranchise some voters. For many voters like Dr. Woo, who testified last week, there simply may not be enough time.

We also believe the requirements to constantly re-prove one's last residence in Canada are unduly onerous. As far as we can tell from reviewing the evidence in these proceedings, no hard evidence has been provided as to why these steps are necessary. If an individual has proved their last residence in Canada once, why can that proof not stand until they return to Canada? Their last residence, as we've heard, cannot change once it has been established. We see no reason that any of this should only be done as well once the writ has been dropped.

As the committee has heard from no less than the Chief Electoral Officer, it is highly likely that people will not be able to complete this multi-step process in time—applying for a ballot, proving their last residency, waiting for the assessment, having the ballot mailed, and mailing it back. Resident Canadians don't need to do this. For example, 84% of tax filers provide their address to Elections Canada using their tax filings and keep themselves constantly updated in that way. We see no reason that non-resident Canadians, whose last address in Canada is fixed and immoveable, need to re-prove that location at each election.

We also object to the one voucher per voter rule, whether for resident or non-resident voters. You can easily foresee a situation in which a Canadian family, with several members who have long lived abroad but who don't have acceptable proof of their last residence in Canada, might have difficulty locating and reaching vouchers for each of the family members. Maybe you're still in contact with an old neighbour, who, lucky thing, still lives in the riding, but what if there's only one person left in that family living in the riding? What if there's not enough of them to vouch for the members of your family?

This is senseless. While we're pleased that the vouching has been expanded from the totally baseless requirement that the voucher live in the same polling division, we question the riding restriction, too. Why is this sworn and declared word of a voucher less worthy if they literally live down the street in Kitchener Centre, but you lived in Kitchener—Waterloo, and your kids went to the same school? Or what if they got transferred to Kitchener Centre in the recent redistribution? You used to live in the same riding and now you don't. We don't see why that should matter.

There can be no question for us that this act on its face places a barrier in the way of Canadians abroad exercising their constitutional right to vote, and the case law is clear. When legislation interferes with the capacity of citizens to play a meaningful role in the electoral process, it is inconsistent with section 3 of the charter. It's plain that the combination of all of these measures will make it so that Canadians will have more difficulty in voting from abroad.

Given that there's been a lack of any justification offered for the proposal, it's difficult for us to imagine how the infringement of charter-protected voting rights would be upheld by the courts as a justified infringement.

We urge the committee to take to heart the suggestions that have been made and make changes to this so that people could register earlier, before the election, so they are better able to cast their ballots—or else to reject this bill entirely.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

Thank you, Mr. Paterson.

Mr. Biggar, you have the floor.

[Jamie Biggar, Campaigns Director, Leadnow.ca]

My name is Jamie Biggar. I'm the co-founder and campaigns director at Leadnow.ca. We're an independent non-profit that brings Canadians together for an open democracy, a fair economy, and a safe climate.

Last year we helped tens of thousands of people across Canada speak out against what they called voter suppression measures in the updates to the Canada Elections Act.

I want to start with the premise that voting rights are fundamental rights and essential to the health of our democracy, and then the recognition that in a globalized society and economy, we can expect that Canadians will work, travel, and live abroad extensively and that those trends will only grow. As a forward-looking country that values democratic rights, we should be looking to protect their right to participate in Canada's democracy by strengthening their access to voting.

Unfortunately, the measures in this bill—we agree with many of the other experts and commentators on this issue—would make it harder for Canadians abroad to vote in Canadian elections by creating unnecessary barriers that will stop people from voting. Those include the requirement to register only once the election's been called, the need for constant reapproval of the registration, the one voucher per voter rule, and the limitation that the voucher come from within the person's old riding.

At Leadnow we create a platform for people to speak collectively to government on issues that concern them, especially democratic rights, so I've brought some comments that reflect the input that we've received on Bill C-50 from the community.

Kate writes, “As someone who lives outside of Canada but very much hopes to return some day, it is disheartening that the government is trying to make it more difficult for me to exercise my rights as a citizen and to participate in the governance of my country. It is even more offensive somehow that it is being done in such a banal and bureaucratic way, tightening regulations to address a problem that doesn't really seem to exist.”

Kate's comments reflect some of the core insight and sentiment in the discussions we've seen about this bill from Canadians across the country. Instead of strengthening the voting rights of Canadians, the provisions in Bill C-50 strengthen the growing bureaucratic voter-suppression regime in Canada. As many in this room already know, there's no coherent justification for these measures.

The proponents of bureaucratic voter-suppression measures, especially in some jurisdictions in the United States, point to the supposed threat of voter fraud; however, voter fraud appears to be a largely fictitious problem. Individuals have little incentive or means to impact the outcome of elections through fraudulent measures, so they don't do it. This is actually something we understand quite well through our work at Leadnow, because our work focuses on facilitating democratic participation. We understand that the key ingredients for democratic participation are low barriers and high motivation.

People will act when they believe that a cause matters and that their actions will make a difference. Individuals correctly recognize that individual cases of voter fraud would have little impact on an election, so they don't appear to participate in it on any significant scale.

