Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2018

[Trevor Knight]

—with all the information.

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

Is that your reading as well, Mr. Sampson?

[Robert Sampson]

Yes, and my only comment is that it requires the documents themselves to be published. This is the point. We would be required to publish—

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

You wouldn't be able to redact an address, for example.

[Robert Sampson]

—and we would also lose the ability.... Well, we would publish the documents, and then we would also translate them, I guess, into a form that is more accessible.

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

A searchable form.

I know we're getting some comment from Mr. Morin, but that would be.... I broadly support the initiative of more transparency and searchability. If there's an unintended consequence of then also producing street address information—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I read it the way they did too.

Mr. Nater, you had a question.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes. Thank you, Chair.

It's just a clarification. As is the case now, receipts, vouchers, invoices, none of that is published online. Is that correct?

[Trevor Knight]

That's correct.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Would it be in a case such as this?

[Trevor Knight]

Well, not the way this is written because the reference of subsection 477.59(1) is to the declarations of the official agent and the candidate, the return itself, and the auditor's report. Those documents, I guess, would be published, but the vouchers, which are the documents you're talking about, the supporting documents are in subsection (2), so they wouldn't be published online under this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Stephanie.

[Stephanie Kusie]

The law at present is under public availability. A returning officer who receives documents under subsection (1) shall, on request, make them available for six months for public inspection at any reasonable time. Copies may be obtained for a fee of up to 25¢ per page.

[LCdr Jean-François Morin]

I would like to make a few comments on that. The first comment is the current obligation for the Chief Electoral Officer to publish the information that is found at paragraph 382(1)(a) of the act. That is, as Trevor was referring to, the publication in the manner that the Chief Electoral Officer considers appropriate.

With regard to the specific provision that is being modified here by the motion, Bill C-76 was recommending the repeal of section 383. This was a recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer in his latest recommendations report because, as we read section 383 right now, it contains a mistake. It was amended by mistake in 2015, whereby subsection 383(2) is kind of out of place and doesn't make sense in the context. Also, generally section 383 was about the consultation of these candidates' returns at the returning officer's office, and the Chief Electoral Officer has indicated in his latest recommendations report that nowadays, as these returns are available online, this consultation in person at the returning officer's office seems pretty unnecessary.

Finally, on the motion itself, my colleague Robert alluded to that, but all government institutions that have a website, including Elections Canada, are required to make all documents readable in accessible formats for persons with disabilities. The PDF documents represent a very specific problem because often, as in the case of financial returns, those would be scanned copies, so the document would not be readable in a machine-readable format. This would require Elections Canada to create a translation, word for word, of what appears in the entire document for each and every election return. That would represent a very heavy burden for the organization.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Chair, I'm going to propose a subamendment that I hope will help with some of the concerns, that amendment CPC-118 be amended by replacing the words “subsection 477.59(1)” with the words “subsections 477.59(3) and (4)”.

That would give us the information we're looking for but would still maintain that first part, which had the street addresses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Graham.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Could our witnesses give their interpretation of the effect of this, before we go further?

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

Does getting rid of subsection (1) and adding (3) and (4) address the issue?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

[Inaudible—Editor] and it's not searchable and is adding an extra burden, but it might address the issue.

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

It's not available. I think the level of detail they're looking at is not available right now—the voucher report, which is the receipt level. That is my understanding.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Let's see what they have to say.

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

They're not talking to us, so I figured we should just talk about it and figure it out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

While the officials are figuring that out, I have a question for Ms. May.

Do you want us to finish your amendment before we break for food so that you can go, or are you planning on staying?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

That's really something I hate to ask you guys to do. You're probably desperate for a break and would probably like to have your food.