Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Thank you to our witnesses. We appreciate it. This was very helpful. We were very interested in hearing from you, and we'll switch our panels relatively quickly and get on with our final list of witnesses for today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Welcome back to the 111th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. For our final panel we are pleased to be joined by Ian Lee, Associate Professor at Carleton University; and Arthur Hamilton from the Conservative Party of Canada, partner at Cassels, Brock & Blackwell LLP.

Just while we're waiting for Blake to come back, Mr. Lee, I looked at your list of ID. A lot of those don't identify a current address, which seems to be one of the big problems people had in the last election.

We'll go to opening statements. Who would like to go first?

Mr. Lee.

[Dr. Ian Lee, Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I just want to disclose at the beginning that my presentation is exactly six minutes and 30 seconds, so I hope you'll give me indulgence for an extra 90 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's fine.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

Thanks for inviting me to appear on this important subject.

First, I want to run through my disclosures very quickly. I do not consult to anyone, anything, or anybody anywhere in the world: not corporations, not governments, not lobbyists, not unions, not NGOs, and not people. Secondly, I don't belong to any political party, nor do I donate funds to any political party or candidate. Thirdly, in 2014, I researched and authored an op-ed on identification systems that was published in The Globe and Mail. I believe everyone has a copy.

After spending quite a bit of time—that was in the spring of 2014—researching identification systems in Canada only, public and private, and the rules legislated concerning identification systems federally and provincially, it became clear to me that it is legally and factually impossible to be invisible in terms of identity in Canada in the 21st century, so I'm putting caveats around that.

In a post-modern sophisticated society, multiple large public and private organizations— from governments to military, to banks, universities, tax authorities, and health care authorities—have been forced to develop systems of identification over the years to authenticate identity before ID is issued or access is allowed to the system, such as seeing a doctor. Thus, it is more useful to think of our systems—plural—of identification in Canada as a gigantic Venn diagram of interlocking circles, for those who can remember Venn diagrams from their university days, wherein each circle of the 40 or 50 systems of identification represents merely one identification system in Canada: OHIP health card, or driver's licence, or passport, or credit card.

But each identification system overlaps many but not all of the other identification systems in Canada. In plain English, millions of Canadians simultaneously, as does everyone in this room, carry an employee identification card, often a driver's licence, a social insurance card, a health care card, an automobile ownership certificate, an auto insurance certificate on the automobile or truck, a passport or a permanent resident card, a credit card, and a debit card, not to mention other forms of identification.

This leads to two critical points. Number one, the mistake of critics in claiming that there is inadequate identification in Canada amongst some Canadians is to focus on only one of the multiple systems of identification and, upon finding some voters who may lack that particular ID—e.g., a passport—then conclude that some Canadians lack any ID to vote, and that's not true. I may not have a passport, but I may have a driver's licence. I may not have a driver's licence, but I may have a passport, and so on and so on. Restated, it is necessary to examine the totality of our national, provincial, and municipal banking, education, and health care et al. identification systems—not any one system in isolation.

Secondly, some critics claim that many identification systems do not disclose much information and thus are inadequate. This fails to recognize the elaborate and very sophisticated systems and rules of primary identification, driven, I would point out, by many of you parliamentarians and past parliamentarians in legislating the systems of identification in a myriad of statutes on the books passed by Parliament over the years, including the tax act, the pensions act, and so forth, which make the secondary identification more valuable.

This may sound very abstract. Let me very concrete. It can be argued that a bank debit card, an ATM card—I have one in my pocket, and I'm sure everyone here does—is pretty useless. All it has on it is my name and long line of multiple digits. What use is that? Except that Canada's Bank Act, passed by you, the parliamentarians, mandates that any person who opens a bank account must—not could, ought to, or should, but must—produce two pieces of primary identification issued by government, and defined as a driver's licence, a passport, or a birth certificate, in order to open a bank account.

Now the FCAC reports—of course, this is established by Parliament—that 96% of Canadians possess a bank account, those little debit cards, which means that 96% of Canadians have a minimum of two forms of government-issued primary ID.

