Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Stéphane Perrault]

It depends on how well it goes. That's why you need to give yourselves a bit of runway.

We will do the testing. To the extent that we need to make adjustments, we are giving ourselves until March. So far things are going very well, but we are giving ourselves enough time to do the adjustments so that in March when we do the simulation, everything will be ready to be deployed and used.

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

Technically there seems to be a lot that will be happening within the next year or so, obviously. I want to touch on one of the issues.

I was here at the last Parliament. I was a critic for the party. I remember the big issue at the time was about the proactive stance of Elections Canada, which I'm fully in favour of doing. In the last Parliament, the past government believed in just the facts that were out there, which was about where and when you should vote. This government, obviously, had different views on that.

I always felt that Elections Canada, being a separate body, and internationally renowned, by the way.... I've been in other countries in my capacity, and they compliment the nature of Elections Canada, and its separation, being arm's length from the government, but also for being very proactive in what you do.

What have you done to promote yourselves to Canada, to promote the idea of voting, exercising your democratic rights? How does all this activity regarding the migration of data, and so on and so forth...? It seems to me that with all this happening, and pending legislation, you might be a bit too busy to get to the other stuff. I'm sorry if that's a leading question.

[Stéphane Perrault]

It is fair to say that we have been and continue to be quite busy. We have a very tight but clear schedule of the work that needs to be done for the next election. We are working on schedule.

Of course, if changes are coming up, as you've indicated there may be, then we'll have to introduce them into our schedule, so after September, once we've done our testing, we may have to introduce other changes to the system, which is why I'm here today saying time is of the essence. We need to bring forward any legislation if we are going to implement them.

You talked about promoting democracy. As you know, our mandate is limited in that regard. We certainly have been working with youth. We have an inspire democracy program that has been focusing on youth, and we are working toward renewing our civic education program in the lead-up to the election. We will see whether Bill C-33, if I'm not mistaken, has a provision in it to restore the fuller civic education mandate, the public education mandate, to Elections Canada, and we'll see where that goes.

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

Where are you with the civic education part and the youth? Can you give us an update on where it stands right now, and what you plan to do in the lead-up to the next federal election?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Some of it will depend on the legislative changes. As always, we like to do simulated elections with youth, and that's still very much in the cards, so we're working on that.

We've been engaging teachers across the country to develop new civic education materials and programs to support teachers in the classrooms. That has been a focus, and we're going to be piloting some works at the next election. Returning officers have started reaching out locally this month to find polling locations, and in some areas in that context, we're going to be having some hired staff reach out to schools and start speaking with the schools about civic education ahead of the election.

A bit of work is going on right now.

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

That's a valid point because the teachers I speak to talk about the fact that they lack the material to help outline democratic rights to their students and how to vote and so on. The support material is very good.

Does that support material go to the returning officer, or do teachers have to go directly to Elections Canada to find material?

[Stéphane Perrault]

We provide it directly to the teachers. We are also working with provinces. This is an area of collaboration moving forward. Provinces also have direct contacts with the schools, and the materials should be coordinated. To a certain degree we can leverage each other's resources to improve the overall quality of the materials we have.

We've had some tools for many years. We're currently refreshing those tools, and we're doing that in consultation not only with the schools, but with the provinces.

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

Would they primarily be online materials?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It's a mix of online and simple artifacts that support teachers.

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

I think that's a fascinating exercise for several reasons. I worry. Obviously you're here to talk about the impending legislation, and where you need to be, and certainly between now and the fall of this year, technically you're going to be in a place that's either going really well, or not going well at all, meaning migration of data.

I'm no expert, but when it comes to migration of data, so many things could go wrong in a very short period of time. Obviously, I see the message you bring here today is certainly one that is salient to all of us because it is very close. I'll get back to that in just a moment.

I just noticed the by-election stuff and some of the complaints that came in. I don't know if this is a great number of complaints, dealing with polling place accessibility, services at the polls, these sorts of things. The highest one seems to be the services at the polls and the accessibility issue.

Can you update us on where you are? Is it a big number, given all the by-elections from 2017?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I don't think there are any unusual numbers of complaints in those reports. Accessibility is a fairly broad topic; it includes accessibility for people with disabilities, as well as accessibility for ordinary Canadians who find the distance may be too long to get to the polls. That's one key area of work for the next election: to reduce the travel distance for Canadians going to the polls, in particular in rural areas.

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

Oh, thank you. Yes, reduce travel in rural areas. That's—

[Stéphane Perrault]

We've been making efforts to improve the voting process at the polls through the introduction of some technology at advance polls to speed up and reduce wait times in urban and semi-urban areas. But in rural areas we see long distances to the polls, and we're working to address that at the next election.

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

I'm glad you're addressing that.

I'll just leave it at that, Mr. Chair, because you're telling me I should.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's right.

We'll go now to Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I see your opening remarks had indicated, in terms of changes to elections law, that the window of time was rapidly closing in which to implement anything prior to the next election and even mentioned that your predecessor, Mr. Mayrand, had said they should be enacted prior to April of 2018. I note that it is now April 24 of 2018.

However, in a news article—I think it was on March 8—the Office of the Minister of Democratic Institutions had indicated that there were some new rules coming to strengthen and clarify rules governing third party spending by foreign actors financing Canadian political advocacy:

We are concerned about the lack of transparency seen around many third parties on all sides of the political spectrum. Canada has robust finance rules governing political fundraising from foreign actors, but we will further strengthen and clarify these rules to ensure greater transparency in our political fundraising system and a stronger defence against foreign interference in our democratic process.

I'll beg to differ somewhat with the assertion there that there are robust rules currently that ensure that, but I certainly do agree there is a need to strengthen those, and there is a need to ensure that foreign influence is not influencing our elections as I think it currently can under the rules that exist now.

Because of the fact that it has been indicated that there is something coming to deal with this, can you give us any indication whether the minister or her office has been in contact with Elections Canada, with yourselves, to consult you on any proposed legislation that they're thinking about bringing forward?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Certainly, I can say that officials at the Privy Council Office and officials at Elections Canada have been engaging over the last several months, and we've been providing some technical advice on the legislation, not policy advice, which we provide to this committee, but technical advice on the options for legislation that they're looking into.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay, so have you been able to give them some suggestions on what should be included or more on how it should be administered or set up?

[Stéphane Perrault]

We've made recommendations through this committee on their roles and two aspects that we'd like to see improved on the third party regime. One is the scope of activities that are being regulated. Currently, it's only election advertising activities. There's a broader range of campaigning activities that should be captured.

The second issue is the funding issue, which you alluded to, and in particular the fact that, third parties being able to use their general revenue, there's a fair amount of foreign funding that can come through that.

These are two core areas that we've been looking into and making suggestions through this committee, but in terms of working with the Privy Council Office, as I said, the advice is more of a technical matter in terms of how you draft legislation to meet the governance policy objectives.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Obviously, given that there's been some discussion and given the news article I quoted from, there is some indication that something might still be coming prior to the next election.

Is it your position that you would feel comfortable that there is still time to be able to put those things in place and have them be effective? I know you've indicated in this that we were talking about major changes specifically. Do you think the window of time is less to implement some of these things that you're talking about here? You mentioned the two different aspects. What would that window of time look like? When would it close?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I can't say when it closes until we see the full package of legislation, and when we do, as I said, we'll work with this committee and look at the implementation options. Obviously, our preference would have been for the legislation to have been introduced much earlier and passed at this point, so that we could make implementations in a manner that is optimal. That is no longer the case, which doesn't mean there is no more time left, but we'll have to see how we implement this in certain cases.

It may mean that some reporting, for example, of political financing is through a simple PDF online as opposed to a complex system. That allows for some transparency, but not the same ease of auditing, for example, that our systems allow. That's just an example. There is still time, but time is ticking and we're at a point where I'm urging for legislation to be introduced, if it's going to be significant, so we can deliver the election in an orderly fashion.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

That's much appreciated.

I also noticed that Treasury Board vote 40 set aside $990,000 as new funding for the Public Prosecution Service related to election integrity. Was that part of a recommendation from your office? Is that something you were a part of recommending?

[Stéphane Perrault]

No. Anything that has to do with the investigation of election offences is the role of the Commissioner of Canada Elections. He is now part of the public prosecution branch. That's money that they've been asking for.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I guess you wouldn't be able to answer how they came up with that number of $990,000.

Given that, I'm going to give notice of motion, Mr. Chair. It reads:

That the Committee undertake a study of the subject-matter of Treasury Board Vote 40 in the Main Estimates, 2018-19, in respect of the funding proposed for leaders’ debates and election integrity, and invite witnesses from the Privy Council Office and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to appear, respectively, on those initiatives.

Do I have some time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You have thirty seconds.