PRHA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, March 12, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.): Colleagues, we'll begin. We're continuing our examination of the Canadian electoral system.

[Translation]

Our witnesses today are Peter Milliken, Member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands, and Jean-Guy Chrétien, Member for Frontenac—Mégantic.

[English]

We're very grateful to you both for being here. We're going to begin with Peter Milliken and then continue with Monsieur Chrétien.

Peter, do you want to begin and give us a sense of the sorts of things you'd like to discuss, and then we can proceed to questions and answers?

Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Translation]

I should explain why I asked the committee's permission to appear this morning. As you know, I was a member of this committee from the time I was elected in 1988 until I was appointed assistant-deputy chairman for committees of the whole of the House of Commons, in October of 1996. During that time, I did a considerable amount of work on the elections issue and the Elections Act, and I was our party's spokesman on elections issues while it was in opposition.

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I took part in the committee's study of a major piece of legislation before the 1993 election. That legislation was passed. We had also prepared comments on another bill, which was not passed before the election. Since that election, we have not done a comprehensive study of the Elections Act.

[English]

So it's an opportunity today for your committee to have a real look at this. I had fairly strong views on what should have been done in 1993, and some of these things did not get done then. Some of them have arisen because of changes in the law since that time. There have been some changes, notably with respect to a permanent voters' list.

First I wanted to mention something about election expenses. Generally, in my view, our election expenses regime works reasonably well. People give donations and they get relatively generous receipts, the money is raised and spent in elections, and we have limits in place that are the envy of many other democratic countries. We should be very proud of it. Places where there are no limits are in real difficulty.

One of the things we studied in the committee when I was on it was the United States example. In connection with the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, when I was there I attended a seminar they organized at Harvard in Boston. The American senators and congressmen who spoke at that seminar indicated the tremendous amount of time they spend on fund-raising. Up to one-third or one-half of their time in office is spent raising money for their next campaign. This was particularly true of congressmen, who had to raise at least $500,000 every two years to face re-election. So they were spending an inordinate amount of their time fund-raising. They were astounded at our limits and how little time we have to spend on doing fund-raising between campaigns. They were very envious.

For senators it was the same thing, because the expenses were so much greater. I remember a senator from a relatively modest state, Colorado—not a huge one in population or anything else—whose estimated campaign expenses were $6 million. That was $1 million a year for every year of his term. He spent between one-third and one-half of his time travelling around the United States raising money and nothing else. That is a waste of legislators' time.

So our system of having sensible limits, with any faults members may find with it, is extremely important for the operation of Parliament and for the ability of members of Parliament to serve the public instead of spending their time raising money. I can't support it strongly enough. It is an excellent system and it works. But there are a few modifications that could be made.

First, the $100 limit on ensuring privacy for contributions could be raised. It hasn't been raised in years and years. I think it's the original limit. Many members of the public choose to donate in $100 instalments so their names will not be made public. That could be raised, without impairing the value of the system, to, say, $200 or $250.

It was considered at the time, but our bill in 1993, the second bill, dealt with electoral expense matters, so that died in that bill. But I believe there was a recommendation made by the committee in 1993 to raise that limit. It's entirely appropriate that this committee consider doing that. Whether it's $200 or $250 is irrelevant to me. I'm indifferent; I don't care. But it should be increased, because there are members of the public who would prefer to put in more money but don't want their name listed as a donor to a particular party.

Many people, as we all know, donate to many different parties. If they choose to do it discreetly by making it under the limit requiring disclosure, that's fine.

Second, the definition of “expenses” has needed tightening for some time. It's very difficult to get agreement on this issue, but I believe the definition of “electoral expenses” should certainly include the cost of polling done by the parties, at least during the election campaign. It is not currently the case. That may mean raising the limits a little, but if so, that's fine.

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I think it's important, though, that those expenses be included, because we want the law to accurately reflect the expenses candidates are incurring. If those are left out, in my view it's a big gap and a big hole in the law, and it's one that's been outstanding for many years and should be tightened.

Again, the committee came up with a recommendation on that score in 1993. I invite you to have a look at that.

Third, there is a hole in the law, and it's pointed out in part in various reports we have had from the Chief Electoral Officer, in that funds raised between elections by parties are not reported. A party can make a donation to a campaign from its funds, and it's very difficult to trace where that money came from, because receipts given are not necessarily given between campaigns by a local constituency association.

The national parties would list their donors over $100, that is true, but small donations received locally might not get swept under that carpet if a receipt is not requested. I think it's appropriate that we get a tighter regime operating between elections.

I believe the Ontario example was one that commended itself to some of the members of the committee in 1993, but not to the government majority. I believe the Ontario system has worked reasonably well. Before my election in 1988 I served as chief financial officer for the provincial riding association in Kingston and the Islands for a number of years, and I also acted as chief financial officer in a couple of provincial election campaigns.

I felt that the provincial system in place, which requires receipt of all donations over $10, I think it was at the time, given to any constituency association or to a candidate, was sensible and worked. It ensures accountability for the money, because an annual financial return had to be filed by the constituency association with the reporting authority in Ontario—whatever the name was—that detailed where the money was spent and where it came from, and of course receipts had to be issued.

I don't know why we can't have a similar requirement in respect of national parties so that the public is able to determine where a candidate got his or her money. If an association is supporting a candidate and putting its packet of money into the campaign, members of the public should be able to go and ask where this money came from and see the receipts, see that there were receipts for it. If it came in $100 instalments— they may not know who gave the less than $100, or if we raise it to $200, but the big ones will all show up.

I think that's important for transparency and openness. It would also solve the problem, when you have a surplus in an election, of showing where it went and how it is spent, because the association will give some kind of report as to the types of expenditure it incurred during the year.

I think that's perfectly reasonable. I think the Ontario system works. I don't hear a lot of complaint about it. It's one that I think we could adopt, and it would solve some of the problems of money shuffling around in the system that appears to be a little loose, perhaps.

Finally, on the way by on that one, I believe it's very important that local associations have the right to issue receipts. Not only is the requirement that the national party issue a receipt cumbersome, it's expensive, very time-consuming, and very annoying. If candidates can appoint an official agent with receipt-issuing powers during the period of an election campaign, why can a local party association not appoint a chief financial officer with power to issue receipts during the rest of the year?

I think it's entirely appropriate that this be legislated, because some of the parties are quite reluctant to give up their power to receipt. Frankly, for members of Parliament who are doing fund-raising, particularly incumbents but also new candidates, it seems to me there is no earthly reason why somebody locally could not be the person who has the authority to issue a receipt to satisfy Revenue Canada.

Those are the only changes I'm talking about in terms of our election expenses law. You may want to ask questions, but there are discussions as to whether there should be a shift so that more of the money from elections goes to the national parties instead of to local candidates.

Various proposals were considered in some detail by the 1992 committee—the special committee, it was, on electoral reform. I think that's a matter of negotiation. You're going to need negotiations between party officials, really, to solve that one. Members of Parliament can dicker back and forth on it, but the party officials are going to have to determine what the national parties require. It's not something you and I here are likely to agree on, without their approval.

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Second is voters' lists. I'm very concerned about the permanent voters' lists in two respects, and I urge you in your review of the legislation to look at these particular problems with the voters' lists.

