[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, October 29, 1996
.1620 
[English]
The Vice-Chair (Ms Catterall): I call this meeting to order. We're dealing today with the order of reference from Tuesday, October 22, concerning Bill-63, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Referendum Act. Our witness, as everybody can see, is the Hon. Herb Gray, leader of the government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada.
Mr. Gray.
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. I'd like to begin with a brief opening statement, following which of course I'd be happy to do my best to respond to your questions.
[Translation]
First of all, I know that the committee met with representatives from Elections Canada several times in order to give them its opinion and to advise them with respect to their register project and I would like to thank you for your commendable and useful efforts. As far as I am concerned, all of the preliminary work that has been accomplished can only make the work of the committee easier.
Secondly, I would like to underscore the excellent work done by Elections Canada, which conducted extensive research and designed and carefully assessed the concept of the permanent Register of Electors. Since you met with the Chief Electoral Officer last Spring, my officials have worked tirelessly to resolve one of the main sources of concern, the protection of privacy, and the bill before you is the product of these efforts. Because of these efforts, the proposed register is now more practical and better protects the right of Canadians to privacy.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Bill C-63 modernizes and improves the efficiency of our electoral administration. It does this by shortening the campaign period, by creating a permanent voters' register, and by conducting a last enumeration before the next election to build the register and to provide preliminary voters' lists for the next general election.
It will result in significant cost savings, $30 million for federal taxpayers alone, for each election starting after the next one. Of the $30 million, $8 million will come from the shorter electoral period. I presume that the $8 million saving will be available for the next election.
Let me elaborate on some of the features and their relation to elections, to voters and to parties and candidates. I'll also try to respond to some misconceptions that have emerged from the generally favourable reaction across the country. I'll also touch on the issues of the period of notification for paid broadcasting time and voting hours across the country.
By conducting one last door-to-door enumeration before the next election - and this enumeration would likely be in the spring of 1997 - the bill paves the way to a minimum 36-day election campaign. We need to reduce the costs of administering elections.
Expenses involved through shortened election periods, and to deal with what someone has talked about as possible voter fatigue and disinterest, was brought out in testimony before the Lortie Royal Commission. This last door-to-door enumeration would be conducted in the same way as before, but before the next election, and would produce the preliminary lists of electors for that next general election.
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When that election is called, these preliminary lists would be distributed to the political parties within five days of the issuing of the writs, not late in the campaign as some media coverage suggested. This also means that election expense limits will be available 31 days before polling day, as opposed to the 22 days under the current legislation. Therefore, candidates will know earlier what their expense limits are, and the risk of them inadvertently going over the limits will be reduced.
In my view, what we're proposing would actually create a longer period than at present for the kind of meaningful, focused grassroots campaign that is based on the use of the preliminary voters' lists for door-to-door canvassing, for sending out targeted mailings, and for getting out the vote on election day. This, of course, would be equally available to all candidates of all political parties, and I suppose independent candidates as well.
At present, these lists are available about three weeks before election day. Under this bill they will be available four weeks before election day. Based on Election Canada's experience in automating the list of voters in 1992, and in revising it in 1993, when there was no enumeration, these critical and improved time lines can be respected.
As well, notice of confirmation cards will be sent to voters on their register by the electoral officer. This is just one step in Election Canada's strategy to ensure Canadians are aware of how to exercise their right to vote. Of course, these notices will also be sent in the next election to those on the preliminary voters' lists, as was done last time. The card is sent two weeks after the writ is issued to voters on their register. It confirms registration, provides the voter with information on advance and regular polling dates and stations, and includes a phone number to call with voter questions.
Elections Canada will continue to have its usual multi-media information campaign to ensure Canadians are informed about this important event and how to exercise their vote.
I also wish to note some important changes associated with a minimum 36-day electoral calendar. This reduction in the calendar will have an impact on Canadians who vote under special voting rules. I refer to the armed services voters and especially those living abroad. This includes, of course, diplomats and those who are abroad with the intention to return. To offset this reduction, special ballots will now be received until 6 p.m., Ottawa time, on polling day to enable more Canadians in these categories to vote.
The shortened calendar also affects the period of notification for broadcasting time. Bill C-63 maintains the current 28 days of time for advertising on radio and TV by political parties. However, we propose an adjustment to accommodate the shorter election calendar. Traditionally, political parties inform broadcasters of their requirements in advance of the beginning of the advertising period. Bill C-63 proposes a 3-day period as opposed to the current 10 days within which parties must inform broadcasters of the advertising time they wish to purchase.
Although this change in the notice period can be characterized as a secondary impact of the bill, I am concerned that this abridgement of time could cause some difficulties for parties in developing schedules for their advertising on TV and radio. Elections Canada has sought the views of the broadcasting arbitrator, Peter Grant, and he has provided his concerns and options to the Chief Electoral Officer.
I understand that one of Mr. Grant's options maintains the present period for broadcasting by parties but sets a rolling window of up to 10 days after the issuance of the writs within which parties must inform the broadcasters of their initial requirements. I am attracted to this approach but would be happy to have the committee explore this matter and help me develop an appropriate amendment.
