Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2018

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

You think a caveat should be built into it, or maybe “caveat” is the wrong word, but certainly for Elections Canada, they must understand the point that they must not micro-target a particular part of the population when they do advocacy to encourage people to vote.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

This debate was actually taken up in the U.K. when I did a background study for Elections Canada, and they tried to draw that line. It's not a bright line; it's a blurred line between encouraging the motivation to vote and informing people so they'd be inclined to vote.

It's across the board. In some cases, it may take more effort to reach certain marginal groups that historically have not turned out in great numbers. You don't exclude those groups and you may have to go to some extra effort, but it is a tricky area where the CEO and other leaders at Elections Canada have to be careful that they're not accused of a bias in encouraging some groups to come forward to vote when historically they have not been active.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll go to Mr. Richards.

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

Thank you all for being here, or virtually here.

Mr. Cooke, I'll start with you. You made a statement at the very beginning of your opening remarks that I believe was dripping with sarcasm. Unfortunately, when the Hansard is viewed, sarcasm doesn't show up, so I want to give you a chance to make sure, if it was sarcasm, to clarify that, because it's obviously important. It does change the meaning of what you said.

You made the statement that you were especially appreciative of the amount of time you'd had to prepare for this. I assume that was a sarcastic statement.

[Jean-Luc Cooke]

It was a tongue-in-cheek bit of sarcasm. Obviously, I am here. I feel well enough prepared for the questions you'll ask, so let's continue.

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

For the record, when were you actually asked to come for today?

[Jean-Luc Cooke]

I myself was brought into the loop a little over 28 hours ago.

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

The question that flows from that is, at this point, at least, we're hoping that certainly the government is going to allow more time for this to be looked at properly and actually hear from Canadians who need to be heard from, and so on, and do this properly. At this point in time, they're trying to consider this week, the one week of study that's being done here, enough to hear properly on a bill of this magnitude. Would you agree? Do you think that's enough time, or do you think there needs to be more time taken to look at something this serious and important?

[Jean-Luc Cooke]

In my area of work, which is more private sector than public, there's always a question of risk versus reward. Is the risk of further delaying the execution of this bill worth the reward of ironing out some of the kinks or problems within the bill itself?

The Green Party of Canada would rather see this bill in force for the next general election than it not in force with modification. Yes, there are many things we would like to see that would be better. There are problems with this bill that need to be kept in mind.

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

Having heard you say that, I understand your position, although my understanding is that Elections Canada is already putting together a plan to implement this. Trying to force this through in a matter of a week or two as compared to taking the time that's necessary probably doesn't really prevent it from being in place for the next election as a result of that, and you've mentioned yourself here that you do think there are some concerns in it that need to be addressed.

Wouldn't it be incumbent upon us to take some time to do that, if Elections Canada actually is putting together an implementation plan and could get this in place?

[Jean-Luc Cooke]

Again, it becomes risk-reward. If some of the modifications don't require huge administrative overhaul within Elections Canada, I would say that statement is accurate. If it requires significant changes to how Elections Canada is operating and the assumptions they're running on today, I would say the risk is not appropriate.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[Jean-Luc Cooke]

Unfortunately, the burden of that decision falls on you.

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

Yes, of course.

Professor Thomas, you mentioned in your opening remarks, in talking about the pre-writ period, something on which I certainly agree with you: the idea you mentioned of the need to look at harmonizing the period of time in which there is a ban on government advertising with the same period of time that there are restrictions put on the political parties.

I wonder what your thoughts are, though, under that same principle, on the idea of looking at ministerial travel as well. Obviously you can see, when we're talking about travel of ministers or the prime minister in that time, maybe they're making government announcements, which could be intended to entice voters to support them because of something they're announcing or highlighting that they've done as a government. We've seen that in byelections with this government already.

What are your thoughts on that? Should that be restricted in the same period of time, as well?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

Yes. The U.K. has gone with the idea of a caretaker period, where, as you approach election day, the government has to stop certain types of activities that may work to their partisan advantage. There may be a whole host of things. Travel may be among them, especially if travel involves high-profile announcements that redound to the credit of the prime minister and so on.

We worked hard to try and create a more equal playing field when the government controls the public service and the spending authority that comes with it, and so on.

I think we're going to codify more and more of these rules. We will have to go down a list of possible things that might or might not be able to happen during that period. You can't go back too far. Going back to June 30, some people have said that all you're going to do with that deadline is create a binge of advertising before that date, so let's go back further; let's go back, like the U.K. says, a year. Well, that's too long to put the government on hold, where it can't put out messages. I know there are provisions for emergency messages from government and advertising from government, but it's a tricky balancing act here.

