Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 16th, 2017

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

Thank you.

Mr. Perrault, based on your response last time, I want to confirm your position. Is it Elections Canada's position that under the Canada Elections Act, as it is presently worded, it would be unlawful for any person to assist a political party in deferring the cost of litigation against Elections Canada?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Absolutely.

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

Okay.

[Stéphane Perrault]

It would be a contribution. Whether it's unlawful or not depends on the amount of the contribution. Any amount of money provided to a party to support any of the party's expenses and activities, not specifically litigation expenses, would be a contribution under the current regime.

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

Okay. Thank you.

I wonder if you're aware of the implication of this. For any party without millions of dollars in its war chest, based on the $2-million cost of that previous round of litigation, this actually means that Elections Canada can, at its sole discretion, put any political party into bankruptcy.

[Stéphane Perrault]

I would hesitate to adopt the assumption that is underlying that question: that Elections Canada would intend to do that. I understand very well, however, the financial pressure that exists on parties, and that would be amplified in the case of expensive litigation.

I think it's an important issue. I certainly share your concern. I do think we have to look at the broader picture and consider whether it is appropriate for significant amounts of money to be provided to a party, whether those amounts should be completely unregulated, or whether there may be a different set of approvals that apply. I think that is something that maybe warrants some consideration.

I don't know that the policy answer to the question is a complete deregulation. There may be ways to calibrate the response.

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

I appreciate that. First of all, I want to be very clear that I do not mean to suggest that either you or Elections Canada, and certainly not Mr. Mayrand, had that intention. I'm drawing your attention and that of the committee to the fact that this is just the situation as it stands if the law is interpreted as it is. That's very helpful. Actually, that was all I wanted to raise on that topic.

I do have two other things I want to ask you on completely different topics. One is this. The minister has promised to provide two additional pieces of legislation in addition to Bill C-33. Obviously, you have indicated that you would like to have this legislation dealt with and enacted by spring 2018. If you had to rank the importance of these pieces of legislation in terms of which ones you need to deal with most urgently given the follow-through you have to do, would you rank...?

I'm thinking most obviously of the fundraising legislation versus Bill C-33, and the other piece of legislation not yet introduced that will capture other aspects of your report on the 42nd election. From the point of view of your own implementation issues, what priority would you suggest be given to these pieces of legislation?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I must say that I find that question a bit difficult to answer, not having seen the contents of the legislation, and in particular, the CEO recommendations implementation bill. Clearly, any legislation that involves significant technology would require some time for implementation and for testing.

With regard to the fundraising piece legislation, it does involve some changes to the system. That's something that can be done, I think, within a period of six to 12 months. I would have to get back to you on that.

It's not clear to me at this point which is a priority, but when we fix our systems, we do need time to make sure they are running properly.

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

Thank you very much.

I have 30 seconds here, so I'll just ask this question. I know you can't give a response to us right now. It's more of an invitation.

The minister's mandate letter emphasized the importance of cybersecurity. We just recently had an example of what may become something we'll see frequently in the future: cyber-attacks on various systems. We saw how effective they can be if launched—in the short run, just creating chaos.

You obviously can't answer now, but if you could get back to us in the future with your thoughts on how best to deal with this from an elections point of view, we would be most grateful.

[Stéphane Perrault]

We have worked in the past, and we continue to work, with the Communications Security Establishment. It provides the standards that are appropriate for our services, and we rely on its expertise in terms of the level of security. It's our job to make sure that those standards are met. We are quite happy to have the benefit of that collaboration. This is something we are currently working on, and we are making sure that our system meets those standards.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you. The time has expired.

The next round would have been a Liberal round, but I understand there are no more questions from the Liberal Party.

We are approaching about 10 minutes to one. We have some votes to dispose of, of course, and we will have to suspend briefly to be able to move to the committee business. Unless anyone has something that is burning, that they wanted to raise—I could allow that for just a couple of minutes—then we will move to our votes.

I did see Monsieur Dusseault's hand raise.

I'll give you two minutes. Just keep it brief.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I'll be brief, Mr. Chair.

I want to talk about the new technology that you want to implement, including the technology for the voter registration service. You talked about polling stations, but particularly advance polling stations.

Are by-elections good opportunities for trying these types of models? Were these models applied during the recent by-elections? Do you think it could be worthwhile to do so? How much will it cost?

You talked about equipping election officials with iPads. How much would it cost to purchase or rent these iPads? What form will this take?

[Stéphane Perrault]

We'll need to test the systems. Of course, laboratory simulations will be conducted. Extensive testing must be conducted before the equipment is introduced at polling sites. We may have the opportunity to do so during a by-election. If the opportunity arises, we'll seize it, obviously. However, the opportunity may not arise. What matters is testing the technology.

We're also working with a number of provinces that are currently introducing the same technology. I was able to witness British Columbia's provincial elections last week. In British Columbia, they chose electronic poll books for advance polls and certain transactions for the regular polls. I was pleased to see how smoothly things ran and how comfortable the election workers were with using the electronic poll books. I spoke to a number of election workers who were clearly of retirement age, and they were very comfortable with using the technology. This option is therefore available.

We also worked with people from Elections Ontario during their by-elections. They will hold a general election in about a year, and they intend to deploy the electronic poll book technology at that time.

There are many possibilities, and we'll take advantage of all of them to make sure the technology is in top shape.

Costs will mostly depend on deployment. For the advance polls, at this point, before the procurement process, we're talking about between $6 million and $8.8 million. For the regular polls, the amount is between $20 million and $30 million, according to various deployment scenarios. Again, we'll have the chance to refine these figures as our initiative progresses.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you for that.

Before I dismiss our witnesses we do have some votes to dispose of, and then we'll suspend to move in camera. I will put those questions now.

Shall vote 1 under House of Commons, vote 1 under Parliamentary Protective Service, and vote 1 under the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, less the amounts granted in interim supply, carry?

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$318,131,715

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

PARLIAMENTARY PROTECTIVE SERVICE

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$62,100,000

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$29,253,454

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the votes on the main estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you for that.

I will now dismiss our witnesses.

Thank you very much for your statements and the answers to the questions from members. We will suspend briefly to move in camera for our committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]