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]

Tuesday, March 17, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.): Colleagues, could we begin? We're continuing our examination of the Canadian electoral system. Today we have as a witness John Harvard, who's the member for Charleswood—Assiniboine.

John, we welcome you again. We apologize for the last occasion.

[Translation]

We also welcome the member from Trois-Rivières, Mr. Yves Rocheleau. Welcome, Yves.

[English]

If I might, just for our colleagues, I'll introduce to you Mollie Dunsmuir, our researcher, who is here today in place of Jamie Robertson.

Colleagues, if we could begin, I have no particular preference. The way we have done this at previous meetings is to have a short presentation of five or eight minutes. We would do them both and then we would proceed to questions, if that's okay.

John, would you care to begin?

Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood—Assiniboine, Lib.): That's fine with me, Mr. Chairman, if it's all right with Mr. Rocheleau.

[Translation]

Mr. Yves Rocheleau (Trois-Rivières, BQ): Yes, that's fine.

[English]

Mr. John Harvard: Fine, thank you.

First of all, committee members and Mr. Chair, I want to thank you for your kind invitation to have me here today. I'd like to say off the top that your exercise of reviewing the Chief Electoral Officer's report on the 36th election is a good exercise and your examination of the Canadian electoral system also is a very worthwhile effort.

On balance, our electoral system works quite well. Generally speaking, I'm quite satisfied. But I do want to bring up a couple of concerns, one in particular that has to do with so-called third-party spending. It's been a concern of mine for some time and it continues to be so. That's why I wanted to address this issue before you today.

As I said, Mr. Chairman, our electoral system works quite well, and one of the reasons it does work quite well is that under the Canada Elections Act, spending is controlled quite vigorously. There are considerable constraints on spending on the part of candidates and on the part of parties, and that is good for our elections and it's good for our democracy.

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What we don't have is an orgy of spending, unlike what occurs in the United States, where from time to time we hear about the most excessive kind of spending. There was a Senate election in California in recent years, and it was reported that one of the candidates spent about $30 million. We hear about some of these orgies of expenditures in the United States, and we don't want it—at least I don't want it—to happen here in Canada.

But even more than just controlling spending, it results in a level playing field, or more of a level playing field. Most of us are not that rich, especially those of us who come into politics. We're not rich, and the main parties are not rich. So anything that curbs spending produces better prospects for a level playing field.

This brings me to my concern about third-party spending, which I believe, Mr. Chairman and members, threatens the control on spending that we have and threatens the level playing field.

Why do I say that? After all, third-party spending is certainly done in the name of Canadian democracy and it's done in the name of free speech. But my feeling is that the threat here, beyond our losing control of spending, is it means those who have access to the most money will do most of the talking and have the greatest impact.

Unlike Americans, most Canadians don't believe that money is speech, that you can in any way equate money with speech. If you really believe money is speech, then if you have $1 million and if I have only $10, one would have to conclude that you have 100,000 times more speech than I have. I don't think that's what we want in our kind of democracy.

The other thing is that if we have a big effort and a big involvement on the part of third parties, that skews the process. It turns elections into what might be called one-issue contests. As you know, Mr. Chairman, our elections are dominated by the parties, parties come up with platforms, and candidates are beholden to those platforms and they have to speak to those platforms. They don't have the luxury of having to deal with just one issue or two. They have to at any given time be responsible for a whole host of issues, a wide range of issues. That's informative for the electorate and it's good for the electorate. Anything that would skew that kind of process I would not want.

Most third-party spenders are driven by one issue. They want to get in and talk about their issue and nobody else's issue but theirs. Again, if I can use the United States example—I guess we could use examples from here in Canada, but I want to exercise recent memory—there was a by-election in the State of California recently, and one of the third parties pushed the issue of so-called family values and abortion to the point where, if you believe media reports, most of the other issues facing the California electorate, or at least the electorate in that particular district, were shut out. It was because the third-party spender in this case had all kinds of resources and could spend huge sums of money on one particular issue.

My suggestion when it comes to controlling third-party spending is this. If third parties want to get involved in an election fray, I welcome them, but they can run as candidates if they like, or they can line up behind one candidate or line up behind one party. I don't think they should have the luxury of lobbing their money into a campaign from the outside.

It's not a matter on my part of trying to deny them their democratic right. If they want to spend all their time talking about one particular issue, fine, but don't do it in a way that limits our ability to control spending and our ability to maintain a level playing field.

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I think it was lamentable, terribly regrettable, that the restriction we decided on some years ago.... It was upset by the Alberta Supreme Court. I think it's unfortunate that occurred. I wish the federal government had appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. I think the suggestion at that time was a limitation of, what, $1,000 per party or per candidate? I think that was quite reasonable.

The Chief Electoral Officer is more or less suggesting a limit of $5,000, and everything over that would be some kind of a registration system. I think $5,000 is too much, but if we're going to have any kind of third-party spending, it should be very limited, and yes, there should be registration so we know exactly who these people are.

I think that's all I would say now, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, John.

[Translation]

I now yield the floor to Yves Rocheleau.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would first like to thank the committee for its invitation to give testimony as a result of the document we tabled before the committee, also at its request.

This document was tabled after the general election last June 2nd as a result of situations that could be described as bizarre to intriguing—not to mention the irregularities in the vote mechanism during a federal election—that we have seen in the riding of Trois-Rivières.

Thanks to the collaboration of Me Jean-François Lacoursière, who was my electoral advisor, I can now present this excellent document that clearly illustrates matters that should give pause to elected representatives as a result of this election. The document deals with two specific aspects of the voting procedure, voting by mail and mobile polls.