I would now like to clarify some of the terminology that has been erroneously used in discussion of the register. What will be available for the next general election, whether it comes next spring, summer or fall, will be a preliminary voters' list, not the permanent register. However, once built and established, the register would be available for subsequent federal elections and there would be no need for costly and time-consuming door-to-door enumeration of all households during the election period itself.
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After the next election, assuming it comes before 1998, we will have a permanent register of voters. I'm assuming, of course, this bill becomes law this fall. Within five days of the issuance of the writs the register would generate the preliminary lists of electors. Information on voters gathered during the electoral period through revision would be used to update the register and of course the preliminary lists themselves being used during that election period.
Between electoral events, Elections Canada would update the register using data from Revenue Canada, the lists of new Canadian citizens from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and provincial and territorial motor vehicle and vital statistics data. The information sought for these updates is what is commonly referred to as ``tombstone data'': name, address, and date-of-birth information. In the case of data from federal sources, it would be obtained only with the permission of the individual concerned.
Once fully operational, the register could be shared with provinces, municipalities, or school boards, but only for electoral purposes. This sharing should yield further savings for Canadians as provincial and municipal taxpayers.
It's also worth noting that the bill provides for a new streamlined revision process during the electoral event. The sittings for revision and the position of revising officer would be abolished. Their former tasks would be handled by the returning officers themselves. The new process would also make revision more accessible to electors. It would be easier for electors who have moved to transfer their registration from one list to another or to correct information on the voters' list.
Target revision could be used in high-mobility areas, university campuses and new housing developments amongst others. A mail-out and mail-back registration form would be used.
Let me now clarify two other aspects of this bill. First, like the current system of door-to-door enumeration, the register of electors remains a voluntary system of voter registration. Canadians can opt not to have their name, address, and date of birth on the register without affecting their right to vote. They simply need to get their name placed on the voters' list either during the election campaign or on polling day itself. Secondly, we will ensure the electors' privacy will be respected and the confidentiality of their personal information will be safeguarded.
How will this work? We will insist that the active consent principle be applied before Elections Canada can obtain the specified voter information from federal sources. This is particularly important for access to Revenue Canada data. When filing their tax returns, taxpayers will be asked to tick a box on their returns indicating they agree with the sharing of their name, address, and date-of-birth information with Elections Canada. This is what we call ``active informed consent''. A similar process will be set up by Citizenship and Immigration Canada to ask new Canadians whether they wish to have their information shared with Elections Canada.
The computers of Elections Canada and these two federal departments will not be linked to transmit these data. Instead, this or tapes of the information will be delivered to Elections Canada.
Also, provincial laws will continue to prevail with the privacy of provincial data sources. Either through provincial legislation or agreements between Elections Canada and the provincial or municipal organization with whom Elections Canada will exchange data, the privacy of personal information will be assured.
Additionally, the proposed legislation spells out who will be entitled to receive information in the register. An offence is created in the bill before you for any misuse of this information, such as sharing it with unauthorized individuals or for non-electoral purposes. I'm told this approach meets the criteria of the privacy commissioner in this area.
There is one point on which the view of the privacy commissioner has not been accepted. The current proposal would enable the sharing of a list derived from the register each year. The bill proposes November 15, but it may be you will have some comments on a more appropriate date, perhaps earlier in the year. I'd be happy to consider an amendment in that regard. The sharing of the list would be with members of Parliament and with political parties for those ridings where they ran a candidate in the last election.
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After carefully considering the views of the privacy commissioner, I continue to recommend that there be an annual sharing of the list. In my view, this distribution would enable members of Parliament and political parties to more effectively fulfil their mandate in our parliamentary democracy.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I hope we will be able to proceed quickly with this bill. It's my sense that there is a relatively high degree of consensus around it, which reflects the considerable amount of work already done over the past two years. I would also point out that this initiative is of great positive interest to the provinces.
With respect to the issue of voting hours across the country, I would like to express my appreciation on behalf of the government, and I think members of Parliament and Canadians in western Canada, for the work done by our colleague from Vancouver East, Anna Terrana. Her private member's bill has prompted lively debate on this important aspect of elections as recently as yesterday in the House, when the bill received second reading and was referred to this committee.
When I introduced Bill C-63 last week, I said in a press conference that I and the government were sympathetic to the objective of Anna Terrana's Bill C-314, but we were equally concerned that voting hours respond to the concerns of western Canadians without creating new and undue problems for Canadians in the eastern part of our country. Bill C-314 does aim at achieving this balance.
I've reflected on the matter further since the bill was introduced, and I now believe that to ensure that this issue is dealt with in time for the next election, it should be the subject of amendments to Bill C-63. I believe there is a broad desire to resolve this problem in the House and in this committee, and to that end I will soon make specific recommendations to the committee for such amendments to Bill C-63.
I should add that I have discussed this matter with Anna Terrana. She has said that she would be very pleased to have the solution to the problem she aimed to deal with in her private member's bill taken aboard by this committee through amendments to the bill that the government has presented and that I am here to support today.
