Evidence of meeting #59 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 pps.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Mike O'Beirne  Acting Director, Parliamentary Protective Service
Robert Graham  Administration and Personnel Officer, Parliamentary Protective Service
Stéphane Perrault  Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Hughes St-Pierre  Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Internal Services, Elections Canada

12:10 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Thank you.

We are starting 10 minutes late. If we take a further 10 minutes at the end to deal with the item of committee business and go in camera, we are going to have very limited time to deal with Elections Canada. Therefore, I move that we simply deal with Elections Canada until the end of the meeting, leaving enough time for votes on the estimates for Elections Canada and the House of Commons.

12:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

Because it was on a point of order, of course, I cannot entertain your motion. However, it is something I did intend to raise myself. I had mentioned it earlier. I know it seemed as though the Liberal Party members were the ones who seemed to disagree with the idea of moving that time to Thursday. Maybe they have had a chance to have a discussion.

Is that something you've reconsidered? Do you still feel it's absolutely necessary?

I will point out that, at this point, we'd be left with 37 minutes with the elections officials if we were to have committee business today.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Arnold Chan Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON

Could I have two minutes just to give my point? I mean, at the end of the day we decide as a group.

12:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

Sorry, Ms. Sahota had her hand up first.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

I just want to say something. We're spending a lot of minutes talking about this back and forth, but maybe we can condense the time from 10 to two minutes. That way we could still save time and move on right now to Elections Canada.

12:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

How do other parties feel about two minutes?

12:10 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

If we come back at two minutes to one, then I'm fine with that.

12:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

That's what we will do, then. Rather than waste any further time, we'll get started.

We have with us, of course, the acting Chief Electoral Officer, Stéphane Perrault. We also have Michel Roussel, the deputy chief electoral officer; and Hughes St-Pierre, the deputy chief electoral officer for internal services.

Monsieur Perrault, I assume you have some opening remarks. If so, I'll let you have the floor to deliver those, and I'll determine in the meantime what we can do for rounds of questioning prior to the need for our committee business.

The floor is yours.

12:10 p.m.

Stéphane Perrault Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the opportunity to appear to discuss Elections Canada's main estimates for 2017-18.

Before I start, I want to thank the chair and the members of this committee for the work that you have done in reviewing the CEO's recommendations and for reporting on those recommendations. Of course, Elections Canada's staff remains available to assist the committee in this regard.

Today, the committee is studying and voting on Elections Canada's annual appropriation, which is $29.3 million. This represents the salaries of approximately 350 indeterminate positions. Combined with the statutory authority, which funds all other expenditures under the Canada Elections Act, our 2017-2018 main estimates total $112.2 million.

During this fiscal year, Elections Canada is working on specific administrative changes to modernize the electoral process to address problems raised by Canadians during recent elections and meet their evolving expectations. I would like to highlight three aspects: voting services, voter registration services, and online services for candidates and political entities.

On voting services, the agency is hoping to see legislation that allows for our proposed new voting services model, which can be adapted to meet the specific needs of each electoral district. I was pleased that this committee agreed to the CEO's recommendations that would allow for the model's implementation. We look forward to the government's response.

In large urban centres, wait time is often an issue for voters, especially at advance polls. In those places, a new voting services model would allow voters to vote at any available table within their polling location, thereby reducing wait times. The new process will also improve working conditions for poll workers by simplifying their tasks and allowing them to take breaks as required, without interrupting the vote.

To implement this new model, election workers will be equipped with electronic poll books. These are applications that will run on tablets or laptops to help election workers manage voters lists, forms and “bingo sheets”. This will replace the cumbersome stacks of paper forms that they currently use and the need to cross voter names off of a paper list with pencil and ruler. It should also significantly reduce record-keeping errors, improve compliance with procedures and increase auditability. I wish to stress that we will retain paper ballots, which will continue to be marked and counted by hand.

We are currently mapping out scenarios for deploying this new voting services model for the 2019 general election, focusing on electoral districts where deployment would bring the most benefit. Deployment decisions will also be informed by a procurement process currently in progress and input from the Advisory Committee of Political Parties.

In more sparsely populated areas, travel time to voting locations, rather than wait time, was one of the main problems reported by Canadians in recent elections. In those areas, instead of introducing technology, we will increase the number of advance polling locations to improve proximity. As well, we will provide returning officers with routing data to support the selection of voting locations. This will help ensure that voters are directed to the polling location that is nearest in terms of travel time.

Since our departmental plan was published, we have decided to set aside one aspect of our transformation agenda—the electronic delivery of special ballots. While we continue to believe that legislation should be amended to provide flexibility in the delivery of special ballots, this is not something we will be pursuing for 2019.