This balance in the bill is not quite right. It shouldn't create this interval of time where the government has the advantage.

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

I appreciate that.

The other thing I want to touch on with you briefly is something I wanted to ask one of our witnesses earlier, but we were cut off when the government forced a vote. It was a group that represents youth, Citoyenneté jeunesse, and I had wanted to ask them about ID. You mentioned ID as well, so I will ask you the question.

This is with respect to the educational components of Elections Canada. One of the things I think they haven't done a very good job of, and I would like to see them do a better job of—but I wanted to see if you would share my opinion—is informing people of the logistics of voting. In other words, there are a lot of different IDs that are available. You're advocating bringing back the idea of a voter information card, but there are 39 forms that exist now. I think a lot of people aren't aware of what the options are and maybe show up at the polls without one of those pieces because they don't realize they need to bring it.

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this, because even the Canadian Federation of Students indicated to us when they were here recently that they had to engage in a campaign themselves to inform young people about these options. I guess they felt Elections Canada wasn't doing a good enough job.

Do you think Elections Canada could do a better job of informing people about the options they have available to them?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

I think the professionals at Elections Canada would be the first to admit they can improve in that area, and they are making plans to do that in the next election. Voting locations on campus preceded by advertising and making people aware of the requirements to cast a vote, all of that has to go on. We know at that point in the life of a young adult, they are distracted by lots of other things, so it's important to make an extra effort to get out there.

Elections Canada did that, with some considerable effect in the last election, in indigenous communities where previously they were under-represented in terms of their messaging about the importance of voting.

I concur with your general principle. I also think Elections Canada is probably on top of it.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Now we will go to Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you to the witnesses here and to our friend from Manitoba.

I will start with you, Professor Thomas. I'm getting a theme with this bill. When we talk to experts and folks from different fields, there are two clear aspects of the bill.

One is fixing some of what I would call “damage done” by the previous government in terms of enfranchisement, allowing the voter ID cards, allowing vouching, and whatnot. All of that was introduced 18 months ago in a bill.

The second part of the bill is more ambitious, I suppose, in trying to deal with things like third party financing, foreign influence, social media, and those kinds of components.

Have I described the legislation satisfactorily, in your mind?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

Yes. I think the bill that arose out of the previous election and former CEO Marc Mayrand's report could have been dealt with a long time ago. The government's management of this file has been very poor, in my opinion. If that sits on the Order Paper for 18 months, it says something about the commitment of the government to get this moving ahead, and we have had the holdup with the appointment of a permanent CEO.

I think it's unfortunate now. We have a 350-page document and we're trying to understand all the provisions and the intersections and interactions of those provisions. It's very tricky to read. I do my best. I used the search engine on my PDF to try and find the parts I really need to know something about. It's not an easy task, and I label myself some kind of expert.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We do, too.

I'm starting to believe that, as my grandmother used to say, a lack of planning on your part doesn't make for a crisis on mine. I was eight years old at the time, but she had a point that still stays with me today when I look at this bill. With days to study it, virtually every committee meeting we've had has been interrupted by votes. We've rarely gone through an entire cycle, yet I, too, am supporting some of what you've said here. I'm in support of some of what I'll call the enfranchisement pieces of the bill.

There are a number of questions outstanding, particularly around privacy, the loophole you talked about in commingling, and some of the pre-writ conversations we've had as to whether they're fair between the government and non-government parties.

I'm wondering if the bill needs to be split. I'm wondering if we need to expedite the pieces that there has been some dispute about but more of a consensus around—the Bill C-33 components. There have been a lot of questions about the second part, the third party, the commingling loophole, and the lack of privacy restrictions of parties. What do you think of that suggestion?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

We're trying to do a great deal in this bill. Traditionally, reform to election law has been done incrementally, ideally on the basis of as much all-party consensus as possible.

In recent years, we've had partisan entanglements over election law reforms, because maybe we've tried to do too much, too sweeping changes, and so on. Also maybe something to think about is whether this committee, which does a number of good things—I really admire the membership of this committee for the work they do. Maybe election law is something that should be put out to a special committee in those years after the Chief Electoral Officer files his annual report.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I only hesitate because Ms. Sahota, Mr. Reid, and I sat on one of those special committees, and we spent a lot of time and money. There were some results, but not many, as Mr. Cooke has pointed out.