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

[Stéphane Perrault]

I'll try to be brief. In a direct way, the answer is no, they cannot do that.

The difficulty, as I indicated when I testified on Bill C-76, is that although we have prohibitions, it's difficult to trace the source of funds for third parties. Third parties use funds that come from organizations that may come from other organizations, and so forth.

There is not a disclosure of the original sources going back to individual donors being Canadian citizens or permanent residents, as there is for parties and candidates. Doing that raises difficult issues from a charter point of view.

This is something that I'm looking into. I will be making recommendations to Parliament sometime in April. I intend to address and propose some avenues—

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

Perfect. That's what I was going to get at. I was going to ask if some recommendations would be forthcoming with respect to how something like that could be handled.

I have 30 seconds left. If one were so inclined to open an investigation into this, how would that happen?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It starts with a complaint to the Commissioner of Canada Elections referencing facts that relate to a particular offence under the act. That is the way forward for that.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mr. Gerretsen.

The floor is yours, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like Mr. Perrault to explain to us how the feedback between the constituency returning officer and Elections Canada works, as well as the feedback between Elections Canada and the various candidates. How can they be assured that people were satisfied with how the election went locally?

I ask, because I have witnessed some situations that keep happening, one election after another. I wonder why they have not been corrected.

For example, in the elections in 2015, 2019 and 2021, residents in one village complained that they had to go to a neighbouring village to vote although their own village already had a polling station. The same situation happened in towns. Contrecœur is a town of 10,000 people, but some had to go and vote in a village of 1,000 people, 30 or 40 minutes drive away.

Those situations have been pointed out to Elections Canada and to the returning officer for at least three elections, but they keep happening. For example, people living two minutes walk from a polling station have to drive 10 minutes to somewhere further away in order to vote. It is frustrating for them, because they go to the polling station, just to be told that they can't vote there. They're frustrated, and they often end up not voting.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, we are very aware of the problem. We worked on it a great deal as we prepared for the 2019 election. Then we had the advantage of having an election on a fixed date, and no pandemic.

When we plan polling stations, our systems allow us to ensure that, to the extent possible, voters are not asked to walk or drive past a polling station in order to get to another polling station further away. That is extremely frustrating. We have the technology that lets us examine how close polling stations are, not only with a bird's eye view, but also according to the routes that voters take. So I expect that there were many fewer cases in 2019 than in the past.

As for 2021, it was a little more complicated because we also had to deal with the issue of managing the volume. It is possible that the closest location was completely full, and the returning officer had no other choice but to assign some voters to other locations. For an election with no fixed date, it all has to be done much more quickly, and it's much more complex.

I am not surprised that there could have been more cases this time, but I can tell you that we have the tools to reduce the number of those cases. We have the time to look at things more closely.

If you have specific cases to tell us about, my team and I will be happy to look into them.

My apologies, Madam Chair. I should have directed that last comment through you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Sure. Thank you very much. I think that all members know that they can deal with your office.

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

The floor now goes to Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was really impacted by the questions posed by Mr. Vis. I had an opportunity to drive through parts of his riding during the forest fires, and the impact that it had on that area was quite shocking.

That leads me to the question I would like to ask.

Is Elections Canada actually starting to explore how to adapt to the impacts of climate change? We have seen in B.C., in particular, some significant rain that caused huge flooding, isolating many of our communities. We saw forest fires destabilizing communities. If I had 15 minutes to save my life, I certainly wouldn't be thinking that I must remember to bring my licence, so that I could go and vote.

With these changes happening, and we're seeing them, is Elections Canada actually putting any research and work into looking at how we can make sure that, regardless of what happens, people continue to have their right to vote in these most extreme situations? This can happen anywhere, and can shut down different parts of our country. How do we prepare to respond to that?

[Stéphane Perrault]

It is certainly something that struck us, not during this election but the prior election, when there were many storms around Winnipeg, in particular, but also out east. People were flown in from the headquarters in Ottawa to serve...hydro workers who were helping out with the power outages in Winnipeg. We realized then that the model we had to serve those hydro workers...We had to have something called an election in the box, where we plan for the possibility of having to deploy resources, and adjust to an election.