Voting by mail no doubt stems from an honest desire on the part of federal people who want the greatest number of Canadians to be able to vote. However, the methodology leaves us in some doubt because there is no way to verify that it is the elector who asks the returning officer to exercise his or her right to vote by mail. Any well-meaning individual can appoint himself or herself to ask the returning officer that a given individual who is unable to do so in person receive a ballot by mail. Our worries were confirmed during the election. It seems that on election night, when a certain envelope was opened, it contained 20 or 30 ballots all in the same hand. Our worries were confirmed.

Incidentally, during the election campaign, about a week before the election, a woman called me because I was a candidate. She said that she had just witnessed a scene in a geriatric home where a man in the kitchen was asking the residents to come down one after the other, taking one envelope out of another and getting people to vote. When she asked him if there was a candidate for the Bloc Québécois, he answered that there was only one candidate from the party in power and that's the way it was. This friend told me that the man was alone in the kitchen and that she was a little intimidated by that. That's when we started to worry and to pay special attention to voting mechanism. That lead to the document you have before you today.

We would like to see that voting by mail be better structured, that the elector request it himself or herself, that there be a formal registration and that the returning officer be required to verify that the elector exists and is able to vote. We would like the presence of a representative of each recognized party during the process to be mandatory.

Mobile polls are another somewhat critical point. These are mostly in acute and chronic care facilities. The mechanisms vary according to the length of the stay. When it is brief, it is done with only one coordinator, mandated by the returning officer, without any other representative. That is a technical defect in the federal process and we have to say so.

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The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada agrees and has made recommendations that the government has not implemented. The returning officers are appointed on an almost strictly partisan basis, which taints the whole process. When the returning officer mandates only one person to do the rounds of acute care facilities, we have a right to worry since that person is appointed on an electoral and partisan basis. He probably appoints someone who is also there for partisan reasons. The parties can therefore worry about the fact that they are not present during this exercise.

There is another problem in chronic care facilities where agents show up with a deputy returning officer. We allow something that is not permissible for the general public, door-to-door solicitation. We knock on hospital doors, even if the elector has in no way indicated his or her ability to vote or interest in doing so. We wake the person up, even though he or she is often bedridden, weakened or more or less interested, because of personal circumstances, in exercising his or her right to vote, which is part of our mores, and we organize things so that person votes.

That would be the equivalent, Mr. Chairman, of creating a mechanism for the general public where we would go door-to-door to make people vote instead of asking them to go down to city hall or to the schools as we do now. We should therefore have an organization that would literally force people to feel guilty of not going to vote. That's insisting a little too much and it may be an abuse of democracy given the personal circumstances of those people.

I hope you have all read our report and I will be able to answer your questions later. We also hope that agents will be paid. That would improve the procedure and would allow us to recruit good people as representatives of recognized political parties, thus better supporting the democratic electoral process.

There are a few other points I would like to bring to your attention. We find it strange that the deputy returning officer is asked to initial all the ballots at the start of election day. If there was a problem and the ballots were mislaid, that would further taint the process. Instead, we should think about doing what is done in Quebec, where the ballot is initialled only after the elector has made a choice. That detail can sometimes be important.

As I mentioned earlier, it is somewhat medieval to have returning officers, given the importance of their role, named on an almost strictly partisan basis. That fact should not only be deplored, it should also be denounced. There is at least one province that acts in a very civilized manner: Quebec. It holds elections that are as impartial as possible. I believe that Quebec is a model to be emulated in this respect, perhaps as in many others. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Thank you Yves.

[English]

I thank you both. I'm going to go to John Harvard in a moment, but just for the record, we appreciate the written presentations as well as the oral presentations, and in your case, Yves, I do realize that in your summary you weren't able to cover all the detailed points that are present in the written version. We have copies of that written version before us.

John Harvard.

Mr. John Harvard: Mr. Chairman, could I take a few more seconds? I was so cognizant of the time limitation at the beginning that I really neglected my second point. I'll see if I can deal with it very quickly. It has to do with, I believe, strengthening the rebate system, the subsidy system, we have.

As you know, if an individual contributes $100 to an election campaign or a party, he or she gets back 75%—in other words, $75 of the first $100. I'm a strong supporter of the rebate system, and I think there should be serious consideration to raising that to 75% of the first $200, as opposed to the first $100.

I'm in favour of the system of graduating the rebate. That's fine. But I think that system has now been in place for a while, and it shouldn't be 75% of the first $100 but 75% of the first $200.

There's another point I want to make, again to strengthen the subsidy system to encourage as many of the small contributors as possible to support election campaigns, and it has to do with receipts and when parties or associations, campaigns, can provide receipts. I'll just give you an example in my own case.

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I had a so-called fund-raiser in the month of January because January is at the beginning of the calendar year. We were able to provide receipts, but those receipts won't be usable until 1999, when people do their returns for the 1998 taxation year. So in my case, contributors will have to wait for at least a year, if not more, before they can use their tax receipts.

It would be nice if we could have a system whereby perhaps a voucher is used and they could have an instant tax return or a tax return that could be cashed in instantly. I think it would make a big difference and would encourage more small contributors to take part in the political process.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Marlene Catterall, Stéphane Bergeron, and Chuck Strahl.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I have one question, Mr. Harvard, on your first point. I wonder how you would protect against special interest groups.... Suppose you put a limit on spending. I agree with you entirely. I think we have to find a solution to this; otherwise it will undermine the whole democratic process and the reason why we have election expenses limits and so on.

