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Ladies and gentlemen, let's call the meeting to order.
First of all, thank you, everyone, for coming out today. I apologize for running a bit behind. There was a meeting before us, and I appreciate the work of our support team here getting things ready as quickly as they have.
I would like to advise all members that today's meeting is being held in public. I would also like to advise members that we're going to need about 15 to 20 minutes at the end of the meeting—I will watch the time, of course—to discuss future business regarding our study on Bill , particularly respecting witnesses. But we'll leave that until the end.
The third thing I would like members to be aware of is that we have received some motions. We'll distribute them in one second. Mr. Lukiwski has provided us with motions; I'll distribute those to the committee, and we can discuss them later.
Next, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome the Honourable Rob Nicholson, sponsor of the bill.
Mr. Nicholson, thank you very much for being with us today. If you would be so kind as to introduce your team, then we can begin.
Let me ask folks on the periphery of the room to keep the conversations to a minimum, out of respect for our witnesses.
Mr. Nicholson, please.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to introduce Natasha Kim, a policy analyst in legislation and House planning in the Privy Council Office; Raymond MacCallum, counsel in the human rights law section of the Department of Justice; and beside me is Dan McDougall, director of operations for legislation and House planning in the Privy Council Office.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me to speak on Bill . But most importantly, and to begin with, I would like to thank you and all the members of your committee for the work you did on the 13th report.
I can tell you that the government has reviewed your report very carefully. We tabled a response on October 20, supporting in principle virtually all of the recommendations you made in that report.
But we did not stop there. Bill was introduced shortly thereafter, on October 24, and as you know, it is based on the recommendations from the 13th report, recommendations aimed at improving the integrity of the electoral process, recommendations originating from this committee that were developed in a non-partisan, collaborative way.
Mr. Chair, if you take the bill and the government's response together, I think they represent very clearly the intention of this committee, and indeed changes to Bill at this stage would probably mean revisiting the committee's original recommendations.
That being said, the government is, of course, open to listening to such changes, if it is the will of the committee members, but I would simply say that I agree with Monsieur Guimond, who, in his second reading remarks on November 7, said that Bill came from an “excellent collaboration among the political parties”.
This is an issue of common concern for all parties, and I would hope you will do everything within your power to expedite the passage of this bill.
I would like to turn to addressing some of the measures in the bill. Because the bill implements the committee's own report, I won't review every measure, of which there are many; rather, having reviewed the second reading debate, there are three in particular that I will address. I will quickly discuss these three issues: voter identification, date of birth on the voters' list, and the unique identifier. I will then take your questions.
First, I'd like to spend some time on the issue of voter identification. Bill implements the committee's recommendation on this point, and the recommendation had no dissenting opinions. It was formulated after the committee discussed the issue with the Chief Electoral Officer, the Privacy Commissioner, and representatives from the four major political parties. Concerns were raised at that time about ensuring that no voters were disadvantaged because of not having identification.
The result was the balanced approach recommended by the committee and reflected in this piece of legislation. It allows three options: a photo ID, with name and address; two pieces of other identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer; or, for those without identification, an oath or affirmation and a voucher.
This is very similar to the current process for registering at the polls, and I think it is important to spend a minute on this point. As you know, to register at the polls you need to have identification or to take an oath and have someone vouch for you.
The Canada Elections Act already forbids vouching for more than one person to get them registered. We have had these safeguards in place for polling day registration for many years. Bill C-31 simply extends the same safeguards from the registration stage to the voting stage, as the committee recommended.
I would emphasize that amendments were made to the Canada Elections Act in 2000 to allow a shelter to be considered a residence. This provision, subsection 8(6) of the act, will continue to apply to facilitate voting by those without a fixed address.
Mr. Chair, the voter identification process will bring the federal system in line with other jurisdictions that require identification, including the province of Quebec, a number of Canadian municipalities, and many other countries.