Is it a complete failproof system? Absolutely not. We are certainly aware of this. We need to learn from those experiences before every election.

One of the challenges that you point out, and has been pointed out by other members before, is the ID rule. Should we be able to relax border ID rules in the case of electors who are displaced, and may not have all of the ID requirements with them? We have not done that so far. Perhaps that's something I need to consider. I have not received evidence of that being a problem, but that may not be true in the sense that there may actually have been problems.

We'll need to look into that particular aspect, but we do have some planning and contingencies. We have teams who monitor weather events during elections, and prepare to adjust the service offerings as we look into extreme weather events.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Ms. Blaney, you're always really good with time, and I know we won't start a new round.

Is there another comment or question that you wanted to get in?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, I really appreciate that.

I have a quick question about special ballots, the mail-in ballots. I'm wondering how the return rate for 2021 was compared to previous elections. My riding was number five in the top 10, with many folks from B.C., as you can see in the graphs we got.

How strong was that return rate?

[Stéphane Perrault]

There is a return rate, and there is a late return rate. These are two separate questions. Some were not returned, and some were returned but received late. We have a table in the report, table 4, that compares with the last election, and there is a significant variation. Overall, the late ballots in the 43rd election were 1.5%, compared to 7.1% in this election. It's quite an increase.

Certainly, one factor is the duration of the election. It was four days longer. As I indicated earlier, there are other elements at play that we can possibly work on to reduce those late ballots.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mr. Perrault.

We will now go to Mr. Vis, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Following up on Ms. Blaney's questions about climate change, perhaps it would be prudent, Madam Chair, if Elections Canada reported back to this committee, and explained more in regard to a natural disasters framework. I don't believe this will be the last time these types of events will take place in my riding, or in many other places across Canada.

Madam Chair, would Elections Canada be open to providing that to this committee?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, I certainly can. I'd be happy to testify to it or simply provide that in writing.

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

Thank you.

Madam Chair, the report noted that there was a delay in issuing voter information cards. In some contexts, they were arriving the week of the election.

Madam Chair, does Elections Canada believe that voter participation would have been higher had the VICs been received in mailboxes across Canada at an earlier date? As the report mentions, VICs are a key way to both inform and educate Canadians on their right to vote and the time and place to do so.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, obviously the lateness of the voter information cards is not something that we wished for. I think it's important to have them early, but they are dependent on the ability to confirm a poll. Without those polls, they were delayed by one week.

It's very difficult to establish causation in terms of voter participation. A survey from StatCan was released today or yesterday. It shows some of the reasons for not voting. They're very similar to what we've seen in previous elections.

I don't have any data that would support that, but it doesn't mean that it's not important to have those cards in as early as possible.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The report noted that approximately 11.3% of voters were not registered or 88.7% of electors were registered. Of the 11.3% not registered, does Elections Canada know why they were not registered, and why the number was marginally lower for registered voters this election?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Certainly, the overall coverage at 96% of the last election is around a historic high. It has not varied much. Clearly in the context of the pandemic, there were limits on revision activities. More was done through communications with voters and asking them to go online. Overall, the numbers, in terms of coverage at 96% and accuracy at over 92%, are very close to the historic high of the last election.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, Madam Chair, would Elections Canada be able to clarify what they mean by “revision activities“?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Certainly.

There are a range of activities that take place during the writ period, both in person and through communications. In person, for example, we would typically go to long-term care facilities, student areas or places where there are new buildings and go door to door to make sure that we adjust the National Register of Electors. These activities did not take place in the context of the pandemic.

We used other means of communications to update the register.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You have about a minute, but if you have a question that you're pointing to—

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

I'll get a quick question in.

Following on Mr. Gerretsen's comments about foreign interference, the election report noted that there was increased scrutiny on the part of Elections Canada related to social media. It came to my attention during the election that, in some cases, paid social media platforms were used to promote certain candidates. In some cases, those paid social media platforms were not based in Canada, nor were they owned or operated by Canadians.

Is it appropriate, Madam Chair, for non-Canadian citizens to use social media platforms from another jurisdiction outside Canada to promote either a candidate or a political party during an election?