Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-312 which proposes an amendment to the Canada Elections Act to establish a new process for the appointment of returning officers.
Returning officers are currently appointed by the governor in council under section 24 of the act and those appointments are tabled before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
The proposed amendment would transfer that power to the Chief Electoral Officer. I want to make it clear now that I do not support the amendment, principally for two reasons.
First, I am concerned about the erosion of power of the House of Commons itself, particularly in the electoral process and I am not convinced that increasing professionalization of our system helps the electoral process at the riding level.
Second, I want to make the point that I do not believe the case has been proven, that there are in fact sufficient reasons or causes for this very important change. It should be studied very carefully, as we usually do in this place, before we jump from one situation which at least we know to another situation which we do not know.
As members of the House understand more than anyone else, because we have all been candidates in elections, returning officers play an essential and invaluable role in our electoral system. They are on the very front lines at election time and no electoral process would be successful without the essential contributions of these people.
As set out in the act, returning officers are responsible under the general direction of the Chief Electoral Officer for the preparation and conduct of an election in his or her electoral district. Behind the scenes in every election there are literally thousands of election workers and returning officers are responsible for coordinating the activities of these workers.
There is no question that the demands on returning officers are tremendous and require a broad range of abilities, including material, human and financial resources management, contract negotiations, public and media relations and office automation, to name but a few. I would mention another, which is knowledge of the local region of the riding that is concerned, knowledge not simply of the political process in general but of the political process as it functions, let us say in a very large rural area or in a concentrated urban area.
Returning officers are not left on their own to carry out these tasks. They are not simply appointed and then left there. The Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada provides them with training and access to a wide range of materials and software. I have heard that our Chief Electoral Officer is very proud of his training programs and I have no doubt our returning officers are fully prepared to assume their responsibilities.
My colleague from the Bloc mentioned the view of this from overseas. I would argue that in the vast majority of countries in the world, it is not possible to professionalize positions of this type, particularly to professionalize them so people have these jobs for years and years and can work with volunteers and the limited resources in those countries. It is in those countries that they admire the way we train our returning officers to work with volunteers.
I will go back to my point about the need has yet to be demonstrated. In my personal experience, and it is the riding of Peterborough where I have the greatest experience, I have been active in politics provincially and federally for a good number of years so I have known a number of returning officers. They are highly qualified and do excellent work. To my knowledge, there have been very few cases over the years where these individuals have been unable to carry out their responsibilities, with the backing of Elections Canada as I described.
While I have worked with other electoral officers provincially, in my case federally, the person concerned was appointed before my time. We are talking about partisan appointments, appointed long before my time. My riding was a Conservative riding for many years before it became the Liberal riding, which it is today and which it will remain.
There are very few documented problems of inadequate performance by returning officers. I would argue that the numbers, and we have heard a few examples here, would be no less if these people were in some way professionally appointed. To have them appointed by somebody in Ottawa who is not answerable to the House of Commons and to know the situation in Peterborough, or in Saint Boniface or wherever else really strikes me as a tendency which members of the House should be working against rather than in favour of giving some authority out into the regions.
Another point that has been made, apart from the alleged concerns about general incompetence which has not been demonstrated, is that somehow these individuals are exercising partisan views simply because they are appointed by the governor in council. As I have mentioned, the appointments are tabled with procedure and House affairs. The House of Commons deals with these things rather than some individual who is appointed for life to the position of chief electoral officer.