Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I call the meeting to order.

I welcome you to the ninth meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee is meeting today to hold a briefing with the Chief Electoral Officer.

I remind all participants that no screen shots or photos of their screen are allowed.

I understand that everyone has the public health guidelines that have been provided. I will take your heads nodding and thumbs up as signals that you have read them and that you will all follow them.

I will just remind everyone that all comments are to be made through the chair. The more we can address our comments through the chair, the less you will hear from the chair.

With that, I will pass the virtual screen over to our guests today, who we're really excited to have. We have with us Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer, who is accompanied by Michel Roussel, deputy chief electoral officer, electoral events and innovation.

I understand it will be Mr. Perrault providing comments for approximately six minutes.

Over to you. Welcome to PROC.

[Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak with the Committee today about the 44th general election.

While no election is like any other, it is safe to say that this was one of the most challenging in our history. I would like at the very outset to express my gratitude to the 338 returning officers and their staff, as well as the 195,000 Canadians who served their fellow citizens to the best of their ability in sometimes difficult circumstances.

I had indicated to this committee last year that we would be in a position to deliver a safe election, and I can confirm that this was the case.

A range of measures to protect electors and poll workers was implemented in consultation with public health authorities across the country, and we continued to adjust those measures throughout the election as the situations evolved locally.

Various service options were also offered to long-term care facilities and seniors' homes to reflect the needs and circumstances of each institution and serve electors who reside there.

While the election was safe, the pandemic presented a number of challenges. These were not unforeseen. As I had indicated to this committee prior to the election, recruiting and training poll workers and securing polling places were the main concerns, and they proved to be difficult. This was particularly true of polling places. In a normal election, approximately half of the electors would be assigned to vote at a nearby school. This time, schools and other usual polling places were generally unavailable.

In preparing for the election, returning officers worked to identify and confirm alternative locations. However, once the election was called, several landlords who had earlier indicated they would rent to us reversed their decision in the context of the emerging fourth wave. Difficulties in confirming polling locations led to delays in issuing voter information cards.

This did not prevent us from increasing the number of advance polls by 18% to meet an expected increase in early voting. But it did have an impact on services on polling day, especially in some urban centres—around Toronto in particular—where the scarcity of polling places led to longer wait times.

To support recruitment, our enhanced national recruitment campaign emphasized the measures in place to protect the health and safety of election workers. At the local level, there were efforts to recruit bilingual election workers and those in indigenous communities. Overall, we recruited 15% fewer poll workers than in the previous election.

Apart from these overarching challenges, there were specific areas in which our services were below expectations.

Students in particular were disappointed that we were unable to offer vote-on-campus kiosks. This initiative was piloted in 2015 and deployed more broadly in 2019, but in each case it required many months of planning and coordination with post-secondary institutions. Pandemic circumstances and the lack of a fixed-date election meant that we were unable to offer it this time. Our goal moving forward is to make campus kiosks part of our permanent service offerings.

As with previous elections, returning officers reached out to all first nations communities in their electoral districts to arrange polling operations. Unfortunately, some first nations electors in parts of Kenora in Ontario were unable to vote as a result of errors and miscommunication. I apologize to these electors, and we are putting in place measures to improve our services to first nations communities across Canada.

Finally, several measures were implemented to assist voters who wished to vote by mail, including a new online application system, prepaid postage, a special information campaign and a ballot drop-off service at local polls, which we have set up by adapting the act through bill C‑19. Procedures were also put in place to ensure the integrity of the process, which meant that the preliminary voting results took several days to complete.

Knowing that election results would not all be available on election night this time, and in the shadow of inaccurate information surrounding the 2020 US election, we took steps to maintain confidence in the process and results. We communicated early and often and were very transparent about the measures we put in place to make voting accessible and secure, as well as to ensure its integrity. I believe that this level of transparency was instrumental in preserving trust in the election. Preliminary results from our post-election surveys of electors indicate that trust and satisfaction levels remained very high.

I will now turn briefly to the ongoing electoral boundaries redistribution exercise. Canada has a robust process to ensure that the periodic redrawing of electoral boundaries is done in an independent and non-partisan manner. In October, I announced that the number of seats in the House of Commons will increase to 342. This figure is calculated, as required by law, using the July 1, 2021 population estimates provided by the Chief Statistician and a formula found in the Constitution. I would like to remind members that the calculation done to determine the number of seats allocated to each province is a mathematical operation over which I exercise no discretionary authority.