By providing three options for meeting the ID requirement, Bill will provide greater voting accessibility than some jurisdictions that do not provide any alternatives to photo ID. For example, some American states that do not provide alternatives to photo ID have encountered legal challenges; on the other hand, states that provide alternatives like those found in Bill C-31 have not.
Each jurisdiction must determine for itself what works best for its system and its electors, and I think we have found the right balance in Bill C-31 between maintaining voter accessibility and protecting the integrity of the Canadian electoral system. Indeed, without a system that functions with integrity, the right to vote would become meaningless.
[Translation]
The other two issues raised on second reading were raised by the Bloc Québécois. First, my Bloc colleagues indicated a desire to amend the bill so that the date of birth would be added to the lists of electors sent to candidates, rather than only on those used at the polls. To this I would note that the committee expressly recommended against this approach in its report.
[English]
Further, this appears to be an unnecessary intrusion into the private lives of Canadians without a clear policy rationale. In appearing before the committee, the Privacy Commissioner noted the importance of adhering to privacy principles in formulating legislative recommendations--in other words, the importance of ensuring proportionality between an objective and the degree of privacy intrusion.
The justification for adding the date of birth to the list used at the poll is clear. It improves the integrity of the system, acting as a means of confirming the identity and eligibility of voters. The same justification does not appear to exist for giving the dates of birth of Canadians to individual candidates. Many Canadians are sensitive about such personal information. While it is an important tool to verify identity, we should avoid unnecessary distribution unless there is a pressing reason.
[Translation]
The other issue raised by the Bloc Québécois was with regard to how the provisions on the unique identifier are drafted in the bill. The identifier would be a permanent number or code assigned to each elector by the chief electoral officer and tracked on the voters lists. The bill currently contains permissive language so that the chief electoral officer is authorized to assign identifiers, but not expressly obligated.
[English]
We would see no problem with strengthening the language so that the Chief Electoral Officer is required to assign the identifier.
Before concluding, I would note that other issues arose in second reading. For instance, many members raised recurring concerns with the accuracy of lists of electors and the national register. Indeed, this issue was raised in committee and discussed with the Chief Electoral Officer.
As a result, implements a number of the committee's recommendations that will unquestionably make important improvements to the register and the accuracy of the lists. For example, the bill will clarify a Chief Electoral Officer's authority to have returning officers conduct updating activities between election periods. Such activities could include targeted revision of the register for areas of low registration, such as areas with a high degree of homelessness or on aboriginal reserves. I would further suggest that the committee pass a motion to formally request the Chief Electoral Officer to undertake such initiatives.
In combination with the greater predictability that fixed dates for elections will provide, measures in will enable better planning and preparation for accurate voters' lists. Of course, there is always more that could be done, and the government fully supports the committee's desire, as it was expressed in recommendation 6.8 of the 13th report, to explore other methods for improving the lists, such as the use of census data or targeted enumeration.
However, in the meantime, I would suggest that we act now to implement the committee recommendations in , and we can continue to work together on other ways to improve our electoral system.
In closing, Mr. Chair, I will simply quote the committee from page 1 of its report:
As Members of Parliament, we are directly concerned with the electoral process, and have first-hand experience with the rules governing the conduct of elections. ... It is important that we use these experiences and the lessons learned to correct deficiencies and improve our electoral system. ...[I]t is important that the necessary legislative changes are made in an efficient and timely manner. The Committee believes that a window of opportunity for legislative changes exists.
provides these legislative changes. This is an opportunity to implement your recommendations.
Let me say, on a personal note, that I have been involved with many committee recommendations and reports over the last 22 years, and many, if not most, of those committee recommendations did not end up as completely as parts of legislation as your 13th report has, as before you.
I would ask you to seize this opportunity, keeping in mind that this is a minority parliament, of making a difference in the legislative framework of improving the electoral system, enhancing its integrity. With your cooperation and with your leadership in that report, I think this is very possible, and I urge you to act on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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I want your hopes to start to go down a little bit.