Let me conclude by observing that Bill C-63 does not address the question of third-party spending, which is also, in my view, related to the issue of election expenses in general. The government does plan to present a bill on this issue, but the work on it is not yet complete. The aim of any such bill would be to respond to the issues arising from the decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal in the so-called Somerville case, which struck down the limitations adopted by Parliament before the last election with respect to third-party advertising.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'd now be happy to try to answer your questions. I may well call on the officials with me for assistance. I must confess, I may even ask that some of these questions be dealt with by Mr. Kingsley when he appears before you, I think, tomorrow. Thank you for your attention, and I'm now ready to try to deal with your questions.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gray. We appreciate your taking the time to share with us your view and the government's view on this important piece of legislation.
I will now invite my colleague Mr. Langlois from the Bloc to begin questioning.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois (Bellechasse): Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to thank the staff that enabled us to have these binders containing all of the documentation.
Since Mr. Gray is by far our most senior member and is interested in Parliamentary life, having sat in both the Opposition and in the Government, please allow me to express to him, through you, our concerns to keep our resources to a minimum in order to do our work.
Mr. Gray, I am happy to see you healthy and amongst us.
As for the principle underlying Bill C-63, the Official Opposition has said that it supported the provisions shortening the election campaign period, providing that this was linked to the establishment of a preliminary list. When we heard the news on Parliament Hill, it was not clear whether or not this aspect would be included.
Consequently, we had to base our initial criticism on what was known, namely the statements made by the Chief Electoral Office when he appeared before this committee last April. At that time, he stated that, after June, it would no longer be possible to establish a permanent list.
.1640
However, in your statement in the House, you mentioned that both would be possible. An enumeration outside of an election campaign period would therefore be available as soon as the writs are issued or in the following days. This satisfies one of our particular concerns.
Furthermore, I understand that we will probably have to live with two election laws for a certain period of time. There is no formal guarantee, unless you provide one today, that the government will use its prerogative to dissolve the Houses before the enumeration has been completed.
The opposition parties will be at a disadvantage, as always, in that they will not know which piece of legislation they will be using. If you could provide us with some assurance today that the enumeration will be completed and in effect when the writs are issued, this would already be one step in the right direction.
Of course, one aspect which prevents us from fully supporting this reform which, by the way, is a reform headed in the right direction, is the fact that we were not able to participate more in the process, Mr. Gray.
During the 35th Parliament, you had established a precedent, with motion M-10 that you yourself introduces whereby you gave the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs the mandate to prepare the bill on the readjustment of electoral boundaries, which became Bill C-69.
I would have thought that you could have used the same procedure and asked this committee to draft, in cooperation with Elections Canada, an election bill, as we produced earlier, and, if necessary, a referendum bill, so that this bill would not have been the work of the executive but instead the product of the legislative institution, since this piece of legislation is not an act of a political party.
The Elections Act is a law that affects all Canadians as well as parliamentarians, since most of them will have to live with this law when they run again as candidates.
I'd deplore the fact that the opposition parties were not consulted. I think that the best approach, and you had laid the ground work for such an approach, Mr. Gray, would have been to present a motion to refer the drafting of the bill to this committee. We could have participated in each of the phases and we could have appreciated the difficulties facing Elections Canada. We could have experienced these difficulties at the same time, as we did during Bill C-69, and we could have understood all of the dynamics and the logic involved. This would have been much simple.
In the future, I would invite the government to use these electoral provisions whenever possible. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that you, Mr. Gray, asked that the Standing Orders be amended so that the Government could refer, to this committee, the drafting of bills of this nature which, by their definition, are neither litigious nor contentious and which must, in my opinion, receive as broad a consensus as possible.
As we debate this bill before this committee, we will work towards obtaining this broad consensus. Adopting this bill by means of a simple majority would be unthinkable. I think that the three parties must support the basic provisions so that this bill truly reflects the will of the people, will that is firmly entrenched.
Earlier, you mentioned that you will be coming back soon with a bill on advertising by third parties, and I hope that you will follow up on this. The Somerville decision creates some troubling disproportions. Your colleague, Minister Martin, had an opportunity to give a brilliant speech in the House on regulating political party expenditures, specifying that everyone must have an equal opportunity and that the power of money should not result in one candidate winning over another, but that everyone should have equal access, at least in theory, to the information media, to advertising, etc.
If, in addition to the political parties, the third parties are given the right to spend as much as they want, we will be in disturbing situation. I have a question for you with respect to this issue and I will conclude my preliminary remarks shortly.
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Would the government be willing to consider the use of an overriding clause, such as the one provided for in section 33 of the 1982 Constitution Act, which would put back in force the provisions deemed inoperative under the Chart by the Alberta Court of Appeal in the Somerville decision? Thus, with one section, we could possibly reinstate the $1,000 limitation on third parties who want to intervene.
I think that it is high time that we give ourselves an effective work tool to deal with electoral disputes, and Bill C-63 is lacking in this respect. We are living with an electoral system where, ultimately, it is much easier for someone to cheat during an election, because the court challenge procedures are subject to an old piece of legislation dealing with disputed elections which, when you have to use it, requires a great deal of time. Generally speaking, the members can sit in Parliament for all of their mandate before their election is cancelled if they were really guilty of any fraudulent activities.
I think that the government could give this committee and Elections Canada the mandate to work on the drafting of a new Controverted Elections Act. At the very most, we should know within six months after an election what the results of an election or a disputed election are. We can hear the House bells ring, but I will continue.