The 10 independent commissions were created last fall. Their work began on February 9 with the receipt of the census population numbers. Over the next 10 months, each commission will develop boundary proposals, hold public hearings—where members of the public and MPs may make presentations—and complete a report on the new electoral districts. These reports will be submitted to the Speaker for tabling in the House of Commons and referred to this committee starting in fall 2022. Over the next few weeks, my team will be providing technical briefings on the redistribution process at the various party caucuses in the House. You will have more detailed information on the electoral map revision process.

Thank you for inviting me today. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you very much for your comments.

Now we will start round one, which is a six-minute round.

Mr. Duncan, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, Madam Chair, thank you to Mr. Perrault for being here today and for meeting with me, I think, a couple of months ago. I lose track of time.

I want to follow up about the cost. In the report on page 40, the last estimated cost of the election was $630 million. That was a month ago.

Do you have an updated number at this point?

[Stéphane Perrault]

The number at this point remains an estimate of $630 million. It's an estimate, because not all costs—for example, reimbursement of candidates and parties—are complete as we do the audits. However, I'm fairly confident in that figure.

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

Thank you.

I've had a chance to read the report that you tabled with us, and I'd like to know about the challenges with special ballots and the number that weren't returned on time. There was a significant number from those who applied within a riding and a larger number from those who applied from outside the country or outside their riding.

Can you talk about some of the changes you're looking at implementing to get that percentage of returns up higher in future elections?

Also, would you agree with me that in our country, there's a geographic challenge for Canada Post when somebody submits a ballot in B.C. or Yukon and it has to get to Ottawa by the date of the election? Is that a logistical challenge that we have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm going to jump in quickly and remind all members that we will make comments through the chair.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just as a point of clarification, for electors voting in their electoral districts by mail, one of the aspects that was in place was that they voted locally, in the sense that the mail was sent to the local returning officer so as to prevent that transit time from wherever they are to Ottawa. It is only out-of-district electors who vote and send their ballots nationally.

I did indicate in my remarks a range of measures that we put in place to reduce the number of late ballots. I'm not going to repeat them. Obviously, any late ballot is unfortunate. These are people who wanted to cast a ballot and who cast a ballot, but we were not able to count them.

I had recommended a longer election period. If you look at the results from table 4 in the report, it shows that there was a much lower percentage of late ballots with just a few days. Now, that's not the only factor. I had also recommended that ballots received one day after close of the polls be counted, and this was indeed part of Bill C-19. This is something that we may want to look at in the future.

I think we delayed on our side to look at our communications strategy: Was it aggressive enough? I know that in Canada at the federal level electors who vote by mail or by special ballot must write in the name of the candidate. They cannot vote by writing in the name of the party. That is not so in some of the provinces, so this means that people who apply early have to wait until the close of nominations to see the full slate of candidates. Again, that is something that we could look at to change the rules so that voting by party would be acceptable, such that we could promote voting by mail much more aggressively in the early stages of the campaign.

We have never had such a large-scale vote-by-mail operation, and we're looking at every angle to see how it can be improved in the future.

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

Thank you for that.

One of the things you addressed was the question about the time frame. That was a supplemental I had, through you, Madam Chair.

Also, again, in one of the things geographically within the country, with all the ballots going back to one location, there's a difference for me, for example, in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, for the mail to get back to Ottawa. I have more time to safely deliver that in the mail to get it to Ottawa than, say, in British Columbia, or in the north for more remote communities. I think it's something that Elections Canada needs to look at in the future in terms of perhaps decentralizing where the ballots are received or considered received by election day, and I would leave that for your consideration.

One of the things you mentioned was that, yes, the unnecessary pandemic election created an unfortunate opportunity where we had fewer polling locations. Can we get a commitment from you today? Hopefully, we're not into another election during a pandemic—for multiple reasons—but regardless of that, whether it's considered a pandemic election or not, is Elections Canada committed to increasing the number of polling locations across the country back to the more normal number?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I can assure you that we have done all we could in the last election, and we will do again everything we can to increase the number of polling locations at any election. One of the considerations there that I put forward was that having a vote on a Monday eliminates the schools, practically speaking.

That is something to consider for the future. If we want to have schools available, we may have to abandon Monday voting. That is something for Parliament to decide and, of course, we will administer the election in whichever way Parliament chooses, but we will continue to look for all alternative ways of finding polling locations.