Now I'll quickly review some of the important identification systems that are allowing me to say it's impossible to be digitally or identifiably invisible.

One, per the Vital Statistics Act, passed by every province and territory—I did check that—this is just from Ontario, “The Registrar General shall, upon receipt, cause the registrations of births, marriages, deaths, still-births, adoptions and changes of name occurring in Ontario....” That becomes the database that issues birth and death certificates.

Two, by law, Canadian citizens, newcomers to Canada or temporary residents must have a social insurance number—as you know, because it's been passed by Parliament—to work in Canada or to receive benefits and services from government programs. What a lot of people don't realize is even student loans must be recorded. A social insurance number must be disclosed by the student to get a student loan. That also applies to the myriad of benefits, not just federally but provincially and municipally.

Three, schools record and report to education ministries when a student starts elementary and then secondary school, including immunization.

Four, provincial health ministries issue health care photo ID cards. If you go to the website of any province, it states you must provide two forms of government-issued primary ID. In Ontario, a person has to first show proof of citizenship, then provide separate primary ID establishing residency address before getting a health card to access health care, including doctors or even doing blood tests at the hospital here.

Five, provincial DOT ministries' licensed drivers: per Transport Canada's latest report, 25 million Canadians have driver's licences. They issue ownership certificates mandating the owner name and address for the 33 million cars, trucks, and SUVs registered in Canada. That's 33 million pieces of identification. Of course, there is the insurance, the corresponding mandatory insurance that is necessary.

Six, the bureaucracy that collects and records more data on individuals than anything else is the CRA. In 2015, per the CRA, 29.2 million people filed tax returns. This is more than the 25 million people who were eligible to vote, according to Elections Canada, in 2015. On every tax return, we are required to provide our social insurance number and our address.

Seven, and this is the last on my itemized list, by law, all land titles must be in writing—in English common law systems—and record the name and address of the owner, while under provincial landlord and tenancy laws, rental tenancies must be in writing and record the name and address of the tenant.

At the airport, as we all know, every one of the 133 million passengers in Canada in 2015 had to provide photo ID not once but three times: once to get the boarding pass, once to go through security, and once at the gate, just to get on the plane.

Over two million students in post-secondary education, according to Statistics Canada, are provided photo ID by every college and every university in Canada, because it is mandatory. I've supervised every exam in every course I have taught for one-third of a century. They must bring their photo ID or I will send them home and they cannot write the exam. That is standard practice across universities and colleges because we can't possibly memorize and know all of the people sitting in that class.

It's been argued that the requirement for voter ID negatively affects low-income people much more, yet when you examine Ontario Works—that's the bureaucracy that administers social welfare—you will quickly realize it is vastly more onerous to obtain social welfare because of the identification. They want bank accounts. They want tax returns. They want driver's licences. They want tenancy agreements. It is vastly more onerous to obtain social assistance or welfare than it is to vote because of the identification requirements.

It is likewise for those who have looked at the OAS requirements, GIS requirements, and the Canada Pension Plan requirements to identify yourself in order to be paid a pension under those systems.

In conclusion, in a large, sophisticated society, it is widely recognized that we need rigorous systems of identification to ensure confidence in the integrity of our tax system, our health care system, our election voting system, our student records system, our banking system, and all our other identification systems.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Hamilton.

[Arthur Hamilton, Lawyer, Conservative Party of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am the legal counsel for the Conservative Party of Canada, and I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear here this afternoon.

There is one particular feature of Bill C-76 that I propose to address, and in fact, it's an omission in the legislation that has now been proposed. Specifically, while the bill seeks to further restrict the spending of registered parties by a newly defined official pre-writ period, it ignores the larger issue of third party financing and the types of third party activities that are not even regulated.

