Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2018

[Stéphane Perrault]

Correct.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Interesting.

One of the things I touched on earlier when I had the minister in was the commissioner. I want you to provide comment on the fact that now the commissioner is returning to....

I'll put my bias on the table. I think it's a good move. I thought it was a bad move to begin with. The commissioner being back in the Office of the CEO.... Obviously, the commissioner can still work closely with the Public Prosecution Service—that's available—but being back inside, housed within Elections Canada, I think, comes as a better....

Would you say that it improves the ability of the commissioner now? With this new legislation, now that administrative penalties are involved, would it also be a good thing that the commissioner is now back inside the house of Elections Canada?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Certainly, in terms of the legal unification of Elections Canada—it is not necessarily a physical co-location but a legal reunification—what it will facilitate is the transfer of information from Elections Canada to the commissioner in a smoother way, and that assists the commissioner.

To be quite frank, I believe there are a number of improvements in this bill that go much further in terms of assisting the commissioner. I think the administrative monetary penalties, which you mentioned—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

That was my next question.

[Stéphane Perrault]

—go a long way to provide a much more calibrated set of tools for the commissioner to intervene and the power to compel testimony as well. From an enforcement point of view, I think this is a good piece of legislation. The reunification is certainly a good thing, but it's not as significant, I would say, as these other changes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

The power to compel is one. Personally, I was reading through the administrative penalties section of it and the whole reason it's compliance in this particular case is obviously that you don't have the full threat of a hammer when it's not needed. Your shop obviously feels that this is going to go a long way towards compliance, and for those who want to run afoul, it makes it a lot easier for the commissioner to get compliance.

[Stéphane Perrault]

That's our view, yes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

No.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

The trick is, Scotty, you just don't ask.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's right. Don't make eye contact.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Anyway, thanks for being back with us again. It seems like it's been so long since you've been here.

Let me start with this, and we'll go to a few places. Hopefully there'll be time.

When were you first shown this legislation?

[Stéphane Perrault]

My officials have been working with PCO officials since last fall. I can't remember the exact date, but they have been providing technical advice, not policy advice but technical advice on the drafting. They haven't been in the drafting room as such, but they have seen various variations of the provisions and their role was to make sure there were as few errors or glitches as possible in the bill, and in fact, there are very few. I have raised a few today, but most of the things that I've raised are policy issues, really, not technical issues.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Obviously, then, you were consulted, but who were you consulted by? Was it PCO? Was it the minister's office? The Prime Minister's Office? Who consulted you?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It was strictly a consultation between PCO officials and my officials, and specifically, Madam Lawson here.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

You mentioned that it began last fall, at least your involvement as Elections Canada began last fall. I'm wondering if you might be able to give us some insight as to why you think.... Here we are, right? We're being presented with this proposal to, in less than I think 10 days, have a full study of a 350-page bill in committee, including any amendments, clause-by-clause, and all that, but if this process began last fall, that's quite some time.

Do you have any sense that you would be able to share with us as to why this has taken so long to come before the House of Commons and why we're now rushed? Was that length of time needed?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It would be pure speculation on my part to go there. All I know is—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I appreciate that, but it would be good to get your insight if you are willing.

[Stéphane Perrault]

I don't know how to respond to that. It's not for me to answer that question.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay, fair enough. You can't blame me for trying, right?

In terms of the implementation, you mentioned last time you were here that you were already looking at a plan for implementing this. When did that planning begin in terms of the implementation planning for this legislation?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Thank you for the question, because I think there has been some misunderstanding with respect to my remarks in that area.

When the bill was introduced, we began planning for implementation work, so that was very recent. We expect that we will do some preparation over the course of the summer and the fall. Assuming it has not passed by then, we will need to do some preparation but that is very different from implementing the legislation.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Understood.

Would you consider that an unusual step, though, before something is passed? Is there precedent for that?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I think that's the word that I used the last time I was here. There sometimes is work that is done in terms of our resources with our own team, that kind of preparatory work. That's not unusual. If we need to contract, for example, to work on IT systems, that is more unusual.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I guess the reason we're in that unusual circumstance...and it's hard to blame you for being in that circumstance, because you are in that circumstance and you've been put there because this took so long—and I know you don't want to speculate on why that might be. The fact is that it's beyond your control and it's beyond the control of many of us on this committee, and here we all are trying to deal with something that makes for very unusual, and frankly, very difficult circumstances. It makes it difficult for us, as legislators, to do our job properly. I think the proposal we're seeing makes it almost impossible, and I think it makes it very difficult, and maybe even darned near impossible, for you to do your job properly.

You already indicated there would be a need for some compromises, a need for some things that couldn't be properly implemented, and we had a chance to talk about that briefly when you were here before. I'll come to that in a minute to see if we can get a bit more detail on that.

When we had the officials here before you came in, we were talking about the third party regime and the foreign money. I was raising the question of the commingling with the contributions that are still possible from foreign entities prior to the pre-writ period. It was raised that it would leave Elections Canada with the ability to conduct an audit of that. I was asking at that time—and you might be able to give me a bit more clarity on this—what you think would be a reasonable barrier to trigger an audit in those scenarios. What would Elections Canada determine to be an appropriate barrier that would give you concern about that commingling occurring so that you would, therefore, conduct an audit?

Second to that, is there some way we could amend the legislation to be more helpful in this regard?