Evidence of meeting #113 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 elections.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you all very much.
We'll go to Mr. Simms for the first round of questions.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Cooke, first of all, thanks for coming. Just a point of clarification, Bill C-401, is that the lowering of the voting age to 16? Is that the bill you're speaking of?
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Okay. You just mentioned Bill C-401, and I'm not sure if you mentioned it to the other side. I just wanted to put that on the record.
When it comes to the preregistration of young people, there's a second element, too, which is getting people involved in Elections Canada, working with Elections Canada under the age of 18. How do you feel about that?
12:20 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
We exist in a society with many different ages of majority. You need to be 16 years old before you can drive a car; 16 years old before you can enlist in the reserves; but 18 years before you can drink or vote. I find it an interesting dichotomy where you need to be older to be able to drink and vote than you do to enlist, to potentially fight and die in the name of your country.
These ages should probably be aligned just in principle. If you're old enough to vote, it makes sense that you're old enough to participate in the back-end mechanics of the electoral process. Participating and working with Elections Canada seems to make sense to me, if you're old enough to vote.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
The concept of the pre-writ period is something that your party agrees with, but you think it should be following that election; that's when the pre-writ period starts, the day after polling.
12:20 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
Right. It becomes a classification question.
The bill, as it currently presents, presents that there are three different times that election spending can fall into: writ, pre-writ, and none of the above. It seems to make sense to us that there should be only two categorizations: when a writ is dropped—basically during the writ period—and when it's not.
If there are no spending limits outside of—
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Obviously, you feel that the spending limit should be adjusted as such.
12:20 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
Well, on the amount of the spending limit, we can look at formulations. This becomes a bit more of the minutiae. In non-writ periods there should be a spending limit, and perhaps that spending limit should be adjusted to reflect the entire period outside of the writ period. This becomes more of a question of equations and formulas rather than principles. If there are no spending limits at all outside of a pre-writ period or a writ period, then that presents an opportunity for distortion of justice.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
That's for the much larger parties, you're saying.
12:20 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
It's for the much larger parties or third party interest groups.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Right, and those rules should be concurrent.
Do you feel that the laws regarding third party should be more in line with those regarding the candidates, the actual participants, the parties, the contestants?
12:20 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
I think it would be simpler not only for the voters but also for parties and everyone acting in an election process and exercising their right to express their opinions, if everyone had the same dates in mind, and everyone was operating from the same calendar. From this certain date—
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
On the question on limits, I'll defer to this panel, because from what I understand, and I'm not a constitutional expert, there are constitutional considerations for third party groups or individuals expressing their points of view versus the case for political parties, so—
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Member of Council, National Office, Green Party of Canada
I am not a constitutional expert but from what I understand, there are implications for third party groups in that regard.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Okay. Thank you.
Professor Thomas—is it Professor or Doctor Thomas?
12:25 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Professor is fine.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Professor Thomas, thank you for your input. I just want to get your comments on the identification aspect of the upcoming election, or any election for that matter, of course, being the charter right that it is.
A lot of people would say that you need to produce a certain amount of ID that's acceptable in this day, and since most people have this type of ID, that should be acceptable, but should we provide more latitude for people who want to exercise their right to vote?
12:25 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Yes, I like the idea of restoring the use of the VIC for purposes of voter identification at the polls, and I like the idea of vouching. I haven't seen persuasive evidence—I've seen almost no evidence—that people impersonate other voters or vote more than once. The studies done both here and elsewhere suggest that is not a widespread problem.
I think the whole premise should be to try to facilitate access to the polls and encourage people to get out to vote. It's the one democratic participation activity in which the majority of Canadians participate, and we should do our utmost to make it more supportive of that activity.
I like the idea, for example, of pre-registering young voters. In the United States, in those states where they've adopted such a practice, turnout rates in elections have gone up anywhere between 5% and 15%, and in—
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Is that in all jurisdictions or just in the United States?
12:25 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
That's in the United States. I think there are 15 states in which they have registration of young adults who are approaching the age to vote, and that's brought an increase in that voting segment of the population at the next election. People get into the habit of not voting. It's a bad habit to encourage.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Yes. One of our former witnesses stated that the issue of preregistration should be accompanied by a more vigorous campaign by Elections Canada to promote to young voters. How do you feel about that?
12:25 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
The provision in the Fair Elections Act that narrowed considerably the mandate of the CEO to engage in outreach and educational activities was wrong, in my opinion.
There is a line that needs to be drawn. You can't try to target your appeals to particular segments of the voting populations—groups that might be described as marginal—and encourage them alone to get out to vote. It's not about the predisposition or the motivation to vote; it's about making them informed about the importance of voting as an activity within a healthy democracy.