First, voters have to be removed from a list when they no longer live at the address or something has happened so that they are no longer in the constituency. I am very fearful this does not happen. We haven't enough evidence yet, but I can say from my limited experience that the list from the 1992 referendum was used as the preliminary list in 1993 and that almost no voters were removed from that list.

Queen's University, in my constituency, has 13,000 students, and most of them move from one year to the next. Almost all of them were duplicated on that list in 1993. They were re-enumerated at a new address, and they were still on at their old address. My fear with this permanent list is that people will not be taken off, because it will be seen as striking off an elector. They'll be on twice, and they'll be able to vote twice. Nobody checks, nobody can tell.

You can look if you want to go to the trouble, but it's really difficult for it to be done. I don't think it's fair to shift the burden to the parties, especially given the other things I'm going to talk about with the permanent voters' lists.

I urge you to make sure there's an easy and workable mechanism for striking people off the list, because if they are not taken off, we're going to have enormous duplication.

Second, the 1993 change in the law changed the rules so that people could register the same day they voted. Perhaps members have forgotten, but let me explain why it came about.

Prior to 1993, if you lived in a rural poll, somebody could come in and vouch for you in the poll and you could be registered on election day. The reason for the law was clear: in a rural enumeration it's easy to miss people. To make up for that you have this vouching process. You brought in an elector or two with you who was on the roll. The person said they know this person, he lives here, he is entitled to vote, he is a Canadian citizen, he lives in our constituency, and he can vote in this poll. The person got on and voted.

In urban ridings that was not possible; you had to be on the list a couple of days before—at least two, maybe five, I don't know. Whatever it was, it doesn't matter. You had to be on the list or you couldn't vote.

We were told that it would be contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to leave the law that way, that we had to change it, that we had to make it consistent.

The rural members wouldn't hear of doing away with the vouching process. It was out of the question for them. Those of us in the urban setting regarded same-day registration as potential fraud, but we bowed to their pressure and agreed to make it the same on the basis that everybody could then register on voting day.

Now we have a permanent list. There is no need for same-day registration, and it should be banned. We should stop five, six, or seven days before. If you're not on the list, you can't vote. This idea that people can somehow maintain their privacy by saying they're not going to put their name on the list but simply go in on voting day and vote is wrong. It shouldn't be allowed.

The whole purpose of having a list is negative, but that's the way we're going to do it. We should go with a South African system and spray people's fingers and check them under a light, if that's the way voting has to take place in this country.

If we're going to the expense of maintaining this wretched list—and it's a very expensive proposition—let's use it and make it a list. Members of the public should be required absolutely to be on the list at least seven days before so that party officials can check. The whole purpose of having a list is so that when you go to a door you know that there are voters there. If you're going to an address with nobody on the list, nobody is going to vote in that house and you don't have to waste your time going. Otherwise you can go and ask why they are not on the list. Are they not citizens? Do they not wish to vote? What's the problem? Sometimes you will find they have been omitted, so you say they have to get on or we'll send somebody around to check for them.

The step has to be taken. If the person sits there and says he's going to register, we have no way of knowing if the person is a citizen, we have no way of making our own inquiries.

I think it's fair the person be there. We want to mail to people on the list. If the list is inaccurate because people are not there, they're not going to get our mailing unless we do a drop to every household. Many candidates prefer to do a mailing to an address.

Surely the list should be an accurate one. I think it's fair for us to require nowadays—I think the rural members would probably agree with us now—a permanent list. We don't need same-day registration and should not allow it. We should insist on the integrity of the list and require Canadians to register if they want to vote.

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The quality of the list will enhance our control over who is voting. We can make sure the people who are voting are the ones entitled to do so and that they're not somebody else who walks on.

I live in a constituency, as I said, that has a university in it. Almost every student under the age of 19 years has false identification. They could all vote with this stuff. People say, oh, well, this is a lot of trouble. It isn't uncommon for young people to have false identification; it's commonplace, it's accepted. Go and ask our pages. Any one of them who is under 19 will have some false ID. It's a fact that these people have it.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.): It's not for voting purposes.

Mr. Peter Milliken: No, it's not for voting purposes, but it could be used for voting purposes, and that's my point.

The Chairman: I don't understand that. I've never heard of this.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Do you have any insight?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Yes, I do. Go to a bar and you'll find out very quickly. I could suggest a few names or places where you might find—

The Chairman: I have never been called to the bar, like you. Could you explain it to us?

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Ref.): Which bar?

Mr. Peter Milliken: I've forgotten the name.

This is the fact. This is the way these things operate, and I think we have to face reality. It's too easy to get on the list. If we're going to allow same-day voting, I think we're opening ourselves up over the long haul to fraud. As people get accustomed to the fact that's going to be the case, there are going to be party stalwarts who are going to run out and vote two or three times. It's easy, you just walk into a poll.

We allowed for this when we said you had to have a document signed by some official other than the returning officer in the poll authorizing you to vote. The intention of the committee was that there would be one or two central places in a riding where this could happen. In rural ridings, which are very large, you might have more than one or two.

In my constituency they had them every place. There were five polls together, so it was an easy thing to get on the list. It was made as simple as possible, so people were not inconvenienced by the fact that they hadn't gone to the trouble of making sure they were on the list in advance. In one case I know of someone walked into the poll—there were not five polls there—and the returning officer said he had to go over to city hall or wherever to get a form. He said he was not going to do it, that he insisted on voting there, and he did. He got a ballot and was allowed to vote.

This is going to happen. It obstructs other electors in the poll when these people come in and say they have to get on the list. It holds everything up. If someone who came in was not on the list, you tell that person he's not on the list, he can't vote, he's out of there. If you're on the list, you can vote; you get your ballot and away you go. That's the way it ought to work. This idea of same-day registration is for the birds.

I'll go on to the electoral maps.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): How do you feel about that? It's not been made clear to us.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Electoral maps.

We were told in this committee that the chief electoral officers had the ability to develop these wonderful maps; it was going to be the best mapping we'd ever had. We were going to get maps that showed every poll. They could do it, they could tell how many people lived in the poll, because they had this wonderful mapping system.

The maps were the worst I've ever had in any election, and I've been involved in every election since 1962, provincial and federal, in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): Since 1962?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Since 1962.

I have never seen such dreadful maps. You couldn't tell where anything was. The streets were single lines, so you couldn't tell whether the boundary was the middle of the street or the far side of the street or anywhere on the street.

The map of Kingston and the Islands had the rural part, so you could tell the polls, but on the urban part the polls were so tiny you couldn't tell. You couldn't read a street name, you couldn't see anything. It was absolute garbage, worse than useless. I can only say that for what we were promised this was a major disappointment.

In my view, you should put right in the act that the local returning officer is responsible for doing the maps. The people in Ottawa do one that looks great but is absolutely useless for people working on the ground. The local returning office has to work with the map, and the returning officer has to use it himself. Our returning officer had to go out and buy maps at city hall, and he had to decorate them so he could use them, because what he got from Ottawa was absolute junk.

I really urge you to— I mean, I saw this stuff. It was awful.

The Chairman: Can we clarify that? Are you in favour of the maps, or are you against them?

Mr. Peter Milliken: I had to go polling on these things, door to door. I wondered what was the use of taking the thing with me. I thought I'd just do the street and forget the map.