[Translation]
A bill is important, because if it's adopted, it becomes law in Canada and then we have to live with it. This has to be taken seriously.
When the committee did its work leading to the report, almost everything was done in camera. We worked in camera half the time. The report was drafted in camera and finally, this ended up before Parliament. Now, you're responding with a bill.
This isn't how things should be done. Normally, the minister responds to the report, there are discussions and sometimes a bill appears. I appreciate the fact that you tabled a bill, but certain Canadians would like to express their views on this bill and want to send us their comments. We can't simply pass a bill and then end up with a result that we'll regret later.
It's therefore my opinion that the bill has to be examined in-depth. For example, when you talk about our first nations, Aboriginals and the homeless, we don't want a bill that will...
It's been said that certain people circumvented the system and voted three or four times. Mr. Kingsley told this committee that no such incident occurred, that this is just hearsay. No one was able to prove cases of fraud. Some said they did it, but we don't have any concrete cases.
What I fear, minister is that we're removing the right to vote from poor people. Take the example of the homeless. They don't work and therefore they don't need a driving licence with a photograph. They don't have 10 credit cards and this and that. I'm not compromising myself; I'm just saying that we reported to Parliament, you prepared a bill and now we have to consider it. We have to remain open to suggestions. At the end of the process, it may remain the same or the committee can come to the conclusion that it forgot something or that the witnesses convinced it of something.
Do you agree with me? Do you think that we must be cautious and act appropriately if we want to pass a bill?
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I'm back, Minister, on this thing with what Mr. Guimond has qualified as a “bingo card”.
Unfortunately, the figures given to you by Mr. Kingsley are based on the wrong description of what we explained to him. He's referring to the possibility or...the use of photocopiers in every voting station; that's not at all what we had explained to him, and it's not at all the system that is being used.
We will have witnesses at our next meetings; we have a witness from the Quebec election system, and we also have a witness who's been summoned from the City of Gatineau, which uses the system.
I just want to take two minutes of the committee's time so that you realize Mr. Kingsley was wrong.
What we're looking for is a system in which we have, as you were mentioning, what we may call voter tracking. As voters proceed during the day, on a multi-copy form, whether it be carbon or non-carbon, the clerk or somebody else--but the clerk would do this--would strictly check off the numbers. We call it a bingo card because we use little cards that are the same size as a bingo card, and they're numbered from 1 to 300. As the voters come in, the clerk would just check off voter number 34 or voting number 56--whatever--and then every hour or at a predetermined time you'd pull off these copies and give them to each representative of each candidate. Then they come back to our election office, “our” meaning the partisan election office of each party. This way we can do the tracking of the voters as the day continues.
We will be having witnesses, as I said, and you will realize that the system is so much simpler than what Mr. Kingsley has been proposing. Whether he misunderstood or whether he wanted to misunderstand, I don't know, but we'll explain through these witnesses that it's very straightforward and very simple.
I wish we could have your commitment today that you will look a second time at this, based on the testimonies we will be getting next week. Then you can see on your own, not through Mr. Kingsley's eyes, that this system is fairly simple and not that expensive.
Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. I have just a couple of comments, and then I'd like your observations, perhaps, on my comments with respect to some of the observations of Monsieur Godin about perhaps opening this bill up to scrutiny from members of the general public now that the bill has been presented.
My first observation is that I'm not sure whether there will ever be an electoral system in Canada, federal or provincial, that is absolutely perfect, that comforts everyone, that will never have a disenfranchised voter. The best we can do is to bring forward a system that deals as best we can with most of the problems we've experienced in the past, and I think this bill basically does that.
I think we've had extensive consultations within this committee, in camera and in public. Most of the initiatives put forward, and most of the amendments contained in our report and captured in your bill, will mean that we are going to have a new electoral process in the system that is better than the previous. I think that's a step in the right direction.