As I was saying, it is quite possible that the two acts may overlap. If you can assure me that we will wait until the writs are issued, we would certainly consider it to be a step in the right direction.
Would you be ready to review certain provisions of the Elections Act adopted by the Conservative government which I find disturbing and which concern these special blank ballots that could be sent to voters' homes thus allowing people to vote for someone else without any control being exercised?
I've always been amazed by this, that someone would be able to have a ballot send to his address and, without any verification, the ballot could be returned to the local returning officer and counted. In a number of constituencies it's difficult to do this but it's probably easier in others because people do not know each other as well. Would you be willing to allow a review of these provisions?
Let me raise one last point. Excuse me for bringing everything up at the same time but I just as well throw everything in while I have the floor. I wonder whether the government has given any thought to extending the period during which polls are prohibited so it would start, let's say, on the last ten days of the election campaign to avoid any snowball effect. There's always a large element of the population that wants to jump on the bandwagon of the winning side in the last days or who imagine that they might just as well stay home assuming that the election is a foregone conclusion and there's no point in voting. It seems to me that a 10 or 15-day blackout at the end of the election campaign would be a good idea because it would force people to keep their efforts in the field and attempt to win over the voters rather than assuming that the newspapers will do the job by reporting on the poll results.
Polls may provide some enlightment as far as our political platforms go and give us an idea of what to emphasize but I think we have to be careful to avoid excessive use of them at the expense of the democratic exercise of elections.
Those are my preliminary remarks, I have other questions to put to Mr. Girard, Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Philipps and Mr. Côté who will be in attendance on Wednesday and Thursday to deal with the same subject.
I'd appreciate your comments or those of the persons accompanying you on the matters I raised.
The Chairman: Thank you. Minister.
[English]
Mr. Gray: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to try to deal with all the very interesting points raised by my colleague.
First of all, on the points he posed at the end, on the amendment whereby you could apply for a ballot at the returning office, which could be mailed to your home and you could fill it out and send it back, and the judicial procedures, if there are complaints about how an election is run, and so on, these are all interesting points, but it just shows how, in my view, the process of electoral reform is an ongoing one. It's not something to be dealt with only by one omnibus bill. From time to time, if you use that approach, very little would ever get done. I think it's better to have bills periodically, each one focusing on a limited number of issues on which there could be some consensus.
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Certainly the points made in that regard are worthy of consideration, but I respectfully suggest that they are for a stage other than what I would consider the ongoing work of this committee, which is to study the updating of our electoral process.
With respect to the question of whether the government is ready to use the notwithstanding clause to wipe out the effect of the Alberta Court of Appeal and Somerville, this is an idea that had not occurred to me. If it was used, there would still have to be a need for legislation.
In any event, what we intend to do is present legislation that will, hopefully, be able to achieve the objectives of what we talked about as a level playing field with respect to expenditures during an election, whether it's by candidates, political parties or third parties, in a way that responds to the points raised by the Alberta Court of Appeal. I don't think the court said this could not be done, but it raised specific concerns - for example, that a limit of $1,000 was too restrictive.
I'm doing exactly what I said we shouldn't do and that's trying to cover everything in one bill. I'm sure we'll have a chance to discuss this in detail on another occasion.
Getting back to the points raised by my colleague, more specifically about Bill C-63, my honourable friend is quite right when he says the Chief Electoral Officer said there could not be a permanent register of electors before the next election unless legislation was passed by last June. There wasn't time for this to be done, in view of other important legislation ahead of it.
That's why the approach being used, to have a 36-day election period for the next election, is based on the concept of having one last enumeration prior to the election itself. This enumeration would do two things. One, it would provide the basis for a register that would be used for subsequent elections. Two, it would meet the objective of my honourable friend, which is to have a preliminary voters' list available shortly after the election is called. He said that he and his party approved the idea of having a shorter election campaign provided there was a preliminary voters' list available at the beginning of the election campaign period.
We have achieved that objective in this bill by having the last enumeration take place outside the 36-day period - before it takes place - so that the list would be generated, according to the Chief Electoral Officer, within five days of calling the election.
This is something that appealed to me when I began looking into this. Speaking as someone who has been a candidate in 11 consecutive campaigns, I've always felt the real campaign began when I had a voters' list for each poll and my supporters and I could go out in each poll and knock on doors and ask for people's votes based on that list. We're giving everybody an additional week than at present for that purpose.
My honourable friend asked if there couldn't be the risk of having two election laws and whether there could be an election under the present law and under the one that's before us. There's no way of avoiding that in a parliamentary system, because conceivably - I'm not saying it's likely - we could be defeated on a vote of confidence tomorrow and there would have to be an election as a result, under the current law, that would call for a 47-day election period with the enumeration during the election.
Furthermore, in any parliamentary system at the provincial or federal level, there could be some crisis that the prime minister or premier of the day felt should be resolved by having an election. That was the case before the last set of amendments to the election law came into effect. There could always be an election under the then existing law for the two reasons I've mentioned.