How would you protect against one organization spinning off 20 different organizations, all of whom could operate under that limit? Have you given that any thought, John?

Mr. John Harvard: Yes, I've given it thought, and this is one of the reasons I'm concerned about controlling spending. In the United States, for example, there are packs. In other words, like-minded people who have controls on their contributions—not spending—form packs.

The Chairman: Do you mean pacts or packs, like packs of wolves?

Mr. John Harvard: It's packs.

If someone doesn't take part directly in the electoral process, in other words is not there as a party or a candidate, if you control spending.... In other words, if it were $1,000, a person could come into my campaign and spend only $1,000 from the outside.

I really don't care if it's one umbrella operation representing 20 other committees or 20 other self-interest groups. The fact of the matter is it's an outsider, as it were, or a third-party spender and all it can spend is $1,000. I think that's the way to control it.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I was looking at the other side of the situation. What if you had one organization that, for the purposes of being able to spend that $1,000 most effectively, essentially established 20 different organizations, each of whom might only have a figurehead president and organization. How would you prevent that one organization from getting the right to spend $20,000 by forming 20 different organizations?

Mr. John Harvard: Again, I think it would be through a process of registration if the same people were involved, especially if it's for the same cause. For example, if someone comes under the title of gun control and is able to form 20 committees or 50 separate committees, the fact of the matter is it's a one-issue campaign and that person should come under the restriction that it would apply to one individual or one group.

I think it can be done, but you've put your finger on it. We would have to watch how they may try to circumvent the process and put a stop to that.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I agree with Mr. Rocheleau completely that this whole business of mail-in ballots has to be reviewed. Obviously it was handled quite differently in different ridings because the rules are either not clear or not necessarily understood by all returning officers.

We had the opposite problem in my riding, for instance, where people were denied the right to vote because the returning office wouldn't accept the papers being brought in by anyone else, even though the ballot was going to be mailed directly to the individual involved.

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There's a balance between tightening up the controls so that only the voters get to decide that they want to vote and that they want to vote in this way and disenfranchising people by having such strict rules that if they're incapacitated at home they can't even have somebody else bring in the papers for them.

I don't know how you find that balance, but obviously you've identified a real problem that has different manifestations, depending on the riding, and we shouldn't have different rules in different places when it comes to voting.

[Translation]

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: The elector should be required to officially identify himself or herself to the Office of the returning officer and all recognized parties should be part of the process. We currently rely only on the discretion of the returning office and of whoever wants to take care of people who are unable to do so themselves. We can also wonder about their competence. This is a very sensitive subject. If a person is not able to go through the process, we can wonder if he or she is competent to vote. In any case, it is quite possible that a person who is not competent to vote cannot go through the process. If one cannot go through the process, it is a very sensitive subject.

That requires good monitoring. Currently, permissiveness is the rule and less than scrupulous organizers can do as they wish, and that can have considerable impact when the election results are very close. Imagine the kind of democracy we would have if a candidate won by 33 votes when we can challenge 40 votes. That is not a non-issue, far from it. I find it worrisome that we officially condone such permissiveness.

Mr. Chairman: Stéphane Bergeron, then Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères, BQ): I would like to talk about the relevance of paying candidates' agents. I know there are two schools of thought about this. Yves, you propose that these agents be paid in order to ensure that we have good people. According to one school of thought, paying agents or electoral staff in general, like tax credits, would allow or encourage public participation or involvement in the electoral process.

On the other side of this argument we find budgetary responsibility, which has lead, for example, to the elimination of enumerator positions, for both budgetary responsibility and rationalization of the electoral list in order to avoid repeating the exercise periodically.

As managers of public funds, how should we respond to those who oppose your suggestion of paying these agents by saying that it would be expensive to pay them? What kind of argument do we have to counter that one?

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: I hope that the elimination of enumeration will allow substantial savings, but that entire process will have to be reevaluated because it may be more complicated and less effective than we hoped. However, let us hope it will be effective. We could transfer those savings and use them to hire agents for a day and ensure better quality service and better representation of recognized political parties.

I think that being part of a recognized political party would be another advantage since certain distinctions must be made. This debate must not be reduced to a strictly monetary issue. We must look at the unfolding of the entire election day and, in the end, take into account the fact that a political party is recognized because of the environment. We know how fragile the electoral environment is. The increasing apathy that we see could, pushed to the limit, lead to the absence of agents of both the party in power and the opposition. Then, we would all lose. In any case, that shows why it is necessary to change the way of selecting the recruiting officer.

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It is urgent that that selection become apolitical and non- partisan. In this way, if we did not pay the agents and arrived at a period of such apathy that the political parties were unable to find any, we would have a neutral party who inspires full confidence. Currently, the process is tainted and the deputy returning officers are designated by the returning officer. Everything is linked. We were talking a while ago about the vote coordinator in acute care facilities. We have a right to question people's intentions because of the underlying process.

Mr. Chairman: Yes, Stéphane.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I understand the relevance, the usefulness and the importance of having paid agents of recognized political parties.

That being said, how would we establish the scale? Should all recognized parties have the right to have an elected representative at the table or should it be limited, for example, to the two, three or four parties that got the greatest number of votes during the last election? Have you thought of a process? There are about ten recognized parties. Are we going to accept agents of all those parties at the table, paid with public funds, or do we have to decide on a process?

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: We could perhaps base it on the recognized parties in the House of Commons. In the House, neither the NDP nor the Conservatives were, but they are now. It is a criteria that is as good as any. We could say that recognized parties sitting in the House of Commons have a right to paid agents. It's a suggestion.

