Evidence of meeting #111 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was identification.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thank you.
Dr. Lee, you mentioned something, and I can't remember if it was in your opening statement or maybe it might have been in response to Mr. Simms' question, but it doesn't matter. The point is you made the comment that you require your students to show ID when they write exams. I tend to agree with the comment that you made, that it would be hard to imagine someone not having one of the 39 different forms of ID that are available to use in an election. I find it hard to imagine that scenario, that someone would have that and have a valid voter information card. I think that scenario is pretty hard to imagine, but I think a good illustration of that would be what you've mentioned about the students. Have you ever had a student who couldn't provide that identification? Maybe they didn't have it with them and they were able to bring it back later, which would be the same scenario that would happen in a voting situation, right? Someone might show up and say, I forgot to bring my ID, go home and get it and come back kind of thing. Have you ever had a student who just simply did not have ID, and could not produce any and couldn't find any way to produce any so they could not write an exam?
6:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
I've proctored every exam for 30 years—I don't outsource my exams—and I've had exactly two students who did not have ID, and in both instances they had forgotten their ID. I don't know how they did it. They said they were driving home, which meant that they left their driver's licence at home too, so they were driving illegally, I presume. But they went home and got their ID. We're very liberal. We're not saying that it must be a university photo ID; we said anything with a photo. We would take a mass transit pass, OHIP, card a driver's licence, a passport, or a university card.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
It sounds as if your requirement for ID was probably, in some ways, a higher barrier than what is required in order to vote in an election, possibly. And you're telling me that you never once, other than these two who went back to get it—which is not saying they didn't have it—had a situation where there wasn't a student....
This is actually one of the arguments or examples that's often used of someone who would be disenfranchised by not requiring.... How many students do you think would, roughly, in an estimate—
6:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
My flow-through is 250 a year. I've been teaching for 30 years, so you can do the math.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
6:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
Can I, very quickly, respond to that?
The key point, the answer to your question.... You're quite right. It's education and disclosure.
It's on the syllabus. It's in the calendar. It's drilled into every student's head. I send an email around the week before the exam, and in fact, the night before the exam saying, “Remember, bring photo ID.” It's educating the person. They have the ID, but some forget it.
Elections Canada could do a better job, saying, “Remember, everybody, please bring ID to the voting booth on voting day.” They could run ads across the country advising people to do so. It's not difficult. Every other institution of government demands ID.
6:25 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I would agree. This is something that I've said many times. I think Elections Canada needs to do a better job of it. We had representatives from the Canadian Federation of Students here today, and I was asking them about that very thing. They were indicating that they had to advertise that in the last election because they didn't feel it had happened, I guess. So I certainly agree with you.
I thank you for that.
With the time I have left, I'll turn to you, Mr. Hamilton.
You identified where you see the shortcomings in the bill. What is your advice on what this should look like in terms of third parties and their limits in spending and that kind of thing? What do you suggest the rules around that should look like, if it were up to you?
6:25 p.m.
Lawyer, Conservative Party of Canada
I would strongly argue for a complete code of conduct, as I said before, that deals with both sides of the equation—the people trying to fund from foreign sources and those here in Canada receiving it. We do this in other things that Parliament has legislated on—our anti-corruption legislation now that puts the onus on a CFO sitting in the C-suite in Calgary, Toronto, or Montreal for things that are going on overseas in that company's operations. We make it the business of that CFO to know exactly where every dollar is going. This seems like a very high standard, but it's something we've chosen to do, to say that, “We, as Canadians, following the OECD, are not going to allow corrupt activities from our Canadian-domiciled companies.”
That same structure can be adopted to put the onus at the front end of registration for third parties to demonstrate that they are not acting...or facilitating in any way foreign dollars. That should be the bare minimum in any legislation that is serious about dealing with the third party crisis, which existed in the last election.
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Lee, I'd like to begin with you.
The example we talked about with the students, where, as Mr. Richards pointed out.... There were two students who were refused in your time working as a professor. May I ask you, did you know the identity of those students?
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
In other words, were you sending them home to get their ID because you didn't actually know who they were—
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
6:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
No, really. I'm getting older. I can't remember 50 students and all their names.
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
I've worked with students for the past 20 years too, so I understand what—
6:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
It's a sea of faces.
6:25 p.m.
Liberal
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
Let me ask you this. If you were to know their ID. Let's say you were to know who they were but they had forgotten their identification, would you have allowed them into the exam to write that exam?
6:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
If you'd asked me that 10 or 15 years ago, I probably would have said yes. Today, I've become much more of a stickler on the idea of due process. I really believe in one rule for everybody, not one rule for the students who I've developed a friendship with because they've sought me out, as opposed to another rule. I've said this to students. This rule applies to everybody, regardless of your gender, your ethnicity, or your religion. I can't start playing favourites, because that's not right.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
So, your focus there is really on the process, and ensuring it's applied equally.
6:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
Equally, fairly, and objectively.
6:30 p.m.
Liberal
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
If you knew the integrity was going to be preserved, you knew that person who was writing, and if they had to go home, they could lose the course, because it could be a 100% final, for example.... It's more important to you that the due process is followed.
6:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes, because of students saying you're starting to create favourites and playing games—