The integrity of federal elections is an issue on which we all agree. Our federal election should be determined by Canadians. If that is agreed, we can also agree that this bill does not go far enough in plugging several holes that permit foreign influence in Canadian federal elections via third party activity. To illustrate my point, I refer to correspondence from Elections Canada prepared in the year 2015. During the 2015 general election, it became clear that several groups, including one referred to as Leadnow, were engaged in several aspects of the election and that they used foreign contributions.

By a letter dated October 1, in response to the concerns the Conservative Party of Canada had raised, the Office of the Commissioner of Elections Canada responded in part:

As provided for in the Act, Leadnow Society cannot use, for election advertising purposes, any foreign contribution that was received by the third party. It can use foreign contributions, however, to finance any of its activities that are not related to elections advertising. For instance, they may use foreign contributions to call electors, hold events, survey the opinions of electors, send e-mails or give media briefings. Such activities, if carried out by a third party independently from any candidate or registered party, are not regulated under the act.

Elections Canada's interpretation of the Canada Elections Act on this point is open to serious challenge, but rather than endless debate on this point, this Parliament can and should act decisively to ensure that foreign contributions cannot influence Canadian federal elections.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on the importance of the strict regulation of third parties in its decision in Harper v. Attorney General of Canada, where it cautioned:

For voters to be able to hear all points of view, the information disseminated by third parties, candidates and political parties cannot be unlimited. In the absence of spending limits, it is possible for the affluent or a number of persons or groups pooling their resources and acting in concert to dominate the political discourse....If a few groups are able to flood the electoral discourse with their message, it is possible, indeed likely, that the voices of some will be drowned out...Where those having access to the most resources monopolize the election discourse, their opponents will be deprived of a reasonable opportunity to speak and be heard. This unequal dissemination of points of view undermines the voter’s ability to be adequately informed of all views.

That's from paragraph 72 of the Supreme Court's reported decision.

Later in that same decision, the Supreme Court of Canada recognizes that:

If individuals or groups were permitted to run parallel campaigns augmenting the spending of certain candidates or parties, those candidates or parties would have an unfair advantage over others not similarly supported.

That appears at paragraph 108 of the reported decision.

The interpretation by Elections Canada quoted earlier must be corrected by clear legislative language. Our Supreme Court has been decisive on this point. This Parliament should regulate all third party activities and ban all foreign contributions. When it does so, and only when it does so, we will have secured electoral fairness in this country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much to both our witnesses.

Now we'll go to some rounds of questioning, and we'll start with Mr. Simms.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Dr. Lee, it's good to see you again. I was around in the last Parliament, and you were a witness then. I really appreciate your fervour, your excitement, your passion about this. I won't interrupt you too much because I enjoy how you phrase things, especially your vector diagrams.

A term comes to my mind. I will read it from the dictionary. It's called “universal suffrage”.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

Universal?

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

Universal suffrage “including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception”. The very basis for why we put the right to vote within our Constitution, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I get what you're saying about the vector diagram, about all these methods of identification: the bank cards, to get on a plane, social assistance, students, CRA forms, and all that stuff. For me in a way what you're saying is right on target, but it's just wide of the mark because you talk about 4% of the people not getting involved in bank ID. To me, that's a substantial number of people who don't get to exercise their right to vote. That's what worries me.

As I say, I worry about fraud, and I worry about other things. I'm going to quote you for a second. Back when you were doing Bill C-23, you said—this was your argument in favour of the new rules—“It is prudent and responsible risk management to adopt anticipatory precautionary measures before bad things happen, not after bad things happen”.

I don't disagree with you, but where did that fraud go that was so prevalent before? Tell me how all you have talked about here covers all.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

You have asked two questions.

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

I did ask two questions. I apologize.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

I will answer them quickly.

In terms of the first one, with the greatest respect, Mr. Simms, I think you're making that mistake. You're finding one system where 4% don't have coverage, therefore you're saying they have no ID whatsoever. That's simply not true because every citizen, every person in this country, is covered under the Statistics Act. It is illegal not to record the birth or the death of any person in this country. You can't suppress someone's birth or death. That's just that.