I won't hide the fact that I haven't thought about this issue very much. It's more the principle. There could be a reason to have a process, but it seems like a good idea.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Instead of using the results in the riding from the previous election, we use the representation of the parties in the House of Commons. This means that in 1993, for example, the Bloc Québécois would not have had the right to a paid agent and that in 1997 the NDP and the PC parties, which had always been recognized parties in the past, would not then have had a right to paid agents.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: Yes, yes. Would the Bloc Québécois, in 1993, have had a right to agents at the table? I don't remember.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, but not paid agents.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: Like the Liberals.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: Because they are not paid at this time. If we want to have a criteria, it could also be the results of the last election. In certain ridings, that could have made a difference. In the riding of Philip Edmonston, in Quebec, the NDP came in second. In that riding, the representative could have... It could be by riding, but as I said, I haven't given it much thought.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I raise this question simply to say that the appointment of deputy returning officers, polling division secretaries and clerks is based on the results of the previous election.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: Yes.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Perhaps we could use the same formula to determine which political parties could have paid agents to ensure that the process is transparent and that there is greater voter participation. That could make sense.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: Yes.

Mr. Chairman: Messrs Chuck Strahl, André Harvey and John Richardson.

[English]

Chuck.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a couple of questions on the idea of third-party spending. A few people have brought this up, in different formats.

You said in your letter that there's every reason to believe there will be sharp increases in spending by groups like the NCC and the firefighters' association. Why do you think it's going to suddenly increase? They've been around for quite awhile. Are they consistent with their spending? You think there will be a sharp increase. Why is that?

Mr. John Harvard: I just think, Chuck, that there is more money available than ever before these days. We have a bigger and stronger economy, and I think there is a greater likelihood, a greater prospect, of them being enticed to get involved as third-party spenders. I would put it down to that.

I think perhaps these organizations from time to time feel somewhat frustrated that their views are not reflected in some public policy. So if they can work in this fashion, they would do it on a higher scale.

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Mr. Chuck Strahl: I happen to have the Hill Times with me. They have I don't know how many lobbyist groups in here—a fair number—but they have a whole page on the anti-MAI group, which is chastising people in all directions, a full page by the Professional Institute of the Public Service on public service bargaining, and other ads, half-page, smaller ads, some of them for hotels and what have you, but a lot of them just really raking the government over the coals or wanting a particular position championed. Is that different from third-party spending? Is it just the election period you're worried about?

Mr. John Harvard: Yes, I'm mostly concerned about the election period. Whatever they want to spend now is pretty well fine with me—in fact, it is.

I'm concerned, Chuck, about the election period, where you have candidates who are accountable in so far as platforms are concerned and they have to deal with a broad range of issues. If I say something stupid as a candidate in an election campaign, I might be punished for it. I can be held accountable.

Take, for example, those scurrilous billboards that were used by the Canadian Police Association during the campaign. Were they held accountable? No. They can use their money and put up a billboard and just sort of skulk away in the middle of the night. They're not held accountable.

The word “accountable” should ring well with you, Chuck. Your party uses the word all the time. I don't see where they're accountable, but I can assure you that if you or I step out of line in an election campaign, you'll hear about it in spades.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: In those cases, when the Canadian Police Association put up the ads, of course, no political party knew they were doing it, but they went ahead and did it. They attacked, of course, Minister Anderson, and some people would argue that it put him over the top. To be attacked by somebody is no guarantee that you're going to go down to defeat. In fact, I wonder if there is a correlation between third-party spending and the results.

I'm thinking back even to the Charlottetown accord, where the yes side outspent the no side 20 to 1 during the election period and the no side still won. Or there's the case of...what was the fellow's name who ran in Toronto quite a few years ago now? He was an assistant to Pierre Trudeau, I think, and then he tried to buy himself a seat. He spent a million bucks and he never even got elected. So I wonder—

Mr. John Harvard: Chuck, there are always exceptions, where the one who had the least amount of money in a campaign won, but I can assure you that when it comes to spending in election campaigns, I would rather have more than none.

If you're talking about just plain odds, if you come into a campaign and you have nothing to spend, Chuck, and if I have a million dollars, you have to agree that I have an advantage.

Sure, maybe there is some miracle once every century, once every 200 years, that somehow or another the guy with no money whatsoever will win, but those are the exceptions, and I don't think we should be overwhelmed by the exceptions.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm not talking about those people running. Maybe I shouldn't have used that example of the fellow running, although he did spend megabucks and didn't win.

I'm talking about some of the other examples; the CPA ad over on Vancouver Island. When I saw it on the news, the same as everybody else, I just thought that was inappropriate and I wished they hadn't put it up. A lot of people felt that way, so they voted him in. They said they were not taking their orders from third-party advertisers.

There is proof that down in the States they spend a lot of money, but I wonder if there is proof in Canada that the Canadian firearms association or any other group, or a union group or whatever, has spent a lot of money and really has been able to sway our population. I'm not sure they have, because they—

Mr. John Harvard: I don't think the situation is bad here yet, but I think we should anticipate the possibility of it getting out of hand. That's why we should have legislation in place.

If you want to use a good example of where third-party spending skewed the process, it was during the 1988 federal election campaign, with free trade. You know where we were on that side, and it's not a matter of personal pique with me, but the business community—especially the business community—was very much in favour of free trade and spent gobs of money. I think there was an element of unfairness.