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However, I should point out that if this law is passed and the final enumeration takes place as predicted in April - and I can't bind the Prime Minister to this - it's most unlikely there could be an election with a 36-day period until after that enumeration was over, which means it wouldn't be called until sometime in May or June. Just looking at the realities of the situation, again I can't bind the Prime Minister, but I think you can assume it's impractical to have an election with a 36-day election period based on this law until after the final enumeration takes place. That is projected by the Chief Electoral Officer for April, and I repeat, this means that an election writ for a 36-day election, in which the results of the final enumeration were available within five days of the writ, would have to be called sometime in May or June.
I think that's the most assurance I could give you, unless in return the official opposition and the Reform Party would undertake not to defeat the government on a vote of confidence before that time, or would assure us that there could never be any crisis that might lead the Prime Minister to feel that it had to be resolved by going to the people. I don't think I should insist on that. I don't think it would be fair to you nor to the operation of our parliamentary system.
My honourable friend makes a good point when he says there's a lot to be said for development of election law not just by the government, but by the parties recognized in the House. While it's true that we haven't followed the process whereby the bill to update our redistribution process was followed...as inviting the committee to bring in a bill, I submit that what we've done is very similar. We didn't come with a bill until the Chief Electoral Officer had worked on the matter for close to two years. During that time, at least for the last year, he consulted with you on what should be in the bill. What we have presented to you, as far as I'm concerned, reflects very much the work of the Chief Electoral Officer over two years and the consultations with this committee.
I'd like to think that in a little different way, we have pursued the objective, which I don't disagree with, that you've talked about. I hope this bill will have a better ending than that redistribution bill, but we shouldn't try to revisit history. It's not helpful.
In terms of giving reassurance to you that if you support this bill you'll be doing the right thing, I think you'll agree that generally there have been expressions of support for eliminating the door-to-door redistribution, with all the strains that means for parties, the bother to people who may not want to open the door at night to enumerators, and the saving to taxpayers. If I'm right in saying there is already some sign of public support, then that should give you some comfort. If you feel inclined to support this bill subject to some of the amendments I have already suggested you consider, and maybe some others you'll have, you'll be carrying out your duty to have a balanced and relatively non-partisan approach.
Mr. Chairman, these are my efforts to respond to the very useful and interesting comments of my colleague. I hope I'll have other occasions to further respond to his points of concern.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Mr. Harper, please.
Mr. Harper (Calgary West): Mr. Minister, I must admit that I am concerned about some things in your presentation that from our standpoint seem to be changing. You made reference to Mrs. Terrana's bill - which is Bill C-307; I think you referred to it as Bill C-314 - and that somehow we would incorporate into this bill elements or amendments from that bill. I think it was made fairly clear by our spokespeople yesterday that we do have considerable concerns about that bill that we would want studied. We have concerns about this one, but much more serious concerns about Bill C-307. So I raise that as a red flag.
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The second point - and I do want to ask you about this, just to be absolutely clear about what we're talking about here - is whether the next election will be 47 days or 36 days. I think we view it, as the official opposition does, as fairly important for the opposition parties to know this. The government has an enormous advantage in setting the timing of an election. We'd be concerned about having the option to go with that of deciding the length of a national campaign.
In this committee - I wasn't at the meeting - on April 30, 1996, Mr. Kingsley indicated to us the following. I went over this section, I've gone over it again, and I don't think I misunderstand it. He indicated that to implement a register of voters with a 36-day calendar in time for a possible fall 1997 election - there wasn't even discussion of spring and summer - it would be necessary for the legislation to be adopted before summer 1996. That didn't happen.
That was the latest it could be for a fall 1997 election. Now it seems we're looking at a possible 36-day election in the late spring. He put forward another alternative, which would be building the register through door-to-door enumeration during the next campaign. That precluded a 36-day general election altogether.
Those were the only two scenarios I am aware he discussed in the committee in April. Maybe that could be clarified for me. Are we or are we not talking about a 36-day campaign in the next election, and was that what was communicated to us previously?
Mr. Gray: First of all, I think you can be safe in thinking if this bill is passed the next election will be on a 36-day calendar, except that I cannot, on behalf of the Prime Minister or on behalf of the parliamentary system, say if the government is defeated on a vote of confidence before this bill comes into effect there wouldn't be an election based on the current law. Nor could I, on behalf of the Prime Minister, although you could ask him directly, say it could never happen that some crisis might arise that, in the light of parliamentary tradition at both the provincial or federal level, the Prime Minister or premier might want resolved with an election. But in the ordinary course we are looking toward, where we're looking toward the life of this Parliament moving along to completion with a general election somewhere near the last part, then one can assume the election will be on the 36-day calendar.
Let me get back to the point that was raised by our colleague from the Bloc and that you have raised in another way, about what Mr. Kingsley said. I don't see any contradictions between what he said and what I said or what I am proposing. I'm not saying that if there is an election in the ordinary course in May or June or in the summer or even next fall it will be based on a permanent register of electors. It will not be based on a permanent register of electors, because not enough time would have elapsed to create it. To create it you need some baseline activity, which we are proposing be door-to-door enumeration, plus the signing of agreements with provincial agreements. In some cases they may have to pass their own legislation, allowing them to give Mr. Kingsley such things as driver's licence data or to share information from their own voters' lists, etc.
