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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Stéphane Perrault  Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Hon. David Johnston  Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Good morning.

Welcome to the 152nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

We had discussions with all parties, and if it's okay with everyone, we will proceed with 45 minutes for each set of witnesses because we have two sets and a half hour less.

Is that okay with everyone?

Very well.

This morning, we are continuing our study on the main estimates for 2019-20, vote 1 under Office of the Chief Electoral Officer.

The witnesses are from Elections Canada. We have Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer; Michel Roussel, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Electoral Events and Innovation; and Hughes St-Pierre, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Internal Services.

Thank you for being here today.

I will now hand the floor over to you, Mr. Perrault. You may go ahead with your presentation.

May 2nd, 2019 / 11:25 a.m.

Stéphane Perrault Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a pleasure to be before the committee today to present Elections Canada's main estimates and plans for 2019-20. This appearance also provides the opportunity to update committee members on the implementation of Bill C-76 and, above all, our final preparations for the general election.

Today, the committee is voting on Election Canada's annual appropriation, which is $39.2 million and represents the salaries of some 440 indeterminate positions. This is an increase of $8.4 million over last year's appropriation. As I indicated when I last appeared before this committee, the increase is essentially a rebalancing of the agency's budgets, moving expenses for terms and contract resources out of the statutory authority and into the annual appropriation in order to fund indeterminate resources. It does not represent any spending increase overall. In fact, it results in a slight spending reduction.

Combined with our statutory authority, which funds all other expenditures under the Canada Elections Act, our 2019-20 main estimates total $493.2 million. This includes $398 million for the October 21 election, which represents the direct election delivery costs that will be incurred in this fiscal year.

Our most recent estimates indicate that total expenditures for the 43rd general election will be some $500 million. The expenditures may vary due to various factors such as the duration of the campaign.

I note that, while preparing our budgets last fall, we had estimated the cost of the election at some $470 million. The difference is mainly due to Bill C-76—$21 million—which had not been passed at the time of preparing our estimates and therefore had not been taken into account.

Elections Canada continues to implement Bill C-76 and bring into force its provisions as preparations are completed.

Following my last appearance, the new privacy policy requirements for political parties, the administrative reintegration of the Commissioner of Canada Elections within the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, as well as the establishment of the new register of future electors, came into force on April 1.

On May 11, the changes brought by Bill C-76 for electors residing outside Canada will also come into force. The balance of other provisions will come into force in June. From an electoral operation perspective, Elections Canada will then be ready to conduct the election with the required Bill C-76 changes. Our applications, training and instructions will have been updated, tested and ready for use.

In terms of regulatory activities, all guidance on political financing will be finalized and published prior to the beginning of the pre-writ period on June 30. Leading up to that date, we will continue consulting parties on various products through the opinions, guidelines and interpretation notes process.

The agency is also gearing up to complete the audits of political entity returns following the election. We are expecting increases in the audit work stemming from the new requirements introduced by Bill C-76, notably for third parties, as well as the removal of the $1,000 deposit for candidates.

Despite this increase, we aim to reduce the time required to complete the audit of candidate returns by 30% in order to improve transparency and ensure more timely reimbursements. To achieve this, we are implementing a streamlined risk-based audit plan.

A key priority as part of our final preparations is to further improve the quality of the list of electors. Every year some three million Canadians move, 300,000 pass away, more than 100,000 become citizens, and 400,000 turn 18. This translates roughly into 70,000 changes in any given week.

To ensure the accuracy of the register, Elections Canada regularly draws on multiple data sources from more than 40 provincial and federal bodies as well as from information provided directly by Canadians, mostly online. This will be facilitated by recent improvements made to our online registration systems to capture non-standard addresses and upload identification documents.

With the enactment of Bill C-76, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is now able to share information about permanent residents and foreign nationals. This provides Elections Canada with a much-needed tool to address the long-recognized issue of non-citizens appearing on the register of electors. This spring, we expect to remove approximately 100,000 records as a result.

We have also recently written to 250,000 households for which we believe we have records that need correction. Efforts to improve the accuracy of the list of electors will continue and will be supported by a new pre-writ campaign to encourage Canadians to verify and update their information over the spring and the summer.

