Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 31st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to meeting number 130 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I just have a quick reminder for witnesses and others. When your headset is not in use, please make sure that it is placed on the sticker in front of you in order to protect the well-being of our interpreters, who are working so hard on our behalf.

Today we are meeting for our study of Bill C‑65, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act.

Our witnesses this morning are from the Privy Council Office. We have Allen Sutherland, assistant secretary to the cabinet, and Rachel Pereira, director, democratic institutions.

We will have five minutes total for our witnesses and their introduction, and then, as per usual, we will head into our line of questioning.

With that, witnesses, I turn the floor over to you for five minutes.

[Allen Sutherland, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm joined by Rachel Pereira, director of the democratic institutions secretariat at the Privy Council Office.

We are here to discuss the proposed amendments to the Canada Elections Act in Bill C‑65 and to answer your questions.

Before I begin, I would like to note that Hon. Dominic LeBlanc will be appearing before this committee on November 7 to discuss Bill C‑65, as well as his mandate in general.

Mr. Chair, as you may know, Canada has built a robust and resilient electoral system through the Canada Elections Act. Much of its success is a direct result of Parliament’s tradition of applying lessons learned and responding to evolving issues to continually improve the act.

The Elections Act is a key part of the Canadian advantage in keeping elections secure, accessible and democratic.

Bill C-65 draws on key learnings and recommendations from the 2019 and 2021 elections, including from the Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner of Canada elections.

In 2021, Minister LeBlanc was asked to consider these recommendations to further support electoral participation and transparency, and to respond to emerging threats to Canada’s democratic institutions. The government also committed in 2022 to remove barriers to voting and to expand opportunities for people to vote.

The resulting bill, Bill C-65, the electoral participation act, targets three key areas with measures designed to encourage greater participation in our elections, enhance the protection of personal information and safeguard the electoral process.

I will start with the amendments to encourage participation in the electoral process. These measures aim to reduce barriers for electors and provide electors with greater choice and flexibility over how and when they vote.

Key proposals include adding two additional days of advance voting; improving the process to vote by special ballot, known commonly as vote by mail; making the vote on campus program permanent; offering dedicated, on-site voting for electors in long-term care; giving voters who require assistance, such as persons with disabilities, greater choice in terms of who may assist them when voting; taking steps toward enabling electors to vote at any polling station in their riding; and assessing the measures needed to move to an expanded election day that might include three days of voting.

With respect to the proposed amendments to enhance protections for personal information, as you know, as a condition of registration, every federal political party must provide a policy on the protection of personal information.

To further ensure Canadians’ personal information is protected, the mandatory privacy policies of all eligible and registered federal political parties and those acting on their behalf would need to include a suite of new requirements, including a dedicated privacy officer; physical, organizational and technological security safeguards; new disclosure requirements in the event of a breach; and enforcement measures under the administrative monetary penalties regime of the CEA.

The final area of focus relates to proposals that would further enhance safeguards to the electoral system. These include ensuring that key protections against foreign interference are not limited to the election period; banning intentionally false or misleading statements about election activities or the voting process to disrupt an election or its results; prohibiting contributions through money orders, prepaid gifts, gift cards and crypto assets, whose source can be unknown or difficult to trace; and finally, introducing new third party contribution rules to increase transparency and prevent dark or foreign funds from entering the system.

Mr. Chair, that is an overview of some of the key amendments proposed through Bill C-65.

Regular reviews of and incremental improvements to the Canada Elections Act help improve our already robust system and help us to keep pace with the realities facing Canadian electors.

We look forward to the discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sutherland.

Colleagues, we'll enter into our first round of questioning.

Mr. Duncan, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here this morning.

One thing that was not mentioned in the opening statement when it comes to Bill C-65—I think a lot of Canadians are focused on one specific section, which really shows the cynicism that the Liberals and NDP have rightfully earned from Canadians—is the attempt to change, through this legislation, the date of the election.

I want to go back and talk, though, about how yesterday the NDP leader came out and gave unconditional confidence in the Liberals, and here we are 24 hours later talking about advancing what we call the NDP-Liberal pension protection act.

One thing that I had some concerns about several months ago was when there were several CTV articles that said that former NDP MP Daniel Blaikie, who was in the NDP caucus at the time, and Minister Dominic LeBlanc, had been working together in conjunction with bringing forward this legislation.

The first question is, could either of you confirm how many NDP MPs or staff were briefed and provided information before the bill was tabled?

[Allen Sutherland]

I cannot.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

At PCO, was there no record of any conversations or information by NDP MPs or staff?

[Allen Sutherland]

I believe your question was about the number of meetings Minister Leblanc had with Mr. Blaikie.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I mean meetings with anybody in the government—PCO, PMO or anybody—that the NDP had access to in advance of the legislation being tabled.

[Allen Sutherland]

Mr. Chair, I don't think it'll be a surprise for you to understand I'm not in a position to.... I don't have control of Mr. Blaikie's timetable. I couldn't give you an assessment of the number of meetings that took place.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

My point about briefings is that it was very clear in the ctv.ca article from January, where he had said he'd been working very closely with the government. He said there had been “a fair amount of work done”. The article says the two parties had “quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.”