The other point that I think we all agreed upon as committee members is that we wanted to try to have as much due diligence as we could, being mindful at the same time that, as a minority government, we could be experiencing an election at any time. We could be seeing an election, if you believe the political pundits and prognosticators, as early as next spring. I would not like to think that we would still have this bill in committee before the next federal election, because I think there are distinct and very meaningful improvements in the bill that you have presented.
So with respect to Monsieur Godin's comments, that perhaps we should bring this bill forward and allow members of the general public, whether they be first nations communities or those who deal with homeless shelters.... While I'm not opposed to that in principle, I would hate to think that by continuing on with an examination of this bill, which is a marked improvement over the past system, we would delay its implementation.
First, Minister, do you share those views? And if we got out of this committee today with this bill intact, as presented, how long do you think it might take before we could implement the changes contained in the bill? Would we be ready for an election by next spring?
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Well, that's the privilege of the chair, and I respect that.
[Translation]
That will be done in committee. Minister, you clearly stated that you wanted a debate nevertheless. You know what a minority government is, you know that there's a possibility that there'll be an election. We all have good intentions. But sincerely, we don't want fraud and at the same time we want people to vote.
If we can achieve both those things in keeping with democracy, then, together with Mr. Lukiwski, we will want to act appropriately and with all the facts before us. However, we mustn't forget the public. We don't want a Parliament that passes bills without any regard for the public.
Let me say it clearly: some people are worried. A list of witnesses sent to the clerk. I want us to hear these witnesses and make enlightened decisions.
We haven't discussed university students. Students who attend a university, be it in Winnipeg or Moncton, don't all come from those cities. They come from everywhere. People in my riding attend the University of Sherbrooke. They arrive there and they are not properly enumerated. That's what happened with the University of Toronto. Students arrived in Toronto and were unable to exercise their right to vote. That led to scandals.
How can we make sure these people can vote?
If we develop a bill, we have to do it adequately. I accept and I appreciate the speed with which you tabled this bill. But as a committee, we still have responsibilities. University students are one. I'd like to hear you on that subject.
Not only the homeless and Aboriginals; there are other groups as well and they're asking that the bill take them into account.
Like Mr. Hill, I have comment rather than a question for our witness.
In one of his earlier interventions, Mr. Godin said there's no evidence that there's fraud, or there's very little evidence of fraud. I actually thought what I got out of the witnesses who'd been before the committee, and particularly the Chief Electoral Officer and the Commissioner of Elections, was that there really is no way of collecting evidence of voter fraud in Canada due to the way the law is set up now. It was for that reason that I specifically asked the Commissioner of Elections how many prosecutions for fraud we've had in the past number of elections since the 1980s, and we've learned there were half a dozen. That suggests to me that it stretches the balance of plausibility that with 300-odd ridings and five elections in a row, there would only be five cases of voter fraud out there. So I suggest that there is some evidence that there's more fraud than we're able to capture.
It seems to me that is well illustrated by the fact that in the riding of Trinity—Spadina, James DiFiore was able to vote three times--he says once for each party, so at least he cancelled himself out. At any rate, his point was how very easy it is, and the Toronto Star ran a major feature on this, and so on. So it seems to me that it is certainly a problem that's out there and that justifies taking some actions.
The other thing I want to mention is this. We do really want to make sure that people get the chance to vote, including the homeless, including students, including people who, for any reason, don't readily have access to ID. The problem, I think, is that we have to make sure we're designing systems that allow people, everybody who can, to vote, but nobody to vote more than once. I'm not suggesting that anybody in those groups are more likely to vote more than once, but if you start to erode the protections for all of us, we're all being disenfranchised a bit. What we want to do is focus on the positive measures that will help people who are homeless or in other ways likely to be disenfranchised, such as bad enumeration and so on. It seems to me that's not really a legislative problem; that's a problem for administration by the Chief Electoral Officer.