I happened to be opposed to that particular legislation and I won the election. Maybe I don't have anything to gripe about, but there was a case where the business community felt very strongly and got right in there and spent a lot of money. Not only that, but even after the election, as a result of a decision by Revenue Canada, they were able to have all that money they spent deemed a business expense. They won on almost every front.

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[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): I would like to congratulate my colleagues who are interested in a subject that does not make headlines every day. It's a sign that they are not interested only in free publicity but also in substantive issues.

Mr. Rocheleau, your comments were aimed at a better framework for voting by mail. Do you think that this way of doing things will reach greater proportions given the aging of the population? In fact, older people have more difficulty moving around, and perhaps that is what you were thinking about when you said that this question is important. In fact, the difference in an election can be quite small given the number of parties.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: It is true that the aging of the population is something new that adds to the issue. I believe that it is important to find a process such as voting by mail. But it is also important to put in place the necessary mechanisms and all possible security factors required given the importance of the outcome. After all, we are talking more and more about the future of a country and of a people when we call upon them.

We can imagine a case where in a future Canadian referendum on offers to Quebec are at stake. The last time, in 1992, it was done under the aegis of Quebec legislation. Should there be a new consultation under Canadian law, the necessary mechanisms would have to be in place so that only those who have the right to vote can do so and that those who wish to do so follow established procedures. When a subject as sensitive as voting by people whose ability to do so may be in doubt is broached, such mechanisms become even more important.

If we do not, unscrupulous organizers could toy with democracy. Given the delicate nature of the outcome we will decide upon as a people, I believe we have to be very prudent to avoid, as much as possible, a result that could be legitimately challenged, with all the consequences that that would entail. The way we are organizing things now seems a little primitive to me since any Tom Dick or Harry can take steps for someone else without any auditing process. It is very worrisome.

Mr. André Harvey: I would like to benefit from Mr. Rocheleau's presence by asking him if he would be in favour of applying, in toto across the country, the Quebec legislation on general financing. We know that despite the best intentions of the legislators there are many obvious ways of circumventing it. I would like to hear his opinion on this matter and to know if he is in favour of improving the constraints on ceilings or of applying Quebec legislation holus-bolus to federal elections.

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: I believe that in terms of the evolution of civilization, Quebec is in the forefront. It is a model to be emulated. The right to vote must be restricted to electors and not extended to corporate bodies. In addition, we must ensure that only physical electors can contribute financially. Without that, we open the door, as has been done in Canada and even more in the United States, to all kinds of abuse, given that there is practically no control and that there is an underground aspect that is fairly serious. On the other hand, in Quebec...

There are certainly improvements to be made. the principle of one elector, one vote must be adhered to, and only the elector who has a right to vote can contribute to the financing of political parties. I think that is a basic premise that must be followed everywhere. There may be flaws in the Election Act but there is a constant self-evaluation process that shows that in Quebec we recognize that the process of voting is an important value.

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This process is seen especially in the appointment of returning officers and in financing. I don't know if that answers your question.

[English]

The Chairman: John Richardson.

Mr. John Richardson (Perth—Middlesex, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Certainly, as for the papers that were submitted, I found—

The Chairman: Just one moment.

Stéphane, very briefly.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I will be very brief. I would like a more precise explanation of our colleague André's statement.

I think the question was asked in good faith and that it was based on a very honest concern about the process being as transparent and as honest as possible. In that sense, I do not think that the Quebec election act can be applied to the rest of Canada for a number of valid reasons.

For example, we have limited financing to $3,000. In a country the size of Canada, we could probably raise the maximum level of financing. What we all have to understand is the principles that underlie the Quebec electoral act and that could eventually apply to the Canada Elections Act. Therefore, only the electors, the people, the men and women who are called upon to make a choice on election day, will be called upon to contribute to the financing of political parties, for a fixed amount. The latter has yet to be determined for Canada.

[English]

The Chairman: I understand.

André.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: Yes, but that means that you consider corporate donations as anti-democratic even if there is a ceiling.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Not anti-democratic.

[English]

The Chairman: That will be after. We'll go to John Richardson, then we can go back to it. There will be a second round.

Mr. John Richardson: I liked all the presentations I read in the handout and the ones I heard here. A lot of them deal with quite specific topics and applications.

But I think something is happening in Canada that really needs to be addressed: the votes of some people have been cheapened over the years. Their votes are discounted. Some people get the vote at a premium: they get two for one. I think in a democratic society you can only go so far with that approach. I think for a democracy to be true, it's fair to have one vote for one qualified person.

Some people sitting at this table have had ridings of around 300,000 or 400,000, while my own riding is 100,000. I see people getting in with 22,000 or 23,000 in their ridings.

In other words, with my voters, I have to get one-fifth. That's five votes to one to elect a member. I don't think that's a fundamentally fair system. I'm talking about across the board; it doesn't matter who's in power.

I know there have to be some trade-offs with the constitutionality, with the way things were developed in 1867, but we have to address that at some time, because votes are discounted. Peoples' votes are cheated when they have to get that number to get one member. It's never talked up much, but I hear it and I see it. Every time we reorganize, we never help to clear it up; we just add more seats. You can't exponentially continue to add seats. We're going to have to go with 301 seats but with a reasonable margin of error—10% up or down—from the norm. I think until we address that we are not really a democratic society, because some peoples' votes are cheapened while others are appreciated.

I don't know how we're going to address it. We're addressing all the fine tuning, but not the reality of a democratic society, with some votes discounted at one-fifth while others appreciate by about 500%. So it's not a fair system.

The Chairman: Would either of the witnesses care to comment on that?