On the other hand, electoral fraud organized by political parties or other interested groups is a real threat to elections around the world. Efforts to protect the integrity of elections should focus on detecting, preventing, and punishing organized electoral fraud by groups with the means and interest to change election outcomes, and effectively, to steal elections.

To defend the integrity of our elections we should focus on stopping organized electoral fraud. Voting rights make us feel that we are part of the country, part of the body public. To be excluded through bureaucratic voter suppression sends a clear message to Canadians living abroad.

Alexis writes, “A Canadian is a Canadian, regardless as to whether they are in Canada or abroad. We are proud of our country and extremely patriotic, and we care deeply what happens there. We watch news reports and keep up with current affairs and election issues. To deny expat Canadians the right to vote in a Canadian federal election would be extremely undemocratic and far more unpatriotic than what you accuse us of.”

I would urge the committee to consider the examples that we're increasingly seeing around the world where voting access is being strengthened for folks who are living outside of their home countries, increasingly, in fact, through online voting measures. I also urge the committee to consider that instead of imposing bureaucratic voter-suppression measures on Canadians, we should be expanding voting rights to more people living in Canada and strengthening our access to voting at home and abroad.

In sum, instead of imposing bureaucratic voter-suppression measures on Canadians living, working, and travelling abroad, let's focus on the real problems: declining voter turnout, eroding trust in our electoral system, and the threat of organized electoral fraud.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

Thank you very much, Mr. Biggar.

I will now give the floor to our next guest, Professor Milner.

[Prof. Henry Milner, Visiting Researcher, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am happy to be here.

I will make my presentation in English, but I can answer questions in both languages.

I'm actually just coming from a session of meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, which is part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences taking place at the University of Ottawa right now. In fact, at this session I was just giving a paper on declining youth political participation, which is an area I've been working on and have written books about, and we have some pretty scary new data. This is comparative. It's not only Canadian; it's all advanced democracies, and Canada is certainly one of the more acute examples of that. It means that it's not simply that young people vote less when they're young and more when they're older, but there are generational phenomena that show that the current generations are voting less when they are young and are likely to vote less when they're older.

It's part of a wider phenomenon, which is the sense of duty to vote. The sense of duty to pay attention to politics isn't what it used to be under previous generations. This has something to do with means of communication, the arrival of the Internet, and so on. But most democratic countries, as far as I can tell, are making efforts, therefore, to make the vote more accessible under these circumstances, rather than less. It's hard to get real detailed information on very specific aspects, like the aspects that are in this particular law, but in general the tendency has been for countries to figure out what the impediments are to voting and to try to remove them as much as possible.

I'm not going to repeat the arguments made by the former and current heads of Elections Canada and the arguments you've heard today. It's very hard, in the context of what's happening in general, to understand the need to tighten this particular law or other laws. Focusing on these laws, I cannot see why we have to require, for example, registration after the writs have been issued. Especially now that we have fixed election dates, the idea that we have to wait until the writs are issued before somebody can apply to vote from outside of Canada, strikes me as quite.... I'd love to know the reasoning behind that.

I couldn't find other countries that are so restrictive in terms of when people can get on the lists. What we do know is that of the countries to which we can compare Canada, almost none are really as restrictive as we are. For example, as you may know, Americans can vote forever outside of the country. We are restricted to five years. In the United Kingdom it's 15 years. I have more data about other countries, but very few.... Only Australia's sort of close to us. They allow six years, but they allow you to renew if you actually apply. This five-year limit—it's five years and you're out—is something that is hard to understand.

Of course, the problems with producing the kind of information needed in order to actually have access to the vote...I think the critiques you've heard are quite compelling.

You may know there are countries that really do make it easier to vote from abroad in different ways. For example, some countries actually have electoral districts simply to represent their expats. The French do that. Some of you may know that expats from several countries, Portugal, France, and so on, actually have direct representation in the Parliament and they vote directly for their own representatives. Quite a few countries make it possible to vote in different ways.

There is postal voting, which is the way we do it, but there is also voting at embassies and voting sometimes by proxy. That's something I'm not too keen on but there are some countries that do it. Now, countries like Estonia, which have introduced electronic voting, are also working on introducing electronic voting for people outside the country.

In general what we're seeing are more efforts being made to facilitate the ability of people to vote in the country but also outside the country, to vote and to participate in the political process.

You've heard the reasons put much more eloquently than I could in terms of why it's important to have that electoral connection, but I must say I have some difficulty understanding why, in Canada, we feel the need to tighten these restrictions.

I'll leave it there. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

Thank you very much, Mr. Milner.

We have lost the connection with Vancouver, but it will be back shortly.

We can still start the first round of questions with Mr. Reid. As soon as we can, we will reconnect with our witnesses in Vancouver.

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

Under the circumstances, I will start with Professor Milner.

Just one thing...I think I am correct in correcting you, but I want to make sure I haven't misunderstood. You mentioned the example of Australia, where there is a six-year cut-off and you can renew. In Canada the rule had been after five years of non-residence you can't vote any more, but that's not contemplated under the new legislation.

[Prof. Henry Milner]

That is not existing. I agree, that's not in the law. It's just that since we're changing it, I would suggest making it longer.