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Fourth is the proposals from the Chief Electoral Officer referred to in his report. I'd like to comment on those. I'll be fairly brief on this and then you can ask your questions. I'm going on too long.

The appointment of returning officers is quite satisfactory the way it is. I don't see any reason to change it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, as the old maxim says. I don't understand the problem. I think the people who are there by and large do an excellent job. There are always some who aren't as good as others, but that would be true no matter who were to do the appointment.

Voting for returning officers: why? We've worked very well in the system where the returning officer breaks a tie—it has happened—and the person's deprived of voting. Why not leave it that way? I don't understand the particular problem. Three hundred and one people plus the Chief Electoral Officer can't vote in an election. I think most of them would prefer not to be voting. They aren't expressing a preference, and they're supposed to remain impartial. I think it's fair that they do, and I say that given that I'm in the party that has appointed most of them at the present time.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Most of them? All of them, you mean.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Well, I hope all of them, by this time.

As for the revision of electoral boundaries, there are recommendations in here that are general. I go back to Bill C-69 and the proposals that this committee put forward in the last Parliament, particularly those recommendations on having five-year revisions in provinces where a certain percentage of the seats were out of whack. I thought those proposals were eminently reasonable. As you know, they went down in flames in the Senate. Maybe the Senate would be a little more sensible now. I think another look at Bill C-69 would be appropriate.

With respect to third-party interventions, this is one on which I could go on at length. In my view, the provision in the bill in 1993 that was ruled out by some court in Alberta was proper and reasonable. I think the committee needs to look at very tight controls on third-party advertising during an election campaign.

I don't believe it's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to restrict the ability of other persons to advertise during the advertising period allowed to the parties during an election campaign. We can't advertise until a certain point in the campaign, and then we can advertise. There's a limit on how much we can spend nationally and locally. In those circumstances, if those restrictions are valid under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, surely it's then reasonable to restrict other parties from spending during that time, too.

If one of these groups wants to advertise, they can put forward a candidate and then advertise. They'll be under the same limits as we are. That's the way to do it. They put forward a candidate, they become a party, and then they can spend as much as anybody else. There's no restriction on them if they're a party, within very generous limits. We all live in those limits; why can't they? As far as I'm concerned, it's reasonable to ban advertising by third parties during the advertising period that we're labouring under in an election campaign, and during the blackout period.

I think what we have to do is promulgate a law on this and then go and defend it properly in the courts. In my view, the defence in the Alberta case was weak-kneed. The appeal was not launched during the campaign because the previous government in 1993 was not in favour of that law. It was forced on them by an opposition who would not agree to a report from that committee if we had not got some provision in the law that dealt with it. They got the provision in the law.

I think it was the National Citizens' Coalition who took it to court. The decision was made. The Chief Electoral Officer said, oh, I'm bound to apply the court's decision, so there'll be no enforcement in this campaign. The government, instead of appealing it and moving quickly on appeal, did nothing, and sat back and said, well, we'll launch an appeal sometime. Of course by then the election was over.

In my view, there is room for a valid law regulating third-party advertising. It's imperative that we have it if we're going to have a free and fair democracy in this country. If the parties are going to be restricted, others have to be restricted, and in my view the parties should be restricted for the reasons I enumerated at the beginning.

I urge you to work very hard on that one and come up with a law that will work, and then ensure that the government gets behind it and presents the case properly in court—and not in Alberta. Go in some court like Ontario or Quebec, where you might get a decision that recognizes what the charter's limits are. I'd say there have been some odd decisions, to say the least, from the Alberta courts on charter issues.

The blackout provisions I don't think I need deal with. The only problem mentioned in the Chief Electoral Officer's report dealt with third parties, and if you adopt something on third parties it would cover the blackout period as well. I frankly think the blackout on everything—polling and all that stuff—that we had the last time worked fine and was quite satisfactory.

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The recommendations regarding access I had no problems with. On access to buildings for candidates, I believe there is room for improvement in the law there. Of particular problem are apartment buildings where there is no person in charge of the building, no superintendent, and it's locked. Trying to get a tenant to let you in to go through the building is a problem.

In my experience a superintendent will almost always do it, but in one building where there isn't one, some of the tenants will be reluctant because they don't want to upset their neighbours. There should be some requirement that this be permitted.

Finally, on the staggered hours, subject to the fix in Saskatchewan, I agree with the recommendation, but reluctantly. If staggered hours worked in the last campaign, fine, I'll live with it.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Peter. We appreciate it.

Carolyn Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: As always, Mr. Milliken, you're entertaining and your feelings are very clear.

I have an immense respect for your ideas, but I have a little trouble with one of the things. Coming from a primarily non-immigrant riding, your vociferous attack on voting on the day of the election is understandable.

Coming from a riding where they're swearing in 1,000 immigrants every couple of weeks as new citizens, I find this perhaps needs fixing. There has to be a process, because, first of all, if you're a new immigrant to the country and the voter card gets mailed out to you, if you didn't get it at your house, then you didn't know you didn't get it. So that's one problem.

On the posting of the lists, someone new to the country probably doesn't know enough to go to the library and check to see if he or she is on the voters' list. When their neighbours all start voting or someone knocks on the door and says the election is next Monday and they have this brand-new card that shows they're a sworn-in Canadian citizen and they're very keen to vote, if you cut it off seven days before and a new Canadian appears at the desk and wants to vote, it's a fairly rotten experience. You have to say, sorry, you can't vote, even if they produce that spanking new card, which we had quite a few doing in my riding.

So I have a problem with that one.

Because I've monitored elections in Bosnia and the West Bank and all over, my tendency is that you should show some identification to vote, period, in this country. I'm tired of the idea that we're on this great honour system in Canada, because we've had recent experiences that show we're probably not on such a great honour system.

So either you go to ID, and that minimizes the problem you've described, or you have to make some allowances for new Canadians, because if there's a batch sworn in on Sunday or Monday at Mississauga City Hall or court and the voting is Tuesday, they don't have a chance. I just don't know how you'd address that.

The Chairman: Mr. Milliken.

Mr. Peter Milliken: I think that's easy.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Of course you would.

Mr. Peter Milliken: You could put voter application forms in their hands at the court as soon as they're sworn in. It could be part of the package they're given. They could be told this is what you need to fill in to get on the permanent voters' list. You could ask the Chief Electoral Officer, but I believe they're counting on getting those lists from citizenship courts to add to the voters' list.

I believe people are going to be added on that basis. That's my understanding of the way it works.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Mr. Chairman, let's say the ceremony's Sunday. The election's Tuesday.

Mr. Peter Milliken: That's always going to be a problem. What if the election is on Monday and the court is the following Wednesday?

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: They don't vote.

Mr. Peter Milliken: They are out too. You have to have a cut-off at some point. So I don't think it's unreasonable that there be a cut-off at some day before the election; whether it's five days or seven days, I don't care. I don't think you need to go back farther than that, but there should be a cut-off during the campaign at some point.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: What do you think about having everyone show ID when they go in to vote?

Mr. Peter Milliken: I have no problem with that, but it would hold up the process unduly. If someone is challenged on his or her right to vote, I think this person should then be required to produce identification. That's not unreasonable. People would then carry it with them, as most would anyway.

