I call the meeting to order.
Good morning. Welcome to the 32nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs of the first session of the 42nd Parliament.
Today we begin our study of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report, entitled “An Electoral Framework for the 21st Century: Recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada Following the 42nd General Election”.
I would like to remind members that today's meeting is being televised. Allow me to introduce our witnesses.
From Elections Canada we have Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer; Stéphane Perrault, associate chief electoral officer; and Michel Roussel, deputy chief electoral officer, electoral events.
In case there are any journalists listening and for the public, I will set the context. It is that after an election, the Chief Electoral Officer for Canada does a report, and in the report there are recommendations. Those recommendations come to this committee. Traditionally, this committee goes through the report. There are well over 70 recommendations. Apparently, it took 25 meetings the last time, so it's a lot of work. Then that goes as a recommendation to the government to implement, and often much of it gets implemented into legislation.
Just so people are not confused, this is totally separate from the electoral reform committee. There's another committee making proposals and going across the country at the moment. A number of members of this committee are on that committee. It is looking at revising the electoral system to have another voting method.
This particular report is on the technicalities of the voting, such as how you appoint poll clerks, how you do ridings, whether you have electronic voting, and all the technicalities that would fit into any system of Parliament.
After we have the opening remarks, we'll go into the regular round of questioning. The Conservatives would prefer that. Each party should pick who's going to speak first for their round of questioning.
Welcome back, Mr. Mayrand. I know this is your last report. We've enjoyed having you here many times. You've stimulated us with a lot of good new ideas. I know there's a lot in this report. It will take us a lot of meetings, but it'll improve the electoral process in a modernized and vastly changing world. Whatever system we're going to have in place, the technicalities that I know you're proposing would fit in all those systems. We want to make sure that voting is fair and that everyone can vote as easily as possible. I know you have lots of recommendations to that effect, and we look forward to hearing from you.