Evidence of meeting #124 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 election.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
That point is sort of the opposite of the one I was going to make. We got rid of the requirement that they come from the riding; where they live is more or less irrelevant. I think the CEO is competent to hire his staff, and I don't want to second-guess him based on where people live. I don't see the purpose of that data.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It's exactly that. Since we've removed the requirement, what are we looking to verify?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Mrs. Kusie, where did you say the information about the addresses of the officers is already available?
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
I believe Madam Paquet just said that the information is already provided to candidates on the electoral list. If the information is provided on the electoral list, would it not be publicly available already?
Senior Policy Advisor, Privy Council Office
Of course, all election officers need to be electors. Yes, they will be on the list of electors in the electoral district where their ordinary residence is located. Parties have access to the list of electors for all electoral districts where they support a candidate. Parties would definitely have access to that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Are we ready for the vote?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 76 agreed to on division)
There are no amendments to clauses 77 to 81.
(Clauses 77 to 81 inclusive agreed to)
(On clause 82)
In amendment CPC-24, the returning officer has to give a statement of the number of ballots and their serial numbers to an election official at a polling station. This amendment, the way I read it last night, suggests that now that there are a number of polling divisions in the same thing, the returning officer would only have to give it to one officer.
I'll let Stephanie explain that.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Sure.
Essentially, now that we have different tables with different polling stations, we need to ensure the safeguard that there will be proper reconciliation at the end. CPC-24 allows for that.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I'm trying to figure out how this would function.
Stephanie, are you suggesting that at the end of the voting night, or whenever periodically, all of the ballots are reconciled within the polling station itself? I'm just wondering how this looks on the ground. It's hard not having Elections Canada here.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Yes, that is correct. It's at the end of every day. The way it stands now in the new legislation, it's controlled so that one person has been responsible for the one box all day and knows what is...how many there are at the end of the day. Is that...?
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It's probably too late now, but because many of these things are just the practical workings of an election, I think it would be well for the committee to have Elections Canada here at some point. Of course, they don't give us policy direction, but they can certainly tell us how reconciling ballots under this provision would actually work on the ground. I'm not sure if they can be made available. Usually they are quite available to us.
My intention is to vote against it, even though it might be the greatest recommendation to make our elections more accountable, because I don't understand how this would function on a day-to-day basis. I guess I've understood as much as I can in order to be ready to vote.
October 16th, 2018 / 9:25 a.m.
Senior Policy Advisor, Privy Council Office
Actually, Bill C-76 was designed in a way that would allow maximum flexibility.... Well, it's not “maximum” flexibility in that it's not unrestricted flexibility. Nevertheless, it would give a lot of flexibility to the Chief Electoral Officer in managing polling stations on polling day and at advance polls.
I would point you to page 17 of the bill and to proposed section 38, which states:
A returning officer shall keep a record of the powers and duties that he or she has assigned to each election officer, and of the time at which or during which each election officer is to exercise a power or perform a duty assigned to him or her.
Proposed section 39 states:
An election officer shall exercise or perform, in accordance with the Chief Electoral Officer’s instructions, any power or duty assigned to him or her by a returning officer.
The Canada Elections Act used to designate many functions at the polling stations—for example, the poll clerk, the deputy returning officer, the revising agent, etc. All of these titles have been removed, changed to the generic “election officer”. The Chief Electoral Officer will now be able to manage personnel better at the polling station on polling day by assigning different functions to various election officers.
This motion and a few other motions would just remove some of that flexibility, but of course Elections Canada presented this model of modernized polling stations in its recommendations report and intends to continue administering elections in an—
Liberal
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I'm into innovation, Chair. I very much appreciate Jean-François describing it. I find Elections Canada is always helpful in just saying, “This is logistically how we manage this.” This new interpretation of their being able to designate roles, combined with what Stephanie is suggesting, would just help clarify in my mind whether this would work or whether they would find this counter to the intention of the amendment.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
That's what I'm struggling with: How can we ensure the proper reconciliation of the votes at each of the tables under this system?
Senior Policy Advisor, Privy Council Office
Elections Canada already has a process for reconciling all ballots at the end of each polling day, so the same process will be extended to the size of a polling station.