If the returning officer, the poll clerk, or one of the scrutineers knows the person and says, look, this is John Doe who's on the list as John Doe, I know him, I don't know why they'd have to produce ID.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: It's an interesting response, because within our own Liberal Party you have to produce ID at the big nomination meetings and you have to do signature checks. That's within our own little club. So why when you become a Canadian and you go into a Canadian election the rules get so much more lax, I don't understand.

So I am beginning to believe that to flip out a driver's licence or to flip out a new immigrant card or to flip out some sort of identification is not an unreasonable request.

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Mr. Peter Milliken: No, I don't think it's unreasonable, but I just don't think it's necessary in every case. That's all I'm saying.

The Chairman: Ted White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): I'd just like to go back to these graceful efforts by government to stifle free speech with gag laws. The research of the effects of spending in elections or referendums indicates quite clearly that there is absolutely no connection between the amount of money spent and the end result.

For example, on the Charlottetown accord, the yes side spent about 10 times as much as the no side and lost. In the 1993 and 1997 elections, the old-line party spent huge amounts of money, and yet in 1993 Reform elected over 50 members, spending a fraction of the money.

There's no correlation whatsoever between spending and results. In my opinion and experience, the public are more than able to sift through the information being given to them and to make decisions without worrying about who's hitting them with advertising.

So I'd like to ask you what it is exactly that you're afraid of with freedom of advertising and expression. Do you think the people are too stupid to sift through the information and to make the right decision, or are you afraid you'll be held accountable for something you'd rather not answer to?

The Chairman: Peter Milliken.

Mr. Peter Milliken: The real problem with the law is that it puts a coach and horses through your election expenses rules if that is what you do.

I go back to 1988. In my first election I won in spite of a massive expenditure on the other side.

Mr. Ted White: Point taken.

Mr. Peter Milliken: I look at the fact that one of the major ads on free trade that was run in the local paper—a full-page advertisement that I could never have afforded in the budget I was spending had I spent to the limit, and I did not—was run by a group of people, headed up by the chief fund-raiser for my Tory opponent. They couldn't afford it either, because they'd already spent to their limit. They formed another group and called it a club and they said they were going to run ads, and they ran more ads. In my view that is totally unfair.

If you're going to have limits on parties, you have to have limits on everybody else. It's not a matter of whether the effect of the expenditure is to change people's minds. You assume that it will; it may not. The fact that it can be done creates a sense of unfairness in terms of the other party that is taking it in the neck because of the advertising. I don't think it's fair that I do it to a Reform candidate.

If I've spent up to $60,000 or $65,000, which is my limit, then I decide I might lose so I'd better run more ads, and I go out and get somebody else to run some ads saying what a great guy I am, I don't think that should be allowed. It's done not because I do it, but because somebody else just goes off independently and does it. It breaches the whole concept of a contest.

If we're going to have a level playing field where all the parties can spend the same amount in a contest, and we have a limit low enough that most candidates can get a reasonable amount spent close to that limit and they're getting rebated for what they spend, then it's fair and reasonable that you restrict other advertising during that limited period. They can advertise to their heart's content all through our term.

If people want to run ads in the paper in Kingston every day saying what a dreadful MP I am now, there's nothing to stop that. They should be stopped from doing that kind of thing for three weeks during an election campaign when I'm under restrictions on how much I can spend on advertising.

Mr. Ted White: You defeated your own argument, of course, by mentioning the Tory situation where the poster's advertisement in the newspaper didn't have the effect that they wanted.

Mr. Peter Milliken: No, I'm sorry, I don't think it defeats the argument. The fact that it didn't have an effect is not the point. The fact is that if I'm under a restriction, other people should be under the same restriction if we're going to have that. I don't think it's fair for a third party to leap into the campaign and say, I'm taking a side in this and here we go.

Mr. Ted White: I agree with you in that I believe it needs to go to the courts again at a higher level, but I'll be rooting for the other side, even though I'm faced with the same electoral challenges as you.

Mr. Peter Milliken: That doesn't surprise me.

Mr. Ted White: With respect to the patronage appointments of electoral returning officers, there was widespread incompetence during the last election because of the large numbers of new people who were on the job. They were political appointees, and it was quite clear that there was partisan sentiment, certainly in the office that I had to deal with. We had a very competent person who was there before, albeit having been a PC appointee before. He was very competent; there was no reason to replace him. Are you telling me that you heard no complaints about incompetence or improper actions during that last election?

• 1145

Mr. Peter Milliken: In my constituency? No, I did not.

Mr. Ted White: In your constituency? But did you not hear reports from elsewhere across the country?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Well, sure, there are always going to be reports. I can't say that I specifically remember hearing any report of incompetence, but there always will be. In every election you'll have arguments as to whether or not— I remember one previously when there were some complaints about the same person, but there were none this time.

Mr. Ted White: Why wouldn't it be reasonable, though, to let an employer, the Elections Canada people, employ their own staff? Why do we have to put patronage appointments in there? Why not let Elections Canada employ their own staff?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Well, I think the thing you'll find in the rules is that Elections Canada is not running all these elections. As the Chief Electoral Officer himself says, there are 301 elections being run across Canada. He's back-up to those elections. He's providing the materials and the training for those people who are running an election themselves, and they have to stand on their own feet.

I don't know why you would automatically assume that because the person is appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, that person will ipso facto be better than someone appointed by the governor in council. It may be that they are, but there's no guarantee they will be.

So I say, why risk changing a system that has worked? And I say that, knowing and living in a province where there aren't many returning officers from my party at the provincial level. I've worked with them all for years, and I had no trouble.

I just don't think you're necessarily trading— You can't assume that a patronage person is not competent, and that someone appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer will be competent. I'm sure there are incompetents in the Chief Electoral Officer's office too. I have no idea who they are, of course, and I'm sure they're none of the people here, but I'm sure there are some. This happens; that's the way of the world.

The Chairman: Ken Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: Peter, because you've been in this system so long and you've worked with elections, did you find that when the Conservatives took over from the Liberals the returning officer in your area was changed?

Mr. Peter Milliken: No, it didn't change, because the boundaries never changed. The returning officer now was appointed when Benson was the member of Parliament in Kingston; that's how long he's been there.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, I have another—

Mr. Peter Milliken: But I know it did change in the neighbouring ridings. I know there have been changes in some of the neighbouring ridings, and I know there have not been major complaints. Well, I've not heard the major complaints. People seem to get along reasonably.

Mr. Ken Epp: You see, I didn't know this until I got involved. I hadn't been politically involved at all until I got into this thing in 1992, or thereabouts. I was totally astounded to find out that the returning officer for the 1997 election was endorsed by the candidate who came second in the election in my riding. To me that's astounding. The way you select the returning officer is if he has the approval of the guy who lost.

I'm not saying I want that approval. I've had this problem on numerous occasions. When the census came around they phoned my office and said, please name the people you want to work on the census.

An hon. member: Ridiculous.

Mr. Ken Epp: I said, absolutely ridiculous, I won't touch it. You guys run the census. Hire people from the last time who were competent; replace those who weren't. Let's go for it. I have no knowledge of that, and it's not my business. That's patronage, which is offensive.

Having worked on this ethics committee and on electoral things, I'm really astounded that you're defending this.

