Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I just want to get into more detail about the technology that you're talking about. It's very interesting to me. This committee has been talking a lot about modernizing Parliament. We also need to modernize our electoral system, that's for sure. I heard from a lot of people on my campaign who had perhaps come from other countries in the past, and found our system to be very archaic, very old-fashioned. At times I said that perhaps it was due to concerns about voter fraud or whatnot, and they hadn't perfected a system that worked at this point.

What are the systems that you allude to in your report here, and how can these make our system more effective, more modern, and easier for the average voter? Maybe we could perhaps get more people out to the polls if it were simplified.

[Marc Mayrand]

We need to expand electronic services across the board—including for candidates, honestly. I don't see any reason in this day and age that a candidate cannot file their campaign return electronically. I think that should be a given, but it's not yet, unfortunately.

In terms of the polls—and we'll have further discussion on these things—we certainly would look to bring what we call “live lists” at the polls. You have the electronic lists available at the polls. That means that someone who is showing up at the poll shows a voter ID card. The card is scanned, their name is struck out of the list immediately, and automatically it's valid across the country, so that person cannot show up somewhere else later during the day. As a result of that, they get their ballot. We could consider entering them into a tabulator, so, again, the results would be instant on election night. Mind you, it doesn't take very long, as we speak, in our current system.

The other thing that we need to look at is automating procedures. If you have voted at an advance poll, you know that electors, when they show up, have to prove their ID, etc. Then their name has to be searched in a big paper document, and they have to enter the name and address and they have to sign. There's no reason in this day and age that it still needs to happen this way. We would be looking at automation. There are good reasons that controls are in place: to ensure that the vote is reliable. However, but I think there are big opportunities for automation and better service at the polls.

We need to reduced lineups. I think that was an issue at advance polls because more and more Canadians went to vote at advance polls. We need to find ways of alleviating the procedural burden that is in place at advance polls.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

What challenges have you faced when trying to implement this new technology? I'm surprised in this last election we didn't update our system.

[Marc Mayrand]

Well, a simple thing like getting rid of the register of electors at advance polls needs a change to the act. This is the level of prescription that exists in the legislation. It's the act that requires the elector to sign the register at advance polls. Automation there cannot take place without some sorts of amendments.

We also need to be able to reorganize the work at the poll. Currently the model is anchored on a ballot box, and two officers controlling that ballot box at all times. The officer cannot move around, even though it's busier next door, and electors cannot move around. Even though all the other tables are free, they still have to wait for their turn. I think we can reorganize the work differently so that we specialize tasks, which would allow more flexibility for electors to move around, and also more flexibility for officials to go where the bulk of the work is happening during the day. Again, at advance polls, I think the most telling image we have is of people all lined up at a single table. We need to get rid of that image, hopefully for the 43rd election.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

When was the last time the act was amended?

[Marc Mayrand]

In 2010 with Bill C-23—

[Hughes St-Pierre, Chief Financial and Planning Officer, Integrated Services, Policy and Public Affairs, Elections Canada]

In 2014.

[Marc Mayrand]

Oh, sorry. Yes, it was 2014.

The act has been repeatedly amended, but without a single focus or prism of modernization in those reviews. It was often in reaction to particular issues that emerged and fixing that issue without taking a step back and saying, “Well, let's rethink the service model here”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll now go to Mr. Strahl.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Continuing with that thought about technology in the polling stations, I would submit that in my riding certainly, many of the people who are available to work on elections perhaps haven't had experience with technology. They're perhaps retired, or part-time workers who aren't as fluent in the language of technology. Would we be looking at hiring the same...?

I guess my concern would be this. Would you not need permanent or contract employees for this? I just see that in the attempt to make it more efficient, there could be disastrous results if there were not someone there who could handle the problem.

[Marc Mayrand]

I wouldn't minimize the change management aspect in this and the impact on the workforce. We would need to have expert resources to support the technology on the premises. It will be costly the first few times we run this model, but will ease after a while.

There are ways of designing technology that's so user-friendly you don't need to be an expert. Filling in a form electronically can be easier than filling it in on paper, honestly.

But these are fair considerations that we will have in mind as we go forward.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

There was another concern I had during the election. You mentioned your work with the AFN. Obviously we all applaud the work to get more people out to the polls no matter where they're from. The AFN took a very aggressive political stance at their highest levels in a kind of “anyone but Conservative” perspective. That was made known by the National Chief, etc.

My question is this. When you are working with an organization, that is a political organization, to increase voter turnout, how do you protect the integrity of Elections Canada from any allegation or perception that it would advantage one political entity over another?

[Marc Mayrand]

There are a few things here. We did work with some 50 organizations during this election, including, yes, the AFN. With each of the organizations, all the contractual arrangements required that they be independent and impartial during the election. Yes, their members could have very different political views, like any organization, but the organization itself had no particular leaning.

The other thing is that with those organizations, not necessarily trying.... I don't want to take responsibility for turnout. But they work to make sure that electors, Canadians, whatever their conditions are, have the information they need if they wish to vote. There are certain groups that are less likely to be registered, so we make efforts to help those groups around registration. Some groups face challenges with identification, so we make sure they know what their options are if they show up at the poll.

The AFN was basically maintaining a call centre to chiefs across the country, informing them of the tools available to inform their people about how, where, and when to vote.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I have one final question. In your remarks you mentioned that we could “bring the electoral process, currently anchored in the 19th century, in line with contemporary Canadian expectations.” I guess my question is, how do you make the determination as to what contemporary Canadian expectations are?

[Marc Mayrand]

In our next report, I think you will see what Canadians have been telling us about the electoral process.

We already can see that Canadians increasingly want to move when and where they are ready. We've seen over the last few decades a significant increase of voter turnout at advance polls. This was initially set up as an exception, and now it's becoming increasingly the norm. This time around, 25% of all Canadian voters showed up at advance polls. That's telling us something. I cannot keep the same system at advance polls, which is billed as an exception, when an increasing bulk of electors want to use that option. Similarly, we had a 117% increase in voting by mail—in this day and age, yes. This is a channel that Canadians want to use, so I have to make sure that the channel works effectively in that regard. Canadians are increasingly upset—I mentioned it a few times now already—when they show up at the gymnasium and have to wait in line while all the other tables are free. Again, it adds up very quickly. We estimate that serving an electorate at an advance poll takes roughly 10 to 15 minutes. If you have 10 people ahead of you, and you're the eleventh, imagine the time it takes. If you see three or four tables that are free, why can't you go to them? If I show up at any store—Walmart in this country—I'll go to the checkout that is available. Why can I not do that? That's my experience as a citizen, as a consumer; I can go where I can get the fastest service.

Those expectations will be articulated better by Canadians themselves through the various studies that we've carried out in the last several months. You will be able to see them and all the background documentation there sometime in June, I hope.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We're running short of time.

Mr. Chan.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Let me simply thank you, Mr. Mayrand, and your staff for your professionalism.

I really have no substantive questions with respect to the main estimates.

I want to get back to some of the issues that Mr. Reid was raising. I share a lot of his concerns, frankly, with respect to my party and our government's aggressive timetable for potential electoral reform, in particular, our commitment to ending the first-past-the-post system by 2019. It gets back to the beginning of your earlier comments about the strategic planning process for your organization, and whether you have modelled out all of the potential scenarios and can give this committee a sense of the potential estimated costs, depending ultimately on what Parliament decides with respect to an electoral reform model that will be advanced. You've given us a sense of some of the timelines but also the necessary resources, particularly in terms of sufficient fiscal appropriation, to deal with all of these potential scenarios. Are you already thinking about that within your organization, within your strategic planning process, to deal with that? I suspect that we're talking about some potentially significant sums of money.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, especially the investment in technology that's likely to be needed to support any system reform. We are in the very early stages of our strategic plan. It hasn't been cast out fully yet. We have a sense of where we want to go, but we want to engage this committee and other political parties on our direction in modernizing services. As we progress, we will be costing those initiatives.

As for the reform itself, at this point in time I don't have enough information to be able to cost anything.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Would it be potentially useful to have any or some of the technological reforms that you're discussing, for example, tested in a by-election context? It would be a more prescribed test case. Are there any recommendations that you could make to this committee in terms of considerations that we could test?

[Marc Mayrand]

This is something we hope to be able to discuss a bit with you on May 3. One thing we would like to do, and traditionally have always done, is test new systems before we distribute them across a general election. We would be testing, either in a laboratory or during a by-election, the systems, the procedures, the training—everything—to make sure that it's as smooth as possible on election day. If we have reservations as a result of a test, we would not proceed during a general election. We would not put the election at risk, that's for sure.

The short answer is yes, we will be planning tests as we progress. In some cases, I may even need to come to this committee for formal approval, because whenever the tests involve changes to the act, I would need the approval of this committee—and the Senate, in fact—before proceeding with what we call a “pilot”. We would, then, bring a business case and a good description of what the test is about and what it's trying to measure.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I think it would be very useful to committee members—and frankly to both Houses of Parliament an opportunity—to have a sense of particularly the issues you want to prescribe, so that we can give you the necessary authority in advance.

We certainly on the government side would be amenable to recommendations that you see, particularly as a result of any deficiencies in the most recent general election, could be addressed. We would be very amenable to recommendations coming from your office.

[Marc Mayrand]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson, if you can—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I see the clock. I will keep this brief.

How obscene it is, though, that changes to our electoral system have to be approved by the place where they knock on one door once for life.

Speaking to the vote, the actual estimates—the reason you're here—does the $29.2 million you're seeking support for in vote 1 in the main estimates speak to your operational budget? Is that correct—it's not your election budget?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you are actually one of the few entities in government with access to unlimited money during the course of an election. If you need to spend it, you're accountable for it, but you have the authority to spend it. Do I have it right, sir?