Mr. John Harvard: I wouldn't mind offering one comment, because I think John has a very legitimate concern. We're in a bind: the population is relatively small; the land mass is very large.

To address this situation, John, you really have about two choices: you either increase the number of seats, which is already 301—some people feel that's already too large given the population—or you then go the other way and make ridings even larger. For example, with a riding like Ethel Blondin-Andrews', up north in the territories, if you were to try to address this concern you have, which is a legitimate one, through increasing the size of her riding, where would you start? Would you double the size of that one? I don't know.

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You have a constitutional guarantee for the province of P.E.I. They have four MPs and that's guaranteed, but again, if you were going to expand that area, you may have...and if you had a norm of, say, 75,000 to 90,000, heavens, you would need to have perhaps a big part of Nova Scotia and all of P.E.I. just for one riding. It's a tough problem.

I think at the moment we're doing it fairly well, even though someone like Ethel Blondin-Andrew has to travel hundreds of miles to go from one end of her riding to the other.

An hon. member: Thousands of miles.

Mr. John Harvard: Yes, thousands.

The Chairman: Okay. We can go to the second round. I don't want to stop discussion, but can we just try to keep it moving?

Marlene Catterall, Stéphane Bergeron, and then Chuck Strahl.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: This is not really a comment. I just wanted to respond to Chuck Strahl's earlier comments, though, because we've set up a whole system to allow a public debate that is as fair as possible. In other words, everybody is arguing from the same level. Nobody has an unfair advantage over anybody else because of money, and that tends to mean that issues raised by one candidate get weighed off by counter-arguments from another candidate.

The whole problem with third-party advertising is that while the candidates and the parties are restricted as to how much they can communicate to the public with money, these third parties aren't.

It's like conflict of interest in that it doesn't matter what the outcome is, whether a decision is to your benefit or not. The fact is that if you have an interest in an issue, you shouldn't be involved in it. It's the same thing here. It doesn't matter whether people are constantly the object of attacks by third-party forces and dollars; win or lose, that's not the point. The point is that we set up, on principle, the fairest possible kind of system we can, without making money an undue factor in who gets to express their point of view. Frankly, I think it is a serious problem that we have to address.

The Chairman: Do any of our witnesses have comments?

John.

Mr. John Harvard: I agree with Marlene. I think there are plenty of opportunities for these people to get involved in the electoral process. I don't think they have to do it through third-party advertising.

The Chairman: Stéphane Bergeron, then Chuck Strahl, John Solomon, and Carolyn Parrish.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I would like to share with you two thoughts that occurred to me about Mr. Richardson's comments. I think we should ask ourselves what is the value of a vote in an urban area that covers one ward of a municipality like Toronto, Montréal or Vancouver and that has 100,000 to 150,000 electors, and in a very large area such as the Abitibi or the North-West Territories, that have millions of square kilometres and a population of 40,000, 45,000 or 50,000 electors.

We can therefore ask ourselves what is the value of a vote. Is it measured by the number of votes per riding or per square kilometre? I don't know. Is the value of an MP who has to travel great distances to meet his electors, even if they are few, the same as that of an MP who only has to travel a few kilometres to meet his 100,000 or 150,000 electors? I think we need a serious debate on the issue you have raised.

As for the comment of my colleague from Chicoutimi, I think he also raises an important issue. Should corporate donations be considered anti-democratic? I would not presume to say that they are anti-democratic per se but you know as well as I do that such donations open the door to abuses, as we have seen most eloquently in a situation brought to light by your party. In fact, a Liberal party organizer was going around with governmental listings and was telling companies that they would get contracts if they financed the party appropriately. That is the kind of abuse we can see.

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I therefore think that, if at the federal level we could at least put a ceiling on corporate donations we would take a giant step forward. But obviously the ultimate goal must be to give people who are called upon to exercise their right to vote the possibility of financing their choice. Otherwise, we are also allowing, as is the case in small municipalities, corporations to exercise their right to vote.

Mr. Chairman: Chuck Strahl, John Solomon and John Harvard.

[English]

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I have a couple of things to say in response and then two more questions.

One is a comment on the value of a vote. I really hope that one of the conclusions we'll come to on this committee is the idea of looking into a very complex issue, the idea of proportional representation. I think it's something we could strike the subcommittee for or something to allow some serious thought on. I think proportional representation gives you the best of both worlds, where you say “My vote has been discounted but it's at least counted with the rest.” I think there's some value in the proportional representation idea and I think it may be one way of addressing the idea that you may not get what you want in your home town or you may feel discounted, but at least you're part of the greater whole because your votes will be counted with that. So there's one way of dealing with the value of the votes.

We're probably going to agree to disagree on the third-party advertising. For people who get into an election campaign and say, “I just don't want to vote, I just don't support that political party”, but on the issue of the MAI, or health food products, or firearms registration, or the free trade agreement, whatever...to stand up and say, “I want you to encourage all people to go to their next meeting and ask each of those representatives what they will do about your pet issue”.... You might not like any of them. You might like one of them or you might like whatever, but I think the freedom to say, “Go ask these questions, here is some ammunition for you; I don't support any party, but that's the issue of the day”, is a freedom that I would be very reluctant to curtail. I think I've given the reason for this.

The last one, though, has to do with your other point, John, on public money being used to finance campaigns. You're suggesting in your letter that ways and means of providing greater public financial support should be considered. Many people would say there's already quite a generous system in place. If somebody says, “I want to contribute” and you say, “Give $100, it really only costs you $25”, then taxpayers are picking up three-quarters of the bill. A lot of people would say that's plenty generous—maybe too generous already.