However, based on the success of the pilot project conducted at some 40 post-secondary institutions in 2015, we will increase the number of satellite local offices. These offices will provide information, registration and opportunities for voters away from their electoral district to vote by special ballot.

Our priority for registration services is to increase the coverage and currency of the national register of electors, especially with respect to young voters. For instance, only one quarter—to be precise, 27%—of 18-year-olds are registered, compared with just over 70% for 20-year-olds.

I would note that our recommendations to pre-register 16- and 17-year-olds and to gain access to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on non-citizens would also improve the coverage and the currency of the national register of electors. These measures are also included in Bill C-33.

In addition, we are working to make online voter registration services more universally accessible, particularly for voters in rural and remote areas who do not have standardized residential addresses and who had trouble using the e-registration function in the last election.

We will also offer an online portal providing a number of services to candidates and political entities. This will include the ability, with proper authentication, to download documents such as maps and voter lists, or to file electronically documents such as nomination papers. I do note that this committee, in its review of the CEO's report, supported the recommendations that will facilitate the electronic filing of nomination papers.

In moving forward with improvements to our service offerings, we will continue to consult with parliamentarians, including this committee, as well as with key stakeholders.

I would note, Mr. Chair, that we traditionally have an informal meeting session in the fall, usually in early September or October when Parliament comes back. I hope that we will have the opportunity in September to look at deployment options for new technology at the polls.

Elections Canada is also in the process of replacing and improving a number of existing systems and services that enable the delivery of modern elections. For the next general election, these include new telecommunications services for local offices and our central contact centres. This includes upgrades and maintenance for our IT network and the progressive implementation of a new solution for hosting our data centres. Upgrades and additional basic functionalities are also required for the system that supports returning officers in the hiring, training, and paying of some 300,000 poll workers in a general election.

These investments will allow Elections Canada to ensure that our IT services remain reliable and secure in this changing environment. We are working with lead security agencies, in particular Communications Security Establishment Canada, to ensure that our infrastructure continues to meet all appropriate security standards and requirements.

Lastly, I would like to touch briefly on the timing of the legislation. I understand that in addition to Bill C-33, the minister intends to introduce legislation related to fundraising activities in the coming weeks. She also indicated before this committee that she intends to introduce other legislative changes in the fall of 2017, building on the CEO's recommendations. The minister recognized the last time she appeared before this committee that Elections Canada needs sufficient time to implement the changes well ahead of the 2019 general election. In this regard, assuming that enabling legislation is enacted by the spring of 2018, this should allow us time to implement our proposed new voting services model and other legislative changes for the next general election.

To conclude, we look forward to the final report from this committee on the review of the CEO's recommendations for improved administration of the Canada Elections Act. As I indicated at the outset, Elections Canada staff remain available to assist the committee in this regard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My colleagues and I would be happy to answer any questions from the members of this committee.

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

I'm sure there will be plenty of those. Thank you.

What I've decided we'll do is that for the first round we'll go with five-minute rounds. As we get close to the end of the first round, I can determine what time we have left to conduct some form of a second round of questioning.

We'll start with Mr. Simms for five minutes.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I come at this from a rural angle. I found that in the past two elections, the biggest benefits for people voting were that...and you'll find it increasingly so, especially with the onset of the oil and gas industry, way back when. I know it's in a downturn now, but it's still very important to a lot of rural areas. The idea, when I first started in 2004, was that to vote you'd do a special ballot. What was more beneficial was having the electoral office open, where you were able to vote for the duration of the writ period. There was a huge increase in participation, I think, or it certainly allowed a lot of people to participate.

The only problem with this was that there weren't as many offices where that was available. Is it possible that you could expand that number within one riding, and is it also possible that you could expand that service and keep it for campuses?

12:20 p.m.

Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

Absolutely. That is precisely our plan. That is part of the feedback we also received.

By having satellite offices in addition to the main returning office, we can offer, for the duration of the campaign, voting opportunities by special ballot, whether for people who are within the riding or for people living outside the riding who happen to be there. The voting will be available for all voters, not just at the returning office but at additional satellite offices, very much in the same way it was for post-secondary institutions as a pilot for the last election. We are looking to expand this.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

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

I don't have a lot of time. I have five minutes. I want to expand on that, but I think that will suffice. It's nice to hear that. I just want to give you my feedback as well. It has gone a long way.

What stage are you at now with the electronic aspect of it, a portal for candidates? That could certainly go a long way when it comes to downloading materials as opposed to picking up the actual paper copy.

12:25 p.m.

Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

To be quite frank with this committee, we are in the early stages but we plan to engage the advisory committee of political parties, in late June, with various options of this proposal.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

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

Thank you.

Switching gears for a moment, what progress have you made when it comes to the expansion in terms of people who can vote internationally? They were able to go to certain embassies or offices of that nature. Are we going to make any changes for the next election? Do you see any changes to help facilitate people being able to vote in other nations?