On April 18 the agency concluded an extensive three-week election simulation exercise in five electoral districts. The simulation allowed us to test our business processes, handbooks and IT systems in a setting that closely resembles that of an actual election. Election workers were hired and trained, and they participated in simulated voting exercises that factored in changes introduced by Bill C-76. This exercise also gave some of our new returning officers the opportunity to observe local office operations and exchange with more experienced colleagues.

Overall, the simulation exercise confirmed our readiness level while identifying a few areas in which we need to refine some of our procedures, instructions and applications. The final adjustments will be made this spring.

With the assurance provided by our simulation and most recent by-elections, I have a high level of confidence in our state of readiness and our tools to deliver this election.

From an electoral security perspective, the agency is engaged this spring in a number of scenario exercises with the Commissioner of Canada Elections and Canada's lead security agencies to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear and that proper governance is established to coordinate our actions. As indicated in the Communications Security Establishment's most recent report, Canada is not immune to cyber-threats and disinformation.

Since the last general election, a wide range of organizations, including Elections Canada, have worked to adapt to the new context and strengthen Canada's democratic resilience in the face of these evolving threats. Elections Canada and its security partners approach the next general election with a new level of vigilance and awareness and unprecedented level of co-operation.

General elections are one of Canada's largest civic events. Our role is to provide a trusted and accessible voting service to 27 million electors in some 338 electoral districts. lt involves hiring and training more than 300,000 poll workers deployed in more than 70,000 polls across the country. Our returning officers have been continually engaged in improvements planned for the next election. I had the opportunity to meet with our field personnel across Canada. I can assure you that they are engaged, ready and resolved in their commitment to provide electors and candidates with outstanding service.

Mr. Chair, I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee members may have.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Thank you very much. It's great to have you back again. We have a great working relationship.

We'll go to Mr. Simms for seven minutes.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

I'm going to be sharing my time with Mr. Graham.

First of all, welcome back, as always. I want to talk about some of the good things you've done over the past little while: the new policy requirements for political parties, the register of future electors and of course the administrative reintegration of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, which I think was something very important for them to do their jobs.

In the meantime, one new element of Bill C-76 that many people had questions about was the ramifications, both financial and administrative, for what we now know as the pre-writ period.

Can you comment on that, please?

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

We have new rules that will be in place for June 30. They're not in force right now; that period starts at that point in time. At that point there are now extensive rules for third parties on the one hand to cover all of their partisan expenditures and rules for parties to limit their partisan advertising expenses, which covers only the direct advertising. This is a new feature that we did not have in previous elections.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Okay.

Let me return to the future electors list, which is also a new process. Can you describe how it's going? I know, as of April 1, it's now in force. However, what do you have left to do to make sure this is ready for the coming fall election?

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

The register is in place. Right now, we are not very actively pursuing registration of future electors. We are mostly going to focus on that after the election.

We are receiving. It is up and running, but our energy is not focused on the registration of future voters; it is focused on the register of electors for this election.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Yes, understood. I think Mr. Graham is going to touch on that issue in just a moment—not to presuppose what he is going to ask, but I just did.

I want to get back to another issue. That is, during the last iteration of what was called the Fair Elections Act, Elections Canada found itself constrained in what it could communicate with the public. It's very important that Elections Canada be more outgoing. Certainly it would be great for Elections Canada to be communicating more broadly with the people about the importance of their constitutional right.

Can you tell us some of the things you are doing to reach out to people? I understand about the list itself and cleaning up the list, but what are some of the things you are doing to communicate to people about the vote itself that is coming up in the fall?

11:35 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

During the writ period itself, we are not changing our approach. During the election period we're focusing strictly on providing information about where and when to register and to vote. That is our focus.

What has changed somewhat is that before the writ period we can now speak more broadly about the electoral process, including to voters, not just non-voters. One of the things we are doing, which I mentioned in my speech, is a pre-writ campaign to promote registration. We want to have Canadians register and update their information, so prior to the writ period we will have an influencer campaign to promote registration and voting. That will run starting this spring and this summer but will stop in the writ period.

We are also going to have a campaign on social media literacy to talk about disinformation, the risk of disinformation and making sure that Canadians check their sources when they go online on social media.