If we do more financing of parties and elections, I think they'll feel more discredited or more taken advantage of than they do now. Right now, they just say you have to give money in order to get the tax benefit, but if you don't even have to give money to get more public money into the system, then I don't have any say in it. They're taking my tax dollars and giving it to a party I don't even like. Isn't there a danger of that?

Mr. John Harvard: I appreciate your comments, Chuck, but I guess I come at it from a very different direction. To me the ultimate of public business is our democracy itself and the process of elections. I think that's the ultimate of public business, and I find it rather interesting that some Canadians enjoy the notion of going to private sources to support financially public business. I think there is a contradiction there. If I had my way, public campaigns or public elections would be financed solely from the public purse.

I don't get involved in the elections of the board of directors of Eatons or the Bay or Inco. It's a private matter, and I suspect they wouldn't want to go outside their family. They probably think they would have to make some compromise if they were asking for financial support from outside. I think it's the same thing with elections.

The other thing is that even though our system, I agree with you, is relatively generous—I think it is, even though I think it should be even more—the fact of the matter is it's not enough. We see political parties—and I'll use my own. We still have to have very large fund-raisers, especially at the party level. I've gone to many fund-raisers. When I look around, who do I see? I see lawyers and chartered accountants and wealthy business people. I think that adds to the level of cynicism in the country: “Ah, there are those Liberals or Conservatives. They're there with those big corporate people and lawyers and chartered accountants, the people who are well heeled.”

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I'm very uncomfortable when I see that situation. I would love to believe that all my supporters are just the ordinary little people and I don't feel beholden to anyone.

In my own political life, Chuck, I really don't want to know who is a big contributor to my campaign or not, but it's impossible to seal yourself off, and there is a bit of an impact. I have very few big contributors, but I have maybe three or four who contribute as much as $1,000 or something like that. When they come to my office, there's a bit of an impact, because that person has contributed considerably to my campaign. I would like to think that at the end of the day I wouldn't treat the person any differently, but there's something in me that says, yes, that person's going to get preferential treatment. I don't want that; I really don't.

So anything that will contribute to public support of campaigns I believe should be done. In the case of raising the subsidy from 75% of the first $100 to 75% of the first $200, I don't think it would distort the process, and yet it would be helpful to some people. Nowadays $100 is not a lot of money.

The Chairman: John Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): This may have been asked, but I have a couple of comments first and then I'll raise a question with Monsieur Rocheleau and Mr. Harvard.

With respect to third-party funding, I'm of the belief that third parties—that is, non-political parties—have four years less five weeks to spend money and mould people's opinions with respect to political parties, so for them to be inserted in campaigns is wrong and unacceptable for many reasons.

Many of these organizations, by the way, are subsidized by the public purse, by making contributions to an organization such as the Red Cross or the National Citizens' Coalition. These are tax deductions from corporate income and in many cases personal income, so they are actually involved in the debate in the country throughout the four years less five weeks for the campaign.

The problem with having them involved in campaigns is that as a political party, during the campaign you basically have three focuses. One is your leader, another is the local candidate, and the third and probably most important is the policy of the various parties.

So you should be debating the pluses and minuses, the advantages and disadvantages, of the political party policies during an election campaign, as opposed to trying to respond to 65 organizations in your riding, running ads, and running in some cases misleading information. We should get a grip on this, and fairly quickly, for the next election in particular.

So I don't have any contrary view to Mr. Harvard's proposal.

With regard to the funding, the question I have is, are there any cost estimates, John, regarding how much this would cost the treasury if we were to double it from $100 to $200 and take the 75% credit? Is there any idea of how much cost there would be to the treasury to increase that?

Before you answer that, I wanted to ask Mr. Rocheleau a question as well.

Many of the things you've recommended, as an old party organizer myself, I kind of agree with. You've hit the nail on the head in particular with special ballots, because it really is something that could get out of control if it's not handled very quickly and very comprehensively by the various party agents.

But the question I had concerning your proposal is on the ballot-counting procedure of putting the contents of the ballot box on the table before counting them, which is the procedure now, versus taking them out one at a time. You make reference here to the fact that this is the procedure used under the Quebec elections act.

My question would be, what happened during the referendum ballot-counting that everything got so out of control? Was that as a result of using the Quebec elections act, or were there some other problems attributed to the massive confusion and allegations of fraudulent ballot-casting? Was it because of the Quebec elections act or were there some problems in the politically appointed agents? Or was there some other reason?

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The Chairman: We'll go to Yves Rocheleau first and then John Harvard.

[Translation]

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: To the best of my knowledge, there was no problem with the Referendum Act in Quebec during the last referendum. You are no doubt referring to the Montréal riding where, according to hearsay, there was a significant disallowment of votes. Statistically, it has been demonstrated that it was a non-problem that was raised by the press in Montréal.

On the other hand, we are suggesting that we use Quebec legislation as a baseline. In fact, instead of pouring all the ballots on the table, with the danger of some of them fall on the floor and give false results, we should take the ballots one by one to identify who has been elected. That's very technical, but it can be important in the context of a narrow victory.

[English]

Mr. John Solomon: Just as a follow-up on this, it works the other way. In Saskatchewan you take the ballots out. When you count them, you put them back in the ballot box and then seal it. It's one way or the other. Either you're counting them off the table or you're counting them off the ballot box. You may have a number—you may have dropped one on the table and dumped it back in the box. There is a fifty-fifty chance of screwing up either way.