12:25 p.m.

Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

There certainly will need to be changes, depending on the fate of Bill C-33, in our outreach and use of social media. That's something we will need to expand.

In terms of the delivery of ballots, people abroad will continue to be able to download application forms, if they've pre-registered, but not ballot kits. This was an initiative we were looking at, to deliver the ballot kits electronically, but we will not be pursuing that for 2019.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

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

I see.

Personally, I think—and obviously you feel the same way—that would go a long way towards that. In any particular nation, if you're in a rural area in that foreign nation, it's incredibly difficult. Hopefully the pending legislation will help make it that much easier, but of course you're also broadening the number of people who are eligible to vote. I hope that moves through.

Finally, I want to talk about something that is problematic, which is the identification of certain voters. Certainly in my riding there are a lot of elderly people who do not have the right identification. This is me speaking now. Have you ever explored the idea that in some provinces—I think in Newfoundland and Labrador you can do this—a person in the polling booth, who is designated as an elections official, can verify the identity of people they know and do that on multiple occasions?

Right now people basically come in and say, “I'd like to vote,” and the elections official says, “You can't.” They say, “But you've known me for 30 years,” and it's “Sorry, you still can't vote.” That's my concern. Have you addressed that in any way, shape, or form?

12:25 p.m.

Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

I agree that's a significant concern. It's particularly offensive when you're in a seniors' home, and you've done some targeted revision and met them a week before. They come to vote, and they have to prove to you again who they are and where they reside, when you're right there in the lobby of the seniors' home.

We have recommendations. In the CEO's recommendations report, there are a number of recommendations to deal with it. One of them, of course, is the issue of using the VIC as proof of address, in combination with another document.

Another recommendation is to allow, in certain circumstances, one person to vouch for more than one person. We've seen in care facilities how a nurse is allowed to vouch, if she or he resides in the district, but for only one person and not for the others in the long-term care facility. There should be some flexibility in the legislation to deal with these very special circumstances, in which, really, there is no concern about the residence of these people.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

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

But outside of—

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

Sorry, your time has expired.

We'll move now to Mr. Reid, for five minutes.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Perrault. I want to ask you a question regarding Elections Canada's legal expenses.

From 2009 to 2012, Elections Canada was involved in litigation in a case that was formally titled “Canada (Chief Electoral Officer) v. Callaghan”, also known as the “in-and-out” case. On several occasions this committee asked the then CEO, Mr. Mayrand, how much had been spent on that case. I've gone through the different reports, and although the case concluded in 2012, the most recent report we have from Mr. Mayrand actually dates from October 7, 2010, when he said to us, in response to a question from one of my colleagues, “I think last time we reported $1.3 million to the committee, and I think there have been some increases of around $300,000 [since that time].”

A further year and a half went by before it wrapped up. Do you have the final costs for that case?

12:30 p.m.

Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

I do not have the final costs with me. I'd be happy to provide them. I understand, Mr. Chair, that the question relates to the Callaghan case, which is the Federal Court case, not any investigation in relation to similar facts. I would be happy to provide the committee with those final numbers.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Blake Richards

You would want to provide that through the clerk.

May 16th, 2017 / 12:30 p.m.

Acting Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada

Stéphane Perrault

Absolutely.

I don't have those numbers.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Fair enough. I wouldn't expect you to come equipped with those off the top of your head, although I would have been impressed if you had. Thank you for that.

I asked that question for a reason. The legal costs of the Conservative Party at that time were also well over $1 million. I've heard as high as $2 million. I do know that it was the second highest ongoing expenditure in the inter-election period, when the Conservative Party finally gave up the battle and decided to abandon the case.

At that time, only about $300,000 was actually being contested. Elections Canada, or the commissioner as it may be, had lowered the amount that was in contest to a point where it was significantly below the actual amount then being litigated, but was it necessary to go through that very expensive litigation in order to get that number—the claim about how much the party was illegally claiming—driven down to a $300,000 level?

I raise this for the following reason. At that time, it was never clear to me whether, had I and others tried to assist in paying the Conservative Party's legal costs, Elections Canada would have taken the position that we were making an illegal contribution to the party, or whether they would have said that this is a legitimate exercise of a citizen's right to assist a group with a legal matter. If the latter position would have been taken, then that would have been fine, from my point of view. If the former, then effectively Elections Canada would have been taking the position—I think unintentionally, but that would have been the logical consequence—that Elections Canada can, through its prosecution of fundraising activities, drive any party into bankruptcy, simply by pursuing the enormous costs associated with litigation.

Let me ask you the question now. Should such a situation arise in the future, either with the Conservative Party or any other party, would it be your position that contributions made by private citizens to the legal expenses associated with a matter of this sort would be unlawful contributions to the party?