My point is that coordination clearly happened beforehand.

I want to get specifically to the consultations you did in advance. You talked about all the feedback you received, and best practices.

Whose idea was it to back the election up by a week, from October 20 to October 27?

[Allen Sutherland]

That's a proposal in the amended bill.

What it speaks to is really the difficulty in today's multicultural society. You have a lot of cultural and religious observances that take place during the fall. It was found that October 20, which was the fixed-date election—which is still the fixed date, because this bill hasn't passed—occurs at the same time as Diwali, the festival of lights, which I believe is also occurring right now.

The question became how to find another date that better suited and didn't have that sort of conflict.

What you try to do in these situations is choose the date that is closest to the date. You don't want to go too late into the season and get into December and heavy weather. You don't want to go too early, because that would break into the summer.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

It was moved from October 20, as proposed, to October 27.

[Allen Sutherland]

That's correct.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Do you track when provinces and territories are scheduled to have their own elections?

[Allen Sutherland]

Yes, that's one of the things that comes into...and it's a very good point you raise, sir, that municipal elections, provincial elections and territorial elections are all things that need to be considered.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I appreciate your saying it's a good point, because we had to move away from October 20 for the reasons mentioned, but go to October 27. On October 27, there's a territorial election scheduled in Nunavut, which would impact tens of thousands of electors directly, because they would have an election day on the same day. I don't really think Canadians buy the argument that it had to be moved solely for that reason.

Just coincidentally, what would happen if the election date was backed up a week is that several NDP and Liberal MPs who are likely to lose their seats in the next election would be guaranteed their pensions, because, as opposed to missing it by a day, they go over by six days by doing so.

Do you not think there's some cynicism there, though, when you say that you did it for Diwali, but when there's a territorial election taking place in Nunavut on the same day, which was known? Is that really the true reason?

[Allen Sutherland]

To get back to the sorts of considerations that were made, one is just whether or not it would be a continuous fall election. You wouldn't want a break with summer holidays through Labour Day, so some of the days in September were not very good.

If we moved forward a week to October 13, that would conflict with Thanksgiving, which I think most people would agree would not be a good choice, so the decision was made to make it October 27.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I think the considerations weren't anything more than trying to save their pensions, to let the class of 2019, the group of Liberal and NDP MPs who are panicking, secure their pensions. It failed miserably, because many Canadians were outraged by this blatant attempt at what it was.

In the PMO and PCO, you track correspondence that comes in from Canadians to your office, to the Prime Minister's Office and PCO. Is that correct?

[Allen Sutherland]

I don't personally, but yes, it is tracked.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Would you be able to provide us the volume of correspondence that came in? I'd be very curious to know.

As a member of Parliament, I know that my inbox was quite full of anger and frustration from Canadians about this blatant move for securing pensions. I'd be curious to know the volume of correspondence and the feedback, push-back, opposition and anger. Would you provide us those numbers on how many pieces of correspondence have been received by the Prime Minister's Office since Bill C-65 was introduced?

[Allen Sutherland]

We will endeavour to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Duncan.

Ms. Romanado, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and, through you, I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I want to pick up on that last point from my colleague Mr. Duncan and to clarify, for those who are listening, his claim that the reason this was brought forward was to move the election date to allow more Liberal and NDP MPs who were elected in 2019 to receive a pension. Actually, there are 32 Conservatives who were elected in 2019 who would benefit from this, including the member opposite. It actually would benefit the Conservatives more than it would benefit the NDP and the Liberals, but I digress.

I want to talk a bit about your mention of reducing barriers for participation. This is what this bill is about. I know that after every election and during an election period, I hear often from seniors who have mobility issues: “Is there a way for me to have someone to come to where I am to come and assist me to vote?” It's not something that we have in our long-term care facilities.

Can you elaborate a little on how this would assist those who are in long-term care to participate in their democratic right?

[Allen Sutherland]

Certainly. In fact, I'll pass the floor to Rachel to answer this.

[Rachel Pereira, Director, Democratic Institutions, Privy Council Office]

Thank you for the question.

Bill C-65 does a few things for residents in long-term care. One of them is the removal of an obstacle for many residents in care who don't have their proof of residence with them. This requirement will be removed for residents in long-term care. This proof often resides with their families at home, and they don't receive bills at long-term care residences. That will help to facilitate. They do need ID, of course.

There will be polling stations set up in LTC homes. Elections Canada estimates that up to 7,000 electors will be served by these polling stations. They will be set up for each facility for the days and times that work for them over a 12-hour period. That might be for one day, for 12 hours, that best suits an LTC. It might be over two days of six hours each. Elections Canada will have a lot of flexibility to serve those electors.

To your first point about moving from room to room, there's an existing measure under the act: the use of mobile polls. In LTC facilities, those polls also will be available in certain facilities, so that they can move from room to room to help electors and residents in those homes to vote.