I think the key here is making sure we have the party agents there during the count so there's an assurance, with the checking of the poll book. The poll book will count the number of ballots, and the numbers have to agree or you have a problem in the whole polling station. There are provisions now for this, but I'm just curious as to what happened in Quebec.

[Translation]

Mr. Yves Rocheleau: I think I understand that at the federal level we take the box and empty it, with all the inherent dangers that implies. In Quebec, and perhaps in Saskatchewan, we take the ballots one by one and count them in favour of one candidate or another. Since all ballots are folded, there is a risk of error if we want to unfold them all simultaneously. Some can fall on the floor and that can cause a thousand problems. That is why we suggest the technique of taking them one by one and sorting them into piles according to the person selected. Once the ballots are unfolded, there is less risk.

[English]

The Chairman: John Harvard.

Mr. John Harvard: In answer to Mr. Solomon's question, I don't have a figure on what it would cost. My guess is it wouldn't be that costly. I just think we have to look upon our democracy as something pretty precious. Yes, there would be an additional cost, but I think it would be worthwhile.

Mr. Chairman, can I just make one comment on Mr. Strahl's position vis-à-vis proportional representation? I know proportional representation has some appeal, but I think we overlook the merits of our so-called first-past-the-post system. This is my tenth year in Parliament now, and the longer I'm here the more I appreciate the first-past-the-post system. I say that because it does, more often than not, produce stable majorities. I think it's important for any government, even those governments that I would not support from an ideological point or whatever, to be in a position to exercise power and to fulfil their election commitments.

If you resort to a system of proportional representation, I think you're inviting minority parliaments. I think you're inviting all kinds of coalitions. I'm not a great fan of that. I look around to other countries, like Israel and Italy, and they have a lot of instability.

The other thing too is in the absence of proportional representation, I think the various points of view are heard very well. I could even use your party, Mr. Strahl. I think your party—it's ten years old—has done reasonably well. I think your points of view have been picked up in many areas of our political life. You've done it without proportional representation.

The Chairman: Miss Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I'd like to make a comment similar to Mr. Richardson's. I know when we did Bill C-69 I went after this at great length. I agree with him, by the way. We're not here representing geography; we're representing people. I think the opportunity in one of the recommendations from the chief returning officer to look at high-growth areas and reconstitute them every five years....

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I was sorry the other night that none of the parties seemed to endorse that. I served an area with 362,000 people and the geography was irrelevant. It was rough. The number of people, the number of concerns, immigration letters—the volume of work was phenomenal. If you're in a large geographical area you have a problem, but you have phones, fax machines, e-mail, Internet, and postage-free mail.

Are we looking at electioneering or serving our constituents? If you're serving your constituents, right now we have a very modern system with lots of communication available. Back in the old days, when they measured a riding by how far you could go in a day riding a horse, they didn't have all that stuff. I'd like to see us reach 2000 taking into consideration that we're serving people, not geography.

The five-year reconfigurations are geared specifically to high-growth areas, and I think you need to do that, particularly with a mix of population. I have 33 languages in my riding, so it's very difficult.

The other thing I'd like to say, in conjunction with Mr. Richardson, is you should be putting a limit on the number of ridings. You can't just keep growing until we get to 1,000 seats in the House. It won't accommodate that.

Even though I received only $25,000 more in my budget than what a regular MP with 19,000 people in Prince Edward Island received, I still had 5% left over every year. So you can do it. You can have huge ridings, but we're all on a level playing field. All our voters are getting the same access to their members, the same service, and the same hit for their bucks on their votes.

The second item I want to talk about briefly is this idea of third-party advertising. In 1993 I ran against a good old Tory name, Dr. Bob Horner, and he didn't have a lot of bright people around. About three days before the election a distribution company that happened to be part of my campaign manager's other life got a flyer that was supposed to be sent out by them called “Parrish the Thought”. Very cute.

The idiots who happened to be Dr. Horner's campaign managers actually signed the work order to have this thing distributed. It was very scurrilous. It was a nasty piece of business. It talked about things in my private life that didn't exist but made me sound terribly exotic. I probably would have received more votes.

I called Dr. Horner and told him he had two problems. First, those idiots signed the work order, so I would sue the pants off him when the election was over. Second, he would have to add that into his election expenses because his campaign manager signed the order to distribute it and he couldn't count it as third party.

There is where the abuse lies. If they had had a smarter guy sign for the distribution, it could have been a third-party ad called “Parrish the Thought Committee”. It would not have been traced back to Dr. Horner, who, by the way, had it stopped. It cost him a lot of money to have it printed. The distributor made him pay for the distribution, even though he stopped it and the whole thing was put to a dead halt because I picked up the phone.

The abuses possible out there in third-party voting are phenomenal. Just because he had idiots surrounding him doesn't mean somebody else wouldn't have smarter people doing exactly the same thing.

I really don't want to ask either of the witnesses a question. I just wanted to make those two comments.

We need to go back and revisit John's comment that we're representing people and each person should have an equal vote—representation by population. Provinces with a lot of changes in population and areas with a lot of changes should be redistributed every five years. I don't think we should grow like billy-o. There should be a limit of 301 put on the House of Commons and we should go back and revisit how we handle the large ridings. Good luck to the guys with the small ridings, but this has to be looked at fairly.

The Chairman: I want to thank our colleagues, John Harvard from Charleswood—Assiniboine in Manitoba and Yves Rocheleau from Trois-Rivères in Quebec, for the oral presentations and the written presentations. We appreciate your taking the time on this very important topic.

Colleagues, our meeting on Thursday at 11 a.m. is a preliminary consideration of the point of privilege that is being referred to us. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.