There also has to be the working out of arrangements in final form with Revenue Canada and with Citizenship and Immigration for sharing their data and doing it in a way that meets the requirements of the privacy commissioner with respect to his concerns and does this only on the basis of active informed consent, including designing the income tax form with a box on it that people can tick off if they want to share.
To make it possible if there is an election next year - and I can't say there is, and I want to stress that while in answer to our colleague I was talking about the assumption that there wouldn't be an election in the early part of this year until after the enumeration, that doesn't mean I'm signalling there is going to be an election in May or June or in the summer, or in the fall for that matter.
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The Prime Minister says he has 24 months until the end of the five-year life of Parliament to recommend to the Governor General that the House be dissolved for an election. All this does is create the possibility for an election this spring, summer or fall, based on a 36-day calendar, which would have the preliminary election list available as early as if there had been a permanent register through having one last enumeration, not during the election period itself but before it.
I might say that one reason I did not propose to this committee that the last enumeration be during the election period was that if it was a 36-day period, instead of having one week more to campaign with marked lists, everybody would have at least one week less, which I didn't think would be fair to anybody, especially the parties in opposition.
So Mr. Kingsley was quite right in saying that in order to build a register that would be used to generate the preliminary list in time for a spring election, or even a fall election, the legislation would have to be passed last June, because if it had been, then he would carry out the baseline activity. Through last summer and this fall he would have been making arrangements with provincial governments - Alberta, Ontario, and all of them - and with the federal departments. But all this work hasn't been going on. It can't be in any final form until this committee recommends the bill to the House, the House adopts it, the Senate adopts it, and he has a legislative base on which to create the register.
What we've done is create the equivalent, not of a permanent register, but of a baseline event that would produce the preliminary lists for the use of all the parties and candidates within five days of the election being called, if it's called after the bill comes into effect and there's the enumeration in April and the election takes place anytime between the end of April and next fall. After that point - and I'm advised that it will be 1998 - because of the work done before this bill was presented through Parliament, including the work done with this committee, Mr. Kingsley will be able to proceed promptly to have the register in place for any election that would take place in 1998 and subsequent months.
Mr. Harper: I want to finish up on this. I appreciate your effort to square the registry issue with what was communicated to this committee.
I want to make the point - and my colleagues can correct me if I'm in error - that at no time here do I see a discussion of a 36-day calendar for the spring of 1997. It's not the registry issue; it's the time-period issue. There is nothing in here that suggests a 36-day calendar would have been possible prior to the fall of 1997.
Let me ask a question. Would the government be agreeable to an amendment - we can come to an all-party agreement - that would establish a date on which we would make a transition from a possible 47-day election to a 36-day election, as opposed to just leaving it at the discretion of the government and elections officials?
Mr. Gray: I think what happened was that after this committee was briefed and I began working on this during the summer, because in order to get this legislation before Parliament in the priority space and time that's available to the government... Our rules are set up so that in order to have an assurance that any legislation passes promptly it has to be in government time; therefore, I had to take responsibility in making a presentation to cabinet, they had to agree, and the bill had to be presented.
When it turned out that the deadline for having a register in place for this spring had passed because we didn't have any legislation before this committee and this Parliament by the end of June, I began thinking about it and working on it with Mr. Kingsley. We came up with a concept of having the last enumeration on which the register would be based, before the next election.
So yes, it wasn't discussed with you, but I guess I have to take some responsibility or blame for that in that during the course of the summer, even though I had my mind on other rather personal concerns, I began working on this. I asked myself how we could achieve the goal Mr. Kingsley discussed with you, based on having a bill passed by June, even though we didn't.
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In consultation with him, I came up with the idea of having an enumeration outside the electoral event so that if there was to be a 36-day election in the spring of next year, or the summer or the fall, it would still generate what I think is a sine qua non, a basic requirement - and I think there's all-party agreement on this - that the lists would not come at the last minute, but would come as early as before, and even earlier.
So that's how that developed. I hope I've clarified something. I didn't perhaps grasp your point, but it's because I wanted to make up for the fact that we didn't have a bill before the House in June - not before the House but actually adopted in June - that I came up with this concept, which I think achieves the same result.
On your point of -
Mr. Speaker (Lethbridge): Is there a target date established in the legislation for the completion of the enumeration? Have you a suggestion to the committee relative to that?
Mr. Gray: Yes, I want to deal with that. I want to give that further consideration.
I don't think there is a target date, but I'd like to pursue that further with Mr. Kingsley. He has said publicly, using his reputation as an officer of Parliament, the Chief Electoral Officer, that he intends to have the last enumeration in April.
To actually have the enumeration, there has to be some preparation. We have to recommend names to him, the local returning officers have to set up their offices to handle it, and so on. He has said, using his credibility as an officer of Parliament, that the enumeration be in April and be done by the end of April so that the list would be available for any 36-day campaign after that.
I'd be happy to explore with him the feasibility of an amendment, but I've been going on his assurance, which he has given publicly as an officer of Parliament. I'd be happy to explore that further to help you feel more at ease with this proposal.
The Chairman: I want to remind colleagues that Mr. Kingsley himself will be here tomorrow afternoon. He no doubt will be familiar with it.
Mr. Harper, you have a few more minutes. I'm trying to balance off some time. Mr. Langlois was about 20 minutes. I'm trying to keep everybody on track.