Mr. Peter Milliken: I must say that if there were a vacancy, I'd be able to put forward several names of people I regard as very competent and capable of doing this, who have electoral experience. That's what I hope I'd be able to do—

Mr. Ken Epp: How do you answer, then, when Ted says that a competent returning officer was replaced with an incompetent one in his riding, and we have other examples of that? How do you answer that?

Mr. Peter Milliken: What if the Chief Electoral Officer had put in an incompetent? How do you answer that? I mean, it's the same answer.

Mr. Ken Epp: No.

Mr. Peter Milliken: You get some people who are good, and you get some people who aren't—

Mr. Ken: No, no, you're not answering that question.

Mr. Peter Milliken: —but I think either system—

Mr. Ken Epp: You're evading the question by simply asking another question—a commonality of lawyers.

Voices: Oh, oh.

Mr. Peter Milliken: No, you're assuming that because a person is appointed by the governor in council and is incompetent, it is because he was appointed by the governor in council—

Mr. Ken Epp: No, I'm not assuming that.

Mr. Peter Milliken: All I'm saying is that you're liable to get incompetent people from any source. You'll get some competent, you'll get some who are less competent, and that's the way of the world.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, I'm going to ask you— I have a whole bunch of other questions—

The Chairman: Because Jean-Guy Chrétien is waiting, I should remind colleagues that we have 10 or 12 minutes left and I have two speakers left.

Go ahead, Ken.

Mr. Ken Epp: I want to just put this sense of a proposal to Peter, because I want his reaction to it.

What would you say? In my riding last time there were four candidates; previously there were six. What would you say if there was a simple evaluation form by all the candidates who ran? It could ask some fundamental questions on the competency of the returning officer in the riding. Based on that, the chief returning officer would say, yes, this guy got good marks from all the candidates. Boom, he's in automatically next time unless he dies, or is ill. Would you agree with that?

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Mr. Peter Milliken: I suppose, if I was satisfied that the documents were properly filled out.

Mr. Ken Epp: I want to get back, because I have questions. So put me on the list.

The Chairman: We'll do the best we can.

Stéphane Bergeron, then Bonnie Brown, and then possibly Ken Epp.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: On that point, I was amazed to hear the same argument yesterday from representatives of the Liberal Party and this morning from Mr. Milliken. I heard Mr. Milliken talk a little earlier of an electoral system that was both fair and equitable. I would be tempted, unlike certain other people, to give him the benefit of some amount of credibility when he talks about a fair and equitable electoral system.

I find it difficult, however, to reconcile that statement with the fact that we are maintaining the present archaic system out of the dark ages by which the party in office appoints those responsible for administering the electoral process and ensuring impartiality in each riding. I have a lot of difficulty with that. The argument that has been raised since yesterday is that of competence, but the two things go together.

There is nothing to prevent a former organizer from the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party or the Conservative Party from putting his name forward to be returning officer. By doing so, the person would be involved in a very transparent process and would have to meet a certain number of criteria. He would be a candidate for the position in the same way that other people could be, and an independent committee would choose the returning officer, which would ensure greater credibility for the process.

I think that the person who best illustrated how important it is for returning officers to be impartial was my colleague, Paul Crête. He said yesterday that in Quebec, for example, in the last referendum, there were 125 returning officers appointed through a process that was impartial and completely transparent, but that some people still said, across Quebec, that the results were suspect because the process may have been under the control of I don't know whom. Mr. Milliken, if the 125 returning officers had been appointed by the Parti Québécois without any consultation or a transparent process, how would you have evaluated the 1995 referendum?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Our present electoral system has various safeguards to ensure that the vote is equitable. For example, as you know, the returning officer in each riding has a poll clerk who is there to work with the returning officer. The returning officer is appointed by the party that obtained the most votes in the previous election—

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I am not talking about the scrutineer.

Mr. Peter Milliken: —and the other one, by the second party.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I'm talking about the returning officer in the riding.

Mr. Peter Milliken: I am not, either. I'm talking about returning officers in polling divisions. They are appointed by the two parties. They work together. Voting is visible and equitable because there are two people. There are also other people, if desired, who can observe the voting process. It works well, in my opinion.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I don't have any problem with that.

[English]

Mr. Peter Milliken: No, let me go back to this. The returning officer who is appointed in the riding is usually appointed because he or she has some experience in electoral matters. If we are going to appoint people who are independent of any party, chances of their having done any electoral work are very slight. I don't think those are the kind of people we want in this job, so—

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Milliken, you are distorting my statement. I am saying that the person chosen absolutely does not have to be someone who has no electoral experience, far from it. It could be a former organizer for the Liberals, the Conservatives or the New Democrats. However, the person would apply through a transparent process and would have to meet a certain number of criteria. There are two, three or four candidates per riding. There is a committee that is independent of the party in office and that is responsible for assessing the qualifications of the various candidates.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Who appoints the person?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The Chief Electoral Officer in his capacity as a completely impartial agent in Canada's electoral process. He is the person who should have the authority to appoint Returning Officers, who are his direct assistants in the ridings.

[English]

The Chairman: It's Bonnie Brown, then Ken Epp as long as we have time.

• 1155

Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to make a comment, and then ask a question. The comment is about the appointment of local returning officers and the suggestion that they should be staff hired by the Chief Electoral Officer.

Yet the other question was about their competence. It seems to me that the local member is the person who's just about in the very best position to assess the competence of the local returning officer, based upon the complaints or level of satisfaction expressed by the people involved of all parties.

In my case, I ran in 1988, 1993 and 1997 under the same returning officer who was appointed by the previous government. Because he was competent, I made no move to replace him, even though my riding underwent redistribution and had new boundaries.

Why did I not replace him? Well, there were two reasons. First, there was a level of satisfaction expressed with his work. He was competent and honest, and that was good enough. Of course, the second reason was a little more self-serving. I had in mind good volunteer jobs during the campaign for every competent Liberal person I knew. So I was not going to give them one of the other jobs.

So I think it does work in some places, to the satisfaction of all.

As for staff competence, I would refer you to the census business. During that time I did submit some names, but almost no one I suggested was hired. They deemed that my suggestions were not good enough. And I have never had so many complaints as I had about the operation of the census when— It was done at a staff evaluation— and interviewing of people and hiring.

So I don't have any faith in that system either, and I agree with Mr. Milliken that you could have competency and incompetency, no matter which way you do it. It will arise, and you just have to deal with it when it does.

I am interested, Mr. Milliken, in your comments about third-party advertising. I, too, have felt the sting of that, and while I don't have all the students you have, I have a number of millionaires in my riding.

They feel quite free, as individuals, to take out full-page ads attacking me personally and attacking the policies of my government, whatever they feel like, so my local paper was full of ads against me. There were many more ads, worth a hundred times the money I was allowed to spend. They were directing personal attacks against me, or against the policies of the government.

I have to say that of all the things that happened in the campaign, that was the thing that made me feel the system wasn't fair. I couldn't afford to take out the ads to offset—to counteract—those ads, because the money was already allocated for my positive message.

I would like to ask Mr. Milliken just what parameters— You suggested the parameters of the period. During that electoral period, they would be restricted to the same rules we have, which are on dollars, and on time with the blackout period.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Oh, I wouldn't even give them the same. I'd prefer to ban it completely.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Oh, would you?

An hon. member: Oh, oh.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: You see, I would too. That's why I wanted your comments.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Under the law we may not be able to do that, but I think you'd need to get legal advice probably from the Department of Justice and what they think they can defend on this. However, in my view, those people are so cautious in their opinions that you might not get anything. But I think it's worth asking and inquiring in this area, and seeing what is lawful for them.

The Chief Electoral Officer's recommendation is that they disclose the sources of their money, and all that sort of thing. I don't think that's much help, because the disclosure won't happen until too late.

I'm sure that a law could be defended in the context of the restrictions on the parties, which has never been challenged constitutionally. Other parties must be restricted during the advertising period, and I don't understand why we can't adopt a law that restricts them to—

I think our 1993 law was $500 or $5,000; there was some dollar limit. I don't have much of a head for figures. But there was a dollar limit in that law, which, in my view, was valid. We had opinions that indicated that, and then, of course, the case was very badly handled when it was defended.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: So you wouldn't just restrict them based upon, say, the budgetary restriction we have—

Mr. Peter Milliken: No.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: —because I can see somebody in my riding spending the full $65,000 advertising against me. As far as it was concerned, it wouldn't be traceable to any organization, or it would just be written out of their own personal chequing accounts.

Mr. Peter Milliken: In my view, if they want to spend that kind of money, they put forward a candidate.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: That's what I think, too.

Mr. Peter Milliken: They can get a straw man to run, they can pay that person's deposit, and they can pay the expenses of that candidate, such as they may be, but then they can advertise. A candidate is free to spend the entire limit on advertising and do nothing else.

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There's a big gap there in the law already. All I'm saying is that this is the way they have to do it.

If that had been argued in court, if somebody had gone to the Alberta court and said, don't forget, this group that spent $100,000 on advertising could have put up a candidate, or two candidates, and then done their advertising for those candidates— That's their prerogative. But surely we should force them into that position so at least there's somebody standing there taking the heat for the ads.

I go to the case of the former Conservative whip in Calgary who was the chairman of the electoral reform committee that came up with this law. He took terrible heat for it in the election and lost his Calgary seat because of the National Citizens' Coalition's nasty advertising campaign against him in his riding.

That was Jim Hawkes. Ask him about it sometime. Call him as a witness and hear what he has to say about third-party advertising.

Mr. Ken Epp: They all went down.

Mr. Peter Milliken: None of them got it from the NCC because of their stand on third-party advertising the way he did.

Mr. Ken Epp: They all went down.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Yes, they did.

Mr. Ken Epp: They went down with the ship.

The Chairman: I don't usually comment. I believe advertising does pay. I believe it does make a difference. I think sometimes in the first-past-the-post system it may not be a significant difference, but it does make a difference.

Ken, can it be very brief, because Peter has to be in the chair, and Jean-Guy has been very patient. Is it very short?

Mr. Ken Epp: I have 11 more questions, but I'll—

The Chairman: Could we try the first or eleventh?

Mr. Ken Epp: I'm going to give these to Peter.

The Chairman: Please do. Do you want to try one now?

Mr. Ken Epp: We can share them.

Here's one. You mentioned that the $100 limit should be put up, because people don't want to acknowledge that they've donated to a candidate. I thought the purpose was disclosure.

So my question to you is how high should the limit be put up? In other words, at what point do you find it offensive that a person has donated to someone's campaign and hence you want to know about it?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Well, I had suggested $200 or $250, nothing substantial. The reason I suggested that increase is that it has not increased since this election expenses law came into force in 1969, 1970, 1973 or 1974, somewhere in there.

Mr. Ken Epp: Okay, I've got your number.

Mr. Peter Milliken: So that's the only reason.

Mr. Ken Epp: My second question, then, is very much related to this. Would you favour a limitation on how much an individual or a corporation can donate to any particular candidate?

Mr. Peter Milliken: Generally no, and the reason I say no is that I think those are very difficult to enforce.

I think that if there was a limit on a corporation's ability to donate—and you can only look at the Quebec law and see this—the money is paid out as salary or dividends to directors, and they're told to contribute. So they all put in a personal contribution. I know that some of the Quebec members will deny that up and down, but I hear it goes on. I think that if you look at the electoral reform commission's report, you'll see that there's mention of that in there.

I don't think those limits are readily enforceable. I think if people want to put more money in, they find other people who will donate the money. Then they give the money to them, and then they put it in.

So I don't believe that's a reasonable restriction. If there's public disclosure, you get the information out to the public. And that's the thing I think is beneficial.

The Chairman: That's it.

Ken has nine questions, and I'm sure—

Peter, we want to thank you very much for taking the time.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Thanks for the time.

The Chairman: We appreciate it. If you have other things you would like to send us in writing, we'd be delighted to receive them.

Mr. Peter Milliken: Okay.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Ken Epp: Thanks a lot.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Jean-Guy, thank you. It is very nice of you to have waited so long.

[English]

I apologize for the delay between this meeting and last. It's very kind of you to take the time to appear before us again.

I think all members have a copy of Monsieur Chrétien's statement.

[Translation]

Jean-Guy.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien (Frontenac—Mégantic, BQ): Mr. Chairman, I have 27 years of teaching experience. When I used to give my courses, the last 10 minutes were usually the least important.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I was very hesitant about making a submission, because I thought it would be pointless or that it would end up in the dead letter box, or that I would waste your time and perhaps my own as a result.

• 1205

However, I decided to take the risk of coming to talk to you about four points that I feel are extremely important: voting by mail, the place of residence, financing of political parties and, finally, local returning officers.

I do not know if many of you have tried voting by mail. I did, with members of my family, in the election of October 25th, 1993, and I found the way we voted totally ridiculous.

There were five people in my family. We went to the Frontenac polling station to vote in the Richmond—Arthabaska riding. After showing our identification card, we were given ballots. My family gave me the envelopes and said: "Jean-Guy, you are the head of the family, as usual, and you will do the voting very well."

I am saying this in jest, Mr. Chairman, but you will understand that certain organizations could go to schools, bars, clubs or on the street and find people who, for a tanker of beer or for $5 or $10, would be happy to vote by mail.

Worse yet, Mr. Chairman, when I voted in the election of October 25th, 1993, the candidates were not even known. We had to write in "Liberal Party", "Conservative Party" or "Bloc Québécois".

It therefore seems to me that the principle of one man, one vote, or one woman, one vote, is violated by so-called postal voting. The aim is to enable those who are absent on polling day to express their freedom of choice. In fact, it opens the door to massive vote-buying, and we do not really know who is exercising their right to vote. I think this is an Achilles' heel.

Canada is often cited in the wider world as a country where democracy is respected and where each person has one vote. In credit unions, whether you have $100,000 or $5 in your account, the principle is always one man, one vote, or one woman, one vote. It's a level-playing field. Our influence does not depend on the number of shares we have.

Secondly, Mr. Chairman, a person can choose his place of residence. There was a small municipality in my riding that had only six permanent residents who were over 18 years of age. When I looked at the results, I saw that more than 140 people had voted at that polling station, in Sainte-Anne-du-Lac to be specific. There were many cottages there, and people had got on the list and had decided to vote in Frontenac—Mégantic that year, because they had a summer home there. It's completely legal, but it violates the spirit and the letter of democracy.

For example, if a large number of voters in a riding in the West End of the Island of Montreal decided to go vote in the riding of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, that could mean the difference between one candidate winning versus another.

In my humble opinion, our electoral system could be improved in terms of voters' place of residence.

As for the funding of political parties, Mr. Chairman, I would be in favour of increasing the limit for a 75 per cent rebate to $200 or $250 from the current level of $100, keeping the 50-50 bracket and finally, extending the last limit to $1,150, as currently is the case with third parties.

It's a well-known fact that in ridings where members really are the ones who fund the election, usually you get donations of $100. You explain to people that really they are just giving us $25, and lending us $75 for the rest of the financial year. They are pretty happy with that explanation. As a result, we often receive donations of $100.

• 1210

As they say, information is power, and someone with a lot of money can easily gain power. Last night I was listening to the news. President Suharto of Indonesia is running for his seventh mandate. On the news, they hinted that he owned nearly one quarter of the country, including huge banks and companies. So I am sure you realize that having a lot of money certainly doesn't hurt when you are trying to win an election.

For example, Mr. Chairman, let me tell you about what happened to me last May in my riding. I received reports that one of my opponents, a lady, allegedly spent between $400 000 and $500 000 in my riding. I nearly didn't make it, Mr. Chairman. It goes to show just how important money is in an election campaign.

More than 30 people worked on a full-time basis for five weeks. Apparently, everyone worked for free, which was a very good thing for her. However, on election day at least six people told me that they had earned between $200 and $400 that day and that they had been paid in cash. Unfortunately for me, no one was willing to sign an affidavit to that effect. Among other things, one person had been hired and paid $40 an hour, again under the table, to put up candidate signs with a cherry picker, not a Hydro-Québec cherry picker, but a similar piece of equipment. That person wouldn't sign an affidavit either to denounce such goings on, which to my mind are dishonest and violate the true spirit of democracy.

To conclude on contributions to political parties and violations of the act, Mr. Chairman, I think that the fines for people who violate the spirit and the letter of the Elections Act should be increased substantially. Let me give you an example. You will tell me that this comes under the Quebec legislation, but still I would like to tell you about it. Very close to my own home, on the Campus of Bishop University, hundreds and hundreds of students voted illegally during the 1995 referendum. Some of them were caught, either they admitted what they had done or they were found guilty by the courts. Do you know what the fine was, Mr. Chairman? They lost their right to vote in Quebec for five years. They weren't even entitled to vote. So you can see that they really didn't lose very much. They also got a $100 fine, and everyone knows that the associations against the yes side paid that, as well as the legal costs to defend the students.

So we could be imposing much higher fines, and even ensure some of these people get criminal records. Illegal voting is a criminal offense. To my mind, it means you're a cheating democracy. So we could go as far as laying criminal charges, with all that involves. People might then think twice before accepting or giving others money to vote illegally, or voting illegally of other reasons.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about the appointment of local returning officers. My friend Peter Milliken raised the issue. In my riding, the Conservatives wisely appointed Ms. Roy, who became extremely competent. I greatly appreciated her work in 1993, but she was quietly shooed out after that because she had been appointed by the Conservatives. The former president of the Quebec Liberal Party, who had also been vice-president of the Canadian Liberal Party, was then appointed in her place. I knew him very well, because he was my former boss. He was also a good friend even though he is of a different political stripe. However, he was not— I will be weighing my words carefully here, because I plan to send him a copy of the transcript of this meeting.

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We had to provide him with help and support. He called me on a number of occasions, asking me to drop by the office to add my signature in other places on documents regarding issues already agreed upon. Mr. Chairman, you and I know full well that, in the midst of an election campaign, you should not be spending time in the returning officer's office. That's not where you get votes, but that is where you can waste time. At least twice, I had to go back to his office to undo things he had already agreed to.

Obviously, Mr. Chairman, he was not appointed because of his competence. He could undoubtedly become competent; in fact, I am convinced he will. However, he was not competent enough during the 1997 election. However, his predecessor Ms. Roy was extremely competent.

Moreover, many of my voters were annoyed by the fact that the job went to a retired person who is already receiving two or three different pensions, when it could have gone to a younger person, say someone in his thirties or thereabouts. We have a lot of people like that, who have a very good university education but unfortunately have no full-time job.

That said, Mr. Chairman, I doubt that my remarks will be acted upon, though I hope they will. If by any chance you do plan to act on at least one of my comments, I would invite you to focus on voting by mail. If none of you has ever voted by mail, and if you are a candidate in the next election, try postal voting. See what a joke it can be. All you need to do to vote by mail is presume that you will not be available to vote on election day.

Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Jean-Guy.

I may have missed it. We already heard about the Quebec system of financing parties. We heard a great deal about that. But in the matter of residence, I think you said that there is already a definition of residence that's used in Quebec. Did I miss that? In other words, there's a procedure for defining the term “residence” that's used in the provincial elections, that we don't use federally. I don't know if I missed that.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Yes. I have talked to students who voted illegally at Bishop University, which is an anglophone institution in Quebec. About 80% of them come from provinces other than Quebec.

The Chairman: Including one of my daughters.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Among others.

The Chairman: But not one of those students.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: These students do not even have a bank account in Quebec or with a Caisse populaire, or around Bishop university. Their driver's licenses and health insurance cards still bear their parents' address. So they are not Quebeckers; they are not full-time residents of the province, in the real sense of the word. This means they did not have the right to vote there.

Well, that's all I have to say about place of residence. As for myself, I am currently living in the riding of Frontenac- Mégantic. If I had a cottage or summer residence located outside the riding of Sherbrooke, then if there was an election I could register to vote and give that address. So if someone can identify me, no problem. I can vote there. That's what I mean when I say people can chose their place of residence. This applies only to federal elections, however. In Quebec, your place of residence must be the same as the address appearing on your driver's licence. It must be the place where you pay your municipal, school and other taxes. But for federal elections, you can chose your place of residence and play around a bit. It's flexible.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Carolyn Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Well, I'm going to ask the witness his opinion on a question I asked Mr. Milliken about providing identification when you go to vote.

Very briefly, because Elections Canada is at the back of the room, I'll tell you what happened in a municipal election. You referred to cards of which you were the custodian for your family. You had the voting card when you went to vote. Here's what happened in a municipal election in my riding.

Those cards were mailed out by the municipality. The brother-in-law of a candidate was a real estate agent, so he knew where all the lock boxes were through the whole ward. So the day the cards were delivered, they went and picked them all up.

Truckloads of 25 people would pull up to a polling station. They would be handed the cards as they were going in the door. They were sexually matched, males and females. They would go in, flop the card down, vote, pile back in the truck, and go to the next voting station.

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I lost by 310 votes. One man called me the next day and said he had been forced to vote against me 14 times. He wanted to confess. I told him to go to church, because at this point there was nothing I could do about it. I went to a lawyer. It would have cost me $30,000, and it would have been difficult to prove.

Do you believe those cards, which seem to be magical—I have a voting card that says what my name is and that I vote at a certain location—can be abused? Should we have proper identification shown so truckloads of people can't move from polling station to polling station?

Somebody stood at the front and handed out the cards. He had male cards and female cards, and as the people piled out of the truck they pretended they didn't speak English. They put the card down, were given a ballot, and voted.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Fine. Thank you very much. As I understand it, you must live in a very urban riding. In my riding, the largest town has a population of 16,000 to 17,000 people. Everyone knows everyone else.

When I went to vote in 1993, however, no one would have cheated that flagrantly. You needed to have an identity card with a photograph. If I remember correctly, you needed two pieces of identification, such as your driver's licence and health insurance card. So, the returning officer gave us a large envelope, containing a smaller envelope that in turn contained the ballot. Once we got home, we all obviously voted for the Bloc Québécois—a small misdeed you will undoubtedly forgive. After having voted, we put everything back into the large envelope and mailed it. It went to Ottawa, not to—

In 1993, the returning officer did not want those envelopes mailed to him. He wanted them to come here, to Ottawa. There was a deadline for mailing in your vote, as you know full well.

I voted by mail in order to see just how genuine and tight the process was, and if people could use it to cheat. But you are talking about—

[Editor's Note: Inaudible] —Had I been a dishonest person, I could have gone out to clubs and bars, talked to people, and asked them if they wanted to settle the vote then and there. I could have bought them lunch. Some people have lots of money to throw around. A few moments ago, we were talking about Suharto. I could have gone to the polling station, picked up a bunch of envelopes and had people vote. Then I would have collected their envelopes and sent them on to Ottawa. Those people wouldn't even have had to worry about getting out to vote.

So if one single person had voted against you in your riding— it happened 14 times, you said—that alone clearly shows that we're going backwards. Voting by mail is not a step forward, it is a step backwards. In Quebec, people are saying that postal voting is worse than what used to go on in Duplessis' time.

[English]

The Chairman: Carolyn.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: The interesting postscript, of course, is that if I hadn't lost that election—

The Chairman: To coin a phrase, postscripting—we were voting postal code.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you. If I hadn't lost that one by 310 votes, I wouldn't be here today. You're all thrilled, especially Mr. Epp.

Mr. Ken Epp: I can't contain myself.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Chairman: I once lost an election by 139 votes.

Bob Kilger.

[Translation]

Mr. Bob Kilger: With respect to the issue of residence, I think the Chairman is right in saying that Mr. Girard and other Elections Canada officials who are to appear before us should not be involved in that discussion. However, it is a question I will be putting to the Chief Electoral Officer and his associates.

I have a feeling that something was not quite right there. You might have had the impression— There's a point on the residence issue I would like to check.

I am not asking you a question here Mr. Chrétien. I am just making a comment. In presenting the issue as you did, you omitted one aspect of the residence issue.

As for voting by mail, that is something I want..

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: May I make a brief comment?

[English]

The Chairman: I don't often do this. For example, in our municipal elections people can vote in the township in which they have a cottage. The risk there is that they might vote twice; they could vote at home in Toronto, and they could vote in the township. That's one problem. How do you check if they voted twice? I think the case you described was one in which they had simply decided to vote once, but they chose to vote where their cottage was. Is that right? In other words, they made a choice; they weren't voting twice.

Perhaps you could discuss this matter. It's how we deal with the residence problem.

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[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: You are absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. They voted only once—at least, I hope so—but they did not vote in the riding in which their ordinary place of residence is located. Your real place of residence is where your home and hearth are.

In Quebec, some people cheated in the riding of Bertrand. There was a by election in Bertrand, and the candidates were Monique Simard and a man from the Liberal Party, whose name escapes me at the moment. The Liberal candidate won the by election by about 100 votes. However, about 1000 people from Montreal used their summer residence to determine the riding in which they would vote. But in Quebec, you should clearly be voting in the riding where you actually live. We managed to get the by election results cancelled, and had a new by election.

It's very expensive, of course. As Ms. Parrish noted, it's extremely expensive and the fine on those caught cheating is a mere trifle. I think it's something like $100. Yet, it's very serious. It results in useless expenditures of several thousands of dollars. Several hundred thousands of dollars.

In this respect, Mr. Kilger, it's only the federal legislation that allows this, I think. It's not dishonest, but you can make a choice— I saw someone on a holiday for several weeks in my constituency going to register in the morning and vote saying he had been living at a particular address for two or three weeks. It's quite vague. I think it is against the law. I imagine there must be a minimum period of residence from six months to a year perhaps, to be able to vote in a particular riding. I'm not sure of this. In any case, there are definitely loopholes that are getting bigger as people make use of them.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Mr. Chairman, in the circumstances, perhaps we could ask Mr. Girard to enlighten us on this point before we go any further? Do you agree, Mr. Chrétien?

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Yes, I'd be pleased to hear what he has to say. We are here to attempt to improve the system.

The Chairman: I'd like to introduce Mr. Jacques Girard.

[English]

I would like to say also, Jean-Guy, this is the sort of thing we can raise with the Chief Electoral Officer when we meet him again.

Mr. Girard.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Girard (Director, Legal Services, Elections Canada): Good day. I'm glad to intervene because listening to Mr. Chrétien, I noted a few inaccuracies, if I may.

I think that the easiest way of explaining the criterion used in the federal act is to use the expression "ordinary residence". It is pretty much the same as the criterion used in Quebec law whereby one must be domiciled in Quebec.

So the criteria in the Quebec act are for all practical purposes the same as those in the federal act. I should make the following clarification. Contrary to what was said, a voter does not have a choice. If, for example, a citizen has his main residence here in Ottawa and a cottage in Pembroke, he does not have the choice of going to vote in Pembroke during the election. This choice is not open to him. He must vote where he ordinarily resides, the place where his bills are sent, the place he returns to after leaving his home, so it's not quite correct to say that the voter has a choice.

A voter has the right to have this name registered on the electoral list of the constituency in which he ordinarily resides and not, for example, where he may have a cottage or a condominium somewhere else in Canada. There is no possible choice for the voter.

[English]

The Chairman: I rent a condo from a couple for six months so that I can go away. If it's six months in one place and six months in the other place, what happens?

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Girard: It's up to you to make that determination taking into account that in all likelihood, you do not change the address on your driver's licence or your tax returns every six months. So it will be the address shown as your place of domicile, the place you consider to be your usual residence. That is the place that is to be considered your permanent residence, it determines where you will be able to vote.

The Chairman: Mr. Chrétien, do you have any comments?

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Yes, I agree with him. I appreciate his making the point that there is no choice. But as I was saying, at Bishop's University in Quebec where it's even more serious, there were about 100 people who registered, It may be that the officials responsible for the electoral list are too lax or not strict enough. Our party has an agent who is the party representative, the same is true for the party in power. In rural areas I think there is only one. Is it only one or two people who prepare the electoral list? Two of them.

Mr. Jacques Girard: Yes, now that it is a permanent one.

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The Chairman: I see. Thank you, Mr. Girard.

[English]

I think there are no other questions.

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien, we would like to thank you for your presentation.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I'd also like to thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would have like my colleague from the riding of Bourassa, I'm not sure that's the right name, to have been here. He was once the president of the union I belonged to. I had a little joke for him about the opportunity we might have had then to vote by fax or by mail during our meetings. Thank you once again.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[English]

Colleagues, the first notice we had said Thursday, but our next meeting is next Tuesday, which is March 17, in this same room at 11 a.m. Again, we have colleagues as the witnesses.

Would you also please block in 11 a.m. a week from today. We will certainly have a meeting at that time, and I'll give you an indication of the subject matter next Tuesday.

Thank you very much. This meeting is adjourned.