Evidence of meeting #152 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 commissioner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
I also believe that it was in 2012. I believe that was a few years before this government was elected, as a first point.
The next point is that the honourable member from Carleton has mentioned and has criticized Elections Canada as really “a Liberal black dog”. Would you care to comment on that?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
I'm sorry, that is false.
As a point of order, I said “lap dog”, not “black dog”.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Oh, I'm sorry, Mister. I have a transcript in front of me. It says “black dog”, but we'll go with “lap dog”.
Would you care to comment on that?
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Looking around the world, do you have any concerns with elected officials calling into question the integrity of impartial elected officials?
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
The job of Elections Canada is to remain independent and be a beacon to Canadians, but also a beacon to other countries, because we've heard from other individuals at this committee that Elections Canada has a strong profile around the world because of the regulations in place and because of the reputation of Elections Canada—not just this current administration's, but going back many decades.
Is that the role you seek to maintain as Chief Electoral Officer?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
We have a strong tradition in Canada. We will be celebrating next year our 100th anniversary, “we” being Elections Canada. One hundred years ago, Canada chose to create an independent chief electoral officer. It was the first country in the world to do that, and it's been considered ever since a model around the world in terms of the independence of the office. It's something we're very proud of.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Before the commissioner was moved back to Elections Canada under Bill C-76, can you remind us where the commissioner was previously housed?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Until recently, he was within the office of the DPP, the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
That's interesting, that he was with the Director of Public Prosecutions. It's also interesting that the opposition is calling, seemingly, for interference in a prosecution, which is ironic, given the debate in this city over other issues the past few months ago.
I appreciate that you don't want to comment and shouldn't comment—and I respect that—on this prosecution. Would you care to comment on the compliance—?
Mr, Chris Bittle
I don't know, Mr. Poilievre. I think in this committee we wait for each other to finish, but I know you're new and that this is your first time being here.
Would you care to comment on the compliance agreement between the Commissioner of Canada Elections and Mr. Poilievre that was signed in 2017?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
For the very same reason that I will not comment on the SNC-Lavalin compliance agreement, I will not comment on that compliance agreement or any compliance agreement.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
I appreciate that. It's interesting that Mr. Poilievre, in his glass house over there, is throwing stones. I guess he didn't question whether he should have his day in court to hear this out. I appreciate that he may be up for the Nobel Prize in irony, in coming here today to make this criticism.
I have a few minutes left. I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Simms.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
I found it very ironic. I hope I got this correct, but Mr. Poilievre mentioned the independence. Listen, I'm all for that. As a former critic.... About the commissioner returning to Elections Canada, it was never suggested by them. It was a decision that we wanted to make as a party, and on becoming government, we wanted to return to that for the independence. I agree with him, but I found it ironic that his very last comment there was about telling this man to tell the commissioner about SNC-Lavalin.
You should have that conversation with him.
They're either independent or they're not, which is what Mr. Poilievre suggested. That's unfortunate. As Mr. Christopherson likes to say, I mean, come along.
Anyway, thank you very much.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
I'll move on to another point.
Getting back to the topic at hand, I'd like to ask questions about the simulations and how those ran. I was wondering if you could expand on that a bit, please.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Certainly. It's something that we've done once in the past on a much smaller scale. This time around, we essentially opened five returning offices. We deployed the technology. A lot of our systems are new. We trained the personnel to work on that technology, to use it. We simulated complaints and public inquiries. We tested the governance, not just the systems and the response. They interacted with headquarters, for instance, on those issues. As I said, they hired personnel. They trained them.
Just like in a real election context, they go home for a few days after the training. When they come back, it's not just right after the training. They will have forgotten a few things. Then we run simulations of different kinds of voter ID issues and of people registering in order to make sure they understand the procedures and they run them well. Then we make adjustments to our training as necessary. We also ran scenarios of the wrong things happening. People were not aware of what those scenarios would be, so they had to respond appropriately.
It's a comprehensive test of the systems, the governance, the procedures and the training that go into an election.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
I only have a few seconds left. In which regions of the country did you operate these?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
There were five: New Brunswick, Montreal—in Outremont, Toronto, Winnipeg and Ottawa.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Thank you very much, Chair.
I certainly would like to thank the honourable member for Carleton for being here today to bring these occurrences to light, and I have to say that I have a lot of respect for the Chief Electoral Officer. As a former diplomat, I can see that he's being very gracious in his responses and is certainly doing his best to answer the questions without any overreach for his counterpart, the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
However, it seems to be, following upon the questioning of my colleague, the honourable member for Carleton, that it's necessary to go beyond the responses of the Chief Electoral Officer here. He has indeed indicated that if it is the will of the committee we certainly can ask these questions of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
As such, Chair, I would like to move the following motion, which is now being table-dropped in both official languages.
I would like to move a motion that the Commissioner of Canada Elections appear before the procedure and House affairs committee on our study of the estimates.
I am moving this motion at this time, Chair, and would like to open it up to debate. Thank you.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
We should be playing the Jeopardy! song in the background.