Those are the basic new things we're doing.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Thank you.

My remaining time can go to Mr. Graham.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

You have three minutes.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

As I recall, we've changed the rules a bit on foreign electors. Can you tell me the level of interest you're getting, if there is much, from potential foreign electors?

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

In terms of the new rules, it's a bit of a complicated process, because there was a ruling by the Supreme Court in February that allows Canadians abroad, who have resided in Canada, to vote notwithstanding the fact that they've been abroad for any number of years. Since that time, based on that ruling, we've received up to 2,000 new Canadians-abroad registrations. Half of them are from people who have been away for more than five years.

On May 11, the new rules will kick in, so that will change and restrict the ability of voters to choose where they can vote. Under the old regime, they could choose a number of places where they could vote; under the new rules, they have to vote at their place of last ordinary residence in Canada. That will kick in on May 11.

In terms of numbers, we've seen some increase but nothing very dramatic.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Okay.

In your comments, you talked about the 70,000 changes per week to the voters list, which is obviously significant. If I were to look at a voters list on any given day, what would you say is the percentage of accuracy of that list?

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

You have roughly 10,000 changes that happen in any given day. The accuracy of the list evolves as we get closer to the election. At the time we began the last election, the accuracy was around 91.5%, and it ended up around 94.5%.

Based on the number of activities we're doing right now, I'm quite optimistic that we will be at a higher level when we start this election than in the last one, but it's something we'll have to measure then.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Okay. I have a minute.

You talked about cyber-threats. I'm not sure that's a public discussion. It should probably have been an in camera discussion. Is there material that we would find useful to have in camera during this meeting?

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

Not really. We had to make a lot of changes to our IT infrastructure just because it had become obsolete. We had the opportunity this cycle to take advantage of that, to renew our IT infrastructure in a way that meets security standards. We have been working quite closely with the CSE to provide us advice on how to do that and make sure that our suppliers are trustworthy, and so forth.

We have, then, been working with them, and that really is the main thing.

The other thing I would add is that we have been doing training for all of our personnel at headquarters and in the field. You can invest enormous amounts of money in IT security, but if somebody clicks on a link, that compromises everything, so many of our efforts have been on awareness. We have many workers during an election at headquarters, and there are people in the field using computers. We want to make sure that everybody who has a computer is trained to recognize phishing attempts, for example.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

And foreign influence is not your bailiwick.

My time is up. Thank you.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Welcome, Pierre Poilievre, to the committee, for seven minutes.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

SNC-Lavalin falsified documents to funnel more than $100,000 in illegal money through 18 company officials to the Liberal Party. Do you support the commissioner's decision to let the company off without charges?

11:40 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

I am not aware of the details of the investigation or of all the circumstances that informed this decision. What I can say on this is what is on the public record, which is that the seriousness of the offence is one factor but is not the only factor in making the decision to prosecute or take other steps, such as a compliance agreement. The commissioner has been explicit on that.

One factor, for example, is the availability of evidence. Is there evidence that could support a criminal prosecution? If there is not such evidence, then that's the end of the avenue for prosecution.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

On that point, the CBC did a documentary, and it discovered a list of employees through whom the money was funnelled. I am going to quote:

All of the former SNC-Lavalin employees and spouses named in the list who spoke to The Fifth Estate...said they were not contacted by the Commissioner of Canada Elections to let them know their names were on the document.

These are the people through whom the illegal donations were funnelled. You say there's no evidence. How could you possibly conclude that, when none of the people who were used to funnel the illegal donations were even contacted?

11:45 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

I did not speak to the existence of evidence in that particular file. I said that this is one factor in general that the commissioner takes into account. I'm not aware of the evidence that was available in that file or the evidence in particular that relates to any of these individuals.

11:45 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Well there's plenty of evidence, in fact, the company has now conceded that it had generated fictitious bonuses and other benefits which, according to information obtained in the context of the commissioner's investigation, were of a total value of $117,803. That is evidence; that is known.

Knowing this, do you still support your commissioner's decision not to pursue the matter in court?

11:45 a.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

As I said, I cannot pronounce on that. I do not, by institutional design, have access to the information.