Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 18th, 2018

[Trevor Knight]

My understanding is that there was a discussion before we attended, about adding an additional amendment bringing back the requirement of the returning officers to provide, upon request, bingo sheets in their paper form after the election.

Just going back, in terms of our general recommendation, what existed in the past was that on polling day, every hour, the bingo sheets were given out to representatives. Then there was a requirement on the returning officer to provide copies of all the bingo sheets to candidates and parties after the election. We found that to be quite a burden on the returning officers. Many of them were unable to do that. Therefore, our proposal has been to have a process much like this, where Elections Canada would centralize that process afterwards and make that happen.

Generally, we would not be as concerned about this as the continuing obligation on the returning officer to provide the paper bingo sheets.

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

Essentially, there is no paper backup. This will be centralized through Elections Canada. That's the cumulated list. The parties will be given those hourly bingo sheets.

Technically, why was that such a burden? It seems that you're just accumulating them all together, and then providing them once from the returning officer. Why was that found to be so difficult?

[Robert Sampson]

Partially it's an issue of volume. We're talking about maybe 3,000 sheets of paper.

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

How many?

[Robert Sampson]

Maybe 3,000 sheets per electoral district, or a little less. Let's say, 12 sheets per polling division and approximately 200 polling divisions, so that's 2,400 sheets, which, just to note, means a little less than 800,000 sheets of paper would be coming to Elections Canada after the election.

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

Currently, that's what happens.

[Robert Sampson]

Yes.

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

That part is not going to change with this amendment, is it?

[Robert Sampson]

They're no longer election documents, so they won't be retained in the same way, but in order to make them available, yes, they would be coming back.

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

That will be status quo.

[Robert Sampson]

That's correct.

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

That's 800,000 pages back to Elections Canada, give or take.

[Robert Sampson]

Yes, more or less.

[Trevor Knight]

Our comment is not a concern about this amendment. I believe this amendment reflects what our intention always was. I just want to highlight that the concern we raised that led us to recommend a process such as this, where it was centralized, was the burden on the returning officers. That's just a matter of their closing down their offices, having very limited resources and having to keep on staff, and that type of thing, to perform that.

As you say, it's only a few thousand pieces of paper, but it involves a gathering together, and often these things have been filed incorrectly. Putting that all together is more difficult in the timelines they're working on, because they have their offices rented for a very limited time—

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

As well, there's the time to shut it all down.

[Trevor Knight]

—and they don't have staff afterwards. Really, the burden on them was what inspired us to seek that this only be done centrally.

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

Mr. Morin, were you trying to jump in there? Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Could one person explain, in one sentence, what a bingo sheet is, just in case someone, 20 years from now, reads this and thinks we're talking about bingo?

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

I can explain it, because I was the data director for more campaigns than I can count.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

David, you have one sentence.

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

Every poll has a list of electors who are registered, and each person has a number associated to them. The bingo sheet just says by poll number and by voter number who voted in the previous hour. It's a big sheet with about 500 numbers on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

We will vote on Liberal-61.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 371 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 372)

Clause 372 has six amendments. The first one is CPC-188.

Would you like to present that, Stephanie?

[Stephanie Kusie]

Essentially it is, as verbatim within the amendment:

(5) No solemn declaration made under this Act shall be invalid, void or voidable because the person making it added or spoke words or used forms or mannerisms normally associated with an oath.

That solemn declaration's not void due to oath-like words or mannerisms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Graham.

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

As it's worded, as I understand it, if somebody makes an oath, and completely messes it up and swears to hand out everything they learned to whoever they want, this would not invalidate it because they didn't.... Is that not correct?