Under the pension systems—and I'm saying this, having just applied and obtained CPP—I can tell you the hoops I had to go through. It's vastly more complex than voting in an election, I assure you.

Those are just two examples so I don't accept the argument that there's any Canadian in this country who doesn't have some form of identification. Twenty-nine million people file tax returns because the CRA requires you to file a tax return even if you don't owe money, for example, if you want an HST rebate, or you're receiving some kind of benefit from the government such as student loans.

To your second one, because I think it's more important, I think my views are even stronger now, not because I'm suggesting there's massive fraud or even minor fraud. I don't believe there is. I also don't believe most planes are blown up in Canada, or in the U.S., or across the OECD because we have very rigorous systems of protection.

Where I'm going with this is we have seen the assaults on our institutions, not so much in Canada but in the States in the last 24 to 30 months. It is absolutely crucial that we maintain the integrity of our voting systems and the belief in the integrity of our voting systems and our banking systems and our political systems. It's the famous Caesar's remark, not only must you be honest, you must appear to be.

I'm suggesting, given that we all have ID, everyone has ID because there are so many overlapping identification systems in this country, we should want to have a system where we are validating identity to vote so it will not give someone the opportunity in a close election to say that somebody was cheating, somebody was cooking, and that's what I'm worried about: undermining the authenticity of our excellent election system. I'm not suggesting people are cheating en masse or even in small numbers.

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

But what I mean by the 4% on the banking issue is you would expect anyone who does not have banking identification.... There are so many other types of identification that they don't have. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've seen seniors or the disenfranchised come in who've never had this type of ID. Maybe they're in a rural area; maybe they travel a great distance. One of the issues we talk about is vouching. I'm not sure how you feel about vouching. I suspect you don't feel that great about it. That system exists so that a person can be franchised. They can be vouched for by someone else. You talked about passports. Passports don't have the address; you write that in.

This is all part of the issue. I'm saying that this vector diagram does leave people out. It does, and we have seen it first-hand. I'm saying can we not just have something, a fail-safe, by which these people will be captured to enfranchise them to exercise their right—I have a right to vote; I don't have a right to get my ass on a plane to get to Florida in January, that sort of thing?

Let me ask this pointed question. You said there is a piece of ID, for example a driver's licence, but they still have to make the second piece concrete. Do you think the voter information card is a second concrete piece of identification that is vital to our system?

[Dr. Ian Lee]

No, I think it's a piece of cardboard that somebody's printed a name on. I can produce a voter ID card too.

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

I can say that about any ID, really.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

No you can't, because of the authentication systems that lie behind them, legislated by parliamentarians. Take for example, the bank accounts, to go back for a moment. It isn't private sector ID, but—

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

A voter information card is not a greeting card I buy at a store, for goodness' sake. It does have a system behind it by which that authentication....probably even more than many of the pieces of ID that you mentioned.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

I'm answering your question. The ID that is accepted to apply for old-age pension, to apply for Canada pension or a passport or a driver's licence is government-issued ID only. That's the fascinating thing. When you start drilling down in a deep dive into all these different identification systems, you'll see they all come back to government-issued, government-controlled, government-regulated identification, and I have a lot more confidence in those systems in Canada for that reason.

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

Some of the things don't really add up here. You don't like vouching, but you have to vouch for someone to get a passport.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

To answer your question, I don't like vouching. I use the health care system because I'm older, and older people use it. I use it a lot, because I have arthritis. I can assure you, I've been to my doctor and forgotten my OHIP card, and they refused me service. Surely the health of Canadians is critically important. I would argue, no disrespect, that it's more important than voting—if I'm sick. Yet I've been sent home to go get my health care card because we think identity is that important for access to the health care system.

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

Thank you, Dr. Lee. I appreciate the conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Personally, I'd like to give Scott about three times as much time, because these exchanges with Ian Lee are.... Give me time to get some popcorn and one of those great big family-sized drinks, and I'd just watch you two go at it.