Mr. Harper: Let me ask one more question and then I'll move on.
The Chairman: Sure.
Mr. Harper: There's a number of concerns that come up, but the one I want to raise with you, Mr. Minister, is the concern, not so much for a general election, but a by-election. We've had incidents in the past and in this Parliament where governments have called snap by-elections, by-elections that weren't expected. There were sitting members and suddenly the member was named to the Senate, or wherever.
In the case of this Parliament, that actually occurred over the holiday period. Would there be any possibility or any openness of the government to amending this legislation so that there was some kind of cooling-off period in the event of the creation of a vacancy so that, say, 30 days would have to elapse before the calling of a 36-day or shortened by-election campaign?
Mr. Gray: I'd have to consider that. I couldn't give you an answer at this point. I hadn't considered the point.
With the way the law now works, the Speaker has six months to issue his warrant for a by-election. The date has to be set within six months, but could be -
Mr. Harper: But there's no minimum.
Mr. Gray: No, there's no minimum.
I'm willing to look at that. I really hadn't considered it in the context of this bill, but I'm certainly open to considering it.
Mr. Harper: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Harper.
Mr. Milliken, please.
Mr. Gray: Before we get to Mr. Milliken, and with the chair's permission, I want to say I'll study yesterday's debate about Mrs. Terrana's bill, but I hope this committee will see fit to consider my idea that the issue she wanted to deal with be dealt with in the context of the bill with the idea that what I perceived - and I'm from southwestern Ontario, not western Canada - was a real concern of western and British Columbian Canadians.
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I just want to say I'm not sweeping aside the concerns you raised in the debate yesterday. I just hope we can consider them in the context of considering this bill.
Mr. Harper: I think it's important to note that not just in my comments but in Mr. White's comments the concerns were not with addressing the problem raised by Mrs. Terrana's bill; the concerns were whether her solution was the right solution. Mr. White, not just myself, had been clear that we wanted to study alternative solutions to that problem.
Mr. Gray: I want to make clear I'm glad you said that. Mrs. Terrana herself has said that she is not wedded 100% to the approach used in her bill; that if the bill had been the subject of consideration here separately, it would have been open to amendment.
I'm not saying I would propose amendments that would be verbatim with her bill. Rather, on behalf of the government, I would be accepting the concerns represented by the bill but would be bringing forward an approach that would not be exactly the same but would attempt to respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed.
I apologize to my colleague Mr. Milliken, but I thought I had better put this on the record, that when I said I thought we should take aboard the issue in her bill in studying this one, I just wanted to bring amendments to incorporate her bill. I thought I would propose to you solutions that would be somewhat different from hers, and she herself - I just say that in fairness to her - had expected that would be the case even if her bill were the vehicle for discussing the issue.
The Chairman: Colleagues, perhaps I'll update all of you. As you know, Mrs. Terrana's bill was referred to our committee since we last met. On your behalf, I've invited Mrs. Terrana to appear before the committee in reference to her private member's bill next Tuesday. We're just trying to work out the schedule on what we have in terms of the work as it relates to this bill.
The nice advantage, if I can use that expression, of having the minister here today - as you know, we're studying this bill before a second reading - is we have a lot more flexibility. So perhaps the fact that Mr. Gray has indicated on behalf of the government a willingness to host additional amendments...as I hear Mr. Gray saying it, it would potentially be up to our committee to consider additional amendments, contemporaneous with Mrs. Terrana's, or Mrs. Terrana may in fact raise them herself. So we'll be given that opportunity. I thank the minister for that.
Mr. Milliken.
Mr. Milliken (Kingston and the Islands): Mr. Chairman, one of the things about this bill is the creation of a permanent voters' list. If I could just go back in history briefly, in 1992, when the previous committee on electoral reform was meeting and discussing changes to the Canada Elections Act, which resulted in Bill C-114 in that Parliament, one of the issues that came before the committee and one that was considered was changing the electoral rules that allowed voters in a rural poll to appear on election day and get added to the electoral list on presentation of some evidence and on being vouched for by two other electors, I believe it was. The committee met and wanted to make rural and urban polls the same, because there was some suggestion that if the rules were not the same in the two cases there might be an argument under the charter that urban voters were disenfranchised when they couldn't get on the list on election day the way rural voters could. Many members of the committee wanted to abolish the right of rural voters to get on on election day, but it was found in caucuses that that was unacceptable. So the committee reluctantly, I think, went the other way and allowed urban voters to get on the list on election day. That was done for the first time in the past election campaign. Some of us had grave misgivings about that procedure, feeling it was opening the way to wholesale fraud.
One of the things coming out of this permanent list is that members of the public can ask that their names not appear on the list at all; in other words, that they not be enumerated. Second, they can refuse to allow other government departments to share information with Elections Canada, thus ensuring the list will remain inaccurate in respect of them should they move or their status change - if they die or something like that - or, if they are new citizens, they may not be added to the list. Then there will be further complications in that those people will want to get on the list on election day if they wish to vote at all.
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Did the government, in looking at these changes, consider the possibility of removing the right to get on the electoral list on election day, and of insisting that if citizens are going to vote they be registered on the electoral list in advance? That way there is a reasonable opportunity afforded to the parties to ensure that they are proper voters, resident in the electoral district and entitled to vote in the election, instead of what can only be described as this haphazard arrangement on election day. It becomes increasingly difficult to check on the persons coming in and claiming a right to vote who knows where, in any electoral district.
Mr. Gray: This was looked at, but not in the context you've mentioned. There was a concern that people would not want their name on the register but would suddenly wake up during the election period and decide they want to vote. The concern I had, which I spent some time looking at, was how we would assure these people that they wouldn't be deprived of the right to vote.
I felt that the changes made in the last piece of legislation not only giving them the right to get on the list on election day, but also allowing them to vote in the advance polls or almost any day in the office of the local returning officer, plus the enhanced revision proposals in this bill, would be very useful in reassuring people that if they didn't want to be on the register or were missed in spite of the sharing of data, they would still be able to vote.
I don't recall any abuses of the ability of urban voters to be added to the list on election day. I wonder if I could ask the senior official from Elections Canada, who among other things is the person who deals with possible election offences, to tell us about his office's experience with respect to people being added to the list only on election day. Do you have any information to give the committee?
Mr. Jacques Girard (Director, Legal Services, Elections Canada): In 1993 we were not made aware of any fraud or any special problems related to the fact that for the first time, people in urban areas were allowed to register and vote on polling day.
We have to keep in mind that there is still a difference between urban and rural areas. In an urban area you cannot be vouched for. Before being allowed to vote, you have to prove your identity with proper ID. In a rural area you can be vouched for by someone else. That safeguard seems to have worked because we were not made aware of any problems.
Mr. Milliken: How many people applied to get on the list on election day? Do you have figures on that?
Mr. Girard: Yes, we have figures on that. I can provide them to you tomorrow. I don't have them with me.
Mr. Milliken: My concern, Mr. Chairman, is that there might be an argument for saying that once there's a permanent list, there's no need for the vouching in a rural area. If that disappears, then maybe the right to get on during election day could be taken away in urban areas.
It seems to me that if you're going to go to the expense and trouble of having an election list instead of marking people's fingers or some cruder method used in some other countries, then being on the list ought to be a prerequisite for voting. If you don't get yourself on the list within a reasonable time before the electoral event, you ought not to be voting at all.
With the list made up at each election, there was an argument to be made by rural voters that they might be missed because they're not at home, they're out in the field when the enumerator comes by, or whatever. I accept all that, but having established a permanent list that runs from one election to another, once you're on it you're on forever, until you die or somebody strikes you off with valid, legal reason. That argument might just go out the window, and consideration might be given to taking away the right to get on during election day for both urban and rural polls.
Mr. Gray: This is something the Chief Electoral Officer and whatever minister works with him can keep under review. Certainly it should be watched carefully by this gentleman and his staff in terms of making sure the system works properly.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Milliken.
Mr. Speaker and then Dr. Pagtakhan, please.
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Mr. Speaker: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
There's an interesting article in The Hill Times relative to the appointment of returning officers. Also, on page 64 of the Chief Electoral Officer's report, he made the recommendation that provision be made for returning officers to be appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer who would base the selection on a formal competition open to all interested Canadians.
I'm not naive to the way this has been done historically. Is there any consideration of looking at it in a more objective way? I think if we're making major changes in the act, it might be a good time to do it.
Mr. Gray: This is something that is kept under review. We don't propose making any change in this bill. As I say, the idea was to have us focus on a particular aspect of the election law, not try to build too many different things into it. I should observe, however, that there are a substantial number of returning officers appointed under the previous Conservative government who have continued in office. How many approximately?
Mr. Girard: Not too many - 40 or 50 at least.
Mr. Gray: For every returning officer who was changed, there are some 40 or 50 who were in place before the new boundaries were set requiring the appointment of new returning officers. In any event, some of these people could not have continued in office because they live outside the boundaries of the new ridings. The law is very clear that even if there is a desire to continue someone, if they don't live within the boundaries of the new ridings they can't be continued.
I just want to observe that while there was no change in the approach used, an effort was made to appoint people whose general qualifications made them suitable for this kind of work. There was a much higher number than some think who continued in place, even though they had been appointed previous to this current redistribution.
The Chairman: Dr. Pagtakhan, and then we'll conclude with Mr. Langlois.
Mr. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gray, with census statistics participation is mandatory. Why is inclusion optional? What makes it less for the register of voters?
Mr. Gray: We don't have compulsory voting in Canada, and if you don't have compulsory voting I don't personally see why you have to have compulsory inclusion on the voters' list. Some people may choose not to participate in the process, although compared to most countries we have a very high proportion of those eligible actually on the list and voting.
One of the reasons for this is that unlike, say, the United States, where people have to take the initiative to register, through our enumeration system the community went out and asked people to go on the list. You may think that by ending or abandoning door-to-door enumeration by people we're abandoning that concept. I submit we're not doing that. Instead, we're substituting what I would call computerized enumerators for human enumerators.
People do not have to do anything to be put on the list. They are put on automatically through the sharing of Revenue Canada data, citizenship data, data from provincial sources. Under this proposal they can go between elections to the Chief Electoral Officer and ask to be put on the list, but they don't have to. We're actually substituting computer technology for the human enