Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Marc Mayrand]

No.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

—or to Parliament directly—

[Marc Mayrand]

No.

I'll let you finish.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

No?

Okay, so it was moved from that to the office of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

What impact do you think that is going to have on the ability for enforcement, if there are breaches of the Elections Act?

[Marc Mayrand]

Again, just to be clear, the commissioner's office was moved from Elections Canada to the DPP office. It is reporting through the DPP and through the Attorney General. It's not an office of Parliament, so it doesn't report directly to Parliament. That's one thing.

The other thing is that in terms of the effectiveness, the commissioner is still independent and has the resources to carry out investigations. I think one of the things he has repeatedly said is that it would considerably make investigations more effective and more timely if he had the power to compel witnesses, with full respect and due respect for the Charter of Rights, of course, as it exists for the federal bodies that do have the power to compel.

In future recommendations to this Parliament, we will go back and look at some of the offences and some of the mechanisms to ensure compliance. One of the considerations is that there are many, many offences that are technical and do not warrant the full load of a criminal investigation. I think that filing a return late by a month is an offence; I'm not sure it warrants a full-load investigation of that matter.

We're going to come back and propose some alternatives to enforcement mechanisms in due course.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I look forward to those recommendations. Thank you.

I didn't mention that I'm splitting my time with Ginette Petitpas Taylor.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Mayrand.

Since I am a new parliamentarian, my questions may be very straightforward. I will put them to you.

I was wondering what the biggest challenges were for your organization during the latest election. I am well aware that you will publish another report in a few months, but perhaps you could give me a general overview of the challenges you faced.

[Marc Mayrand]

I identified two major risks prior to the election.

The first one had to do with technology, as we made many technological changes during the last election. That risk was managed well, and there were no material consequences on the election. The other risk had to do with potential confusion among voters given the many changes made to the Elections Act and numerous public debates that I feel may have created confusion. I am talking about identification rules, among other things. Generally speaking, I think we managed to use our education and advertising programs to inform the electors, but this remains a challenge. We have a complex identification system where 44 different pieces of identification can be used, as well as combinations thereof. People are often surprised that a passport is not enough to be able to vote in Canada. So there is still some confusion, but things went fairly well, generally speaking. The electors understood the situation.

As I mentioned, according to the preliminary studies—and we have not yet completed our analyses—it is clear that some groups of voters are more affected. I am thinking of young people, among others. The Statistics Canada survey seems to indicate that mostly young people had difficulty meeting the requirements in terms of identification and proof of address. Aboriginals also had problems with that. Therefore, some groups are more affected than the rest of Canadians.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

That was actually my second question.

I was wondering whether the 170,000 individuals who said they were unable to vote belonged to an ethnic group or another particular group. The region where those people live is also a consideration. Have any surveys been done on that?

[Marc Mayrand]

No, the survey does not make it possible to identify geographical differences or even groups. The only group that is really identified more reliably is that of young people aged 18 to 24. The survey also indicated that a high proportion of aboriginals were affected, but the number of individuals surveyed creates a fairly significant margin or error. So this should be taken with a grain of salt. According to our empirical evidence, for example, voting is a challenge for aboriginals. They often simply have no address. Those who live on reserves just don't have an address. They often have very few documents that meet the legal identification requirements. So that is still a challenge, and that is why we worked with the AFN and band chiefs from across the country to try to facilitate the application of those rules.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll go to Mr. Reid, for a five-minute round.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Mayrand, I was just trying to do some mathematics relating to the timeline for a new voting system, assuming that we're looking at a voting system that involves triggering the redistribution process, which of course means every system other than preferential ballots in single-member districts.

The election is to take place near the end of October 2019. Assuming the writ consumes a month, we go back to September 2019. You mentioned training. How long would training be? You said the time; was it one month?

[Marc Mayrand]

Most of the training for poll workers happens during the campaign month.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Is it during that month? You don't have to add that on, then.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, but the returning officers will have a significant learning curve to go through, and their key staff also. That kind of training takes place normally in the year—six or seven months prior to the writ's being issued.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right.

We would be looking under STV at ridings that are about four or five times the size—that's typical of STV, four- or five-member ridings—that they are now. If it's MMP, they'd probably be twice the size they are now. That gives a rough idea.

Okay, so we're not sure, but it would be some amount of time. I said about a month. Maybe that's unreasonably short.

For implementation, you indicated it would take six months. I'm going backwards: September, August.... Now we're at February 2019. Seventeen months of design puts it back to, I think, about October—maybe it's November—of 2016. The legislation that we need to set up the new system, including a change to the redistribution act, I'm assuming would take six months. Thus, we're now back to the end of the spring of 2017.

You can see what I'm trying to do: I'm trying to figure out when we have to have some kind of proposal moving forward to make sure it can actually happen, or else we have only one possible outcome, which is a preferential ballot in a single-member district.

Have I missed anything? Does that cover all the different things that have to be accomplished in order to actually have an STV or an MMP in place for 2019?

[Marc Mayrand]

The main aspect for us is getting the legislation in place, which allows us to determine what sort of operating system needs to be built or rearranged, depending on the scope of the changes. After that, you need to develop the whole training and all the instructions and procedures—and I should say, for the returning officers and their staff and for poll workers, but also, I believe, for candidates and campaigns; there will be quite a few changes we need to look at there also.

As it goes on, this would be done in parallel, possibly, with a redistribution taking place. There are some elements, subject to what exactly the reform is, that could be started a little bit before the redistribution is completed.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

For example, the instructions on how one votes under a list system could be designed. You don't need to know.... That would be an example.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes. In addition, there's also the whole technology aspect. If we move to a system like the one you just described, you need to bring tabulators to the polls; you will need to bring very different technology. In fact, there's very little technology, as we speak, at the poll.

Those machines have to be procured, of course, and they have to be tested, they have to be set up, they have to be verified to make sure they work on polling day and are accurate and reliable. And we need to have contingency plans, if a machine should fail. There are all sorts of minutiae that we need to look at.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Just to be clear as to what you're referring to, is that for STV, or is it for MMP? You mentioned the tabulation.

[Marc Mayrand]

I would say both. The systems are different, but both would require technology at the polls to compute the results. I'm assuming that Canadians and candidates will want the results as quickly as possible. There are countries in which you'll wait for a few weeks to get the results. I assume that this is not a standard for Canada.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

In Australia, in their senate elections, for example, you pack yourself a lunch, if you're going in to be a ballot counter.

[Marc Mayrand]

Exactly. Again, that's another interesting aspect that we would need to look at, subject to the type of reform that takes place.

Australia is a good example: ballots have to be brought back to counting centres. We don't have that in Canada. Ballots are counted at the polls where the vote took place. Again, there's a delay. Just as an example, getting back some ballot boxes from Nunavut took over three weeks this time around. It was not general in that riding, but, again, because of weather and all sorts of circumstances, they were delayed. That's the sort of thing that we, at Elections Canada, need to be concerned about and find the best way to deal with those kinds of issues. That explained a bit the time that's required to assess the best process possible and be ready to implement it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll move on to Ms. Sahota, who is sharing with Mr. Chan.