Madam Chair, I would note that in this election we had some quite unusual polling locations. We had soccer stadiums, we had the Olympic stadium in Montreal and we had commercial premises such as IKEA stores and Costco centres. I don't think there was a lack of creativity on the part of returning officers, but the reality is that there are only so many places that are available, that meet accessibility standards and that can be open to us on a Monday.

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

In the interests of time, I will get to one other angle that I raised with you in our meeting a couple of months ago, which is the cross-training of election officials at polling sites.

No matter how many days of advance polls, hours and service that you provide to people, the unfortunate reality from a logistical perspective is that everybody will show up the first day at the first hour. One of the challenges was that we had people working at doors greeting or providing hand sanitizer or doing something, but we had one person working the list at an advance poll table. The line out the door was so long that it created massive challenges.

Would you agree with the cross-training of employees so that during busy times a door greeter could come off and perhaps get voters out the door quicker after they cast their ballots? I firmly believe that several Canadians.... I won't say a number, but many people left and didn't vote because they saw the lines as being too long and they didn't bother going back. Any feedback or comments you have on that would be appreciated.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Certainly anything that can be done to reduce the lineups is an important thing to look at.

Training is a challenge. We offer three hours of training for poll workers. It is difficult to offer more training than that. We ask our poll supervisors to attend training for all positions and we can certainly look at increasing opportunities for additional training. It's not clear to me how much progress we'll be able to make, but training is one aspect.

The logistics of the poll is another. I think when we talked I indicated my interest in introducing some technology at the poll, as is done in provincial jurisdictions, to manage the list in ways that are more efficient.

We'll look at different ways to manage the service to make it more effective for electors. At the end of the day, we certainly want to reduce those lineups.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We'll turn the floor over to Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Mr. Perrault, thank you for being here. It's good to see you, and thanks for your report. I thought it was really detailed.

I have a number of questions, as always.

I know Minister LeBlanc sent you a letter last year asking you to look into the issue of hate groups and the potential for them to register as political parties in order to get privileged access to important legitimate tools for political parties such as tax rebates and the list of electors.

Can you speak to the work that has been undertaken since then to address these issues?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Thank you for the question—

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

On a point of order, Madam Chair, I don't mean to be rude, but that wasn't through the chair. We just need to have some consistent enforcement whenever we have that. I don't mean to be partial or question your impartiality, but that wasn't through the chair.

Thanks.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

However, as a follow-up—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I had given you two rounds before I jumped in, so I was going to do the same.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That's through you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you for your assistance, always.

Mr. Perrault.

[Stéphane Perrault]

This is a matter of concern to me that hate groups not be able to use the privileges afforded in the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act, whether it's lists of electors or whether it's access to special platforms, broadcasting time or tax credits.

I have been looking into this. I have a recommendation report coming in April, and that will be an aspect of the report. It is, of course, a difficult issue and I think it's not for the chief electoral officer to arbitrate between groups. There may be mechanisms that we can put forward that would at least allow us some safeguards against hate groups getting access to those privileges.

I'll look forward to sharing that report with the members of Parliament.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I definitely look forward to hearing any progress on safeguards that can be put in place, because it is deeply concerning to think about what effects that would have on our democratic institutions if that happens.

I also note that in your report, on page 33, you mentioned there were 111 incidents of security issues, I guess, and I think 78 of them, on page 34, required police intervention. This seems quite concerning.

Can you tell us about those events, and can you speak to the role of hateful rhetoric that political parties use, specifically the official opposition, in contributing to these kinds of events?

That's through you, Madam Chair.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Obviously, for us, it was quite disquieting to see some of the behaviour that we saw at the polls. This was not something that we have seen in the past, and certainly not to that extent, and the level of vitriol was quite disappointing.

Canadians working at the polls are just ordinary Canadians, serving fellow citizens, for one day. Often they're seniors. Therefore, it is disturbing to see the level of aggressivity that we saw during this election.

I think much of it was related to tensions around COVID-19 and COVID-19 measures. I'm hopeful, though not fully confident, that it will go down in the future. However, if we want to have poll workers, we need to have voters respect the poll workers who come and work to serve them during the election. That's the nature of our democracy.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, if I understand correctly, did Mr. Turnbull just accuse the official opposition of committing crimes during the election?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Are you referring to the question? I did not hear that within his commentary.

I'm going to let Mr. Perrault finish and go through this exchange of time.

If we need to address it between questioners we can definitely get to that.

Mr. Perrault, back to you.