Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You might not be surprised that, since it's similar to one earlier on, I find this to be outside of the scope and inadmissible.

Bill C-19 amends the Canada Elections Act. This amendment seeks to add that the Chief Electoral Officer must obtain agreement of the registered political parties represented in the House of Commons for any modification he wishes to make under proposed subsection 582(1). Since the Chief Electoral Officer is independent from political parties, the amendment is a new concept that goes beyond the scope of the bill.

That is my ruling.

Are we okay with moving forward? Thank you. I appreciate that.

We're now on CPC-12.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

This amendment would reduce from two days to one day the amount of time by which the Chief Electoral Officer may vary a deadline set by the act when the deadline falls after advance polls open.

This is something we have put forward and think is very important for this time frame.

Thank you very much. I'm passing that forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I was wondering if I could ask Ms. Paquet. CPC-12 and CPC-13 are very similar. I'm not sure what kind of impact passing both of those, or not, would have.

[Manon Paquet]

CPC-12 reduces the element in the calendar that needs to take place before advance polling. It could be moved by two days and the elements that are supposed to happen between the advance polling day and polling day could only be moved by one day. That's CPC-12.

The difference, I think, between CPC-12 and CPC-13 is the possibility of moving it backwards, if I'm not mistaken.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Would it be best to vote on those two together or one at a time, Mrs. Vecchio? Whatever you would—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Let's go one at a time on that.

I'm just looking at Mr. Nater.

Mr. Nater, maybe you could explain the differences between CPC-12 and CPC-13. It's causing a little bit of confusion. Perhaps you can give a better eye on it, because we want to make sure we get this bill right.

Do you know anything about it? I know you know lots. Go ahead.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I did not have a hand in drafting these amendments.

The first one, CPC-12, is basically that after the advance polls have opened, it would reduce the number of days you can vary the dates from two days to one day. It's just reducing that discretion there.

CPC-13 is a little broader. It affects more the different dates. It's not getting rid of the discretion, but I would say it limits discretion, if that helps to clarify that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. It's 1:44. Let's have a vote on CPC-12.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Next is CPC-13.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

If we could just take CPC-13, I move it and go directly to a vote, that would save us some time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

On BQ-5, it's just a change from “polling data” to “polling period”.

Monsieur Therrien.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Given that the election is taking place over three days, it would be extremely important that there be no advertising during that time. The reasons are clear and easy to understand. It should not influence the vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, so there would be no advertising throughout the whole polling period, not just on polling day.

Ms. Vecchio, go ahead.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Although I fully understand that, this is something on which I think there would be a lot of concerns. I do understand the importance of that blackout period and I think all Canadians understand the importance of it as well, but the three-day election with a blackout period is extremely lengthy, especially if messaging has got out there. We've seen things. It's really important for people to have the opportunity to be able to advertise. In terms of being offline for three days as an MP, we find sometimes that we can't even be offline for 20 minutes, let alone three days.

Those are just some concerns I have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

We'll go to Mr. Nater and then Monsieur Therrien.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I have a comment and maybe a quick question for the witnesses as well.

My comment would be out of concern for our friend and colleague, the parliamentary secretary responsible for this file, Mr. Lamoureux. He couldn't comply with a one-day prohibition on advertising, sending out I believe it was seven illegal advertisements during the single-day writ period, reaching 35,000 voters in a riding that's like Mr. Lukiwski's and Mr. Blaikie's, where it was decided, at one point, by a very narrow margin. I feel eminent concern for poor Mr. Lamoureux being able to comply with this rule when he wasn't able to comply with it under a one-day period, but I guess I shouldn't be cheeky about that.

I have a question and I'm not sure whether PCO or Elections Canada would be the appropriate people to ask, but it has to do with the constitutionality of it from a freedom of speech standpoint. The courts have ruled that there are certain restrictions that are appropriate, and obviously we saw that in Harper v. Canada well before Prime Minister Harper became prime minister. It's a fairly famous case. I would be curious as to whether there have been any legal opinions sought on this from that perspective, whether a three-day restriction on advertising would be compliant with the charter.

Have there been any consultations done on that or any information that either PCO or Elections Canada might be able to share on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Is there anything from PCO?

Go ahead, Ms. Paquet.

[Manon Paquet]

Sure. Thank you for the question.

I'm not in a position to provide any legal advice on the issue, but by extending the blackout period to three days it would increase the risk, if the provision was challenged, that it could be found unconstitutional.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Therrien.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

I thought this was self-evident. On election day, we have to stop all forms of advertising. You think that three days is a long time. I, for one, did not agree with that time period.

You decided that the poll would take place over a three-day period. It makes no sense to be able to do advertising or polling when people start voting en masse for three days. It's just common sense.

Honestly, I thought it would go through like a charm, but I'm starting to have doubts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Let's have a vote on BQ-5.

(Amendment negatived: nays 9; yeas 2 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 4 as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

(On clause 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We're on NDP-8.

There was some back and forth on this, but you can move this.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This amendment would essentially allow for Canadians, many of whom will not have voted by special ballot before, to write in the party name as opposed to having to write out the first and last name of the candidate. Again, we've been told by Elections Canada that they're anticipating up to five million people voting by mail in a pandemic election and, as I say, that's compared to 40,000 or 50,000 people in a typical election.

I think there is a real risk that people will receive their special ballot.... They're used to seeing a normal ballot where these things are indicated and you mark an X. They might feel it's sufficient to write the party name and send it back. Anyone who does that is going to have their ballot spoiled. If the idea is to try to make sure that people get to vote, that their vote counts and if that's our priority, I think putting the party name in the context....

I recognize there's a larger philosophical debate about the long term and whether it's appropriate to put the party name on or not, and I respect that debate. In fact, I've even been on the other side of that debate, but in the pandemic context where suddenly a much larger.... If we consider what five million people represents as a percentage of the normal turnout, it's a significant proportion. We're not talking about five million people as a percentage of the overall population. We're talking about five million voters as a percentage of the normal vote, and in fact perhaps in the context of reduced turnout.

We're talking about a very significant proportion of Canadians that could be disenfranchised essentially by accident, because they don't realize that they have to write the candidate's full name. We can all say that maybe they should read the fine print, and maybe they should pay more attention, but I think the fact is that in this context, a party name would be a very obvious signal of intent and we shouldn't be disenfranchising Canadians on that basis.

That's what this amendment seeks to accomplish. There are a couple of other amendments that we put forward that are essentially complementary in order to achieve the same purpose.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Next, we have Mr. Therrien and then Mr. Nater.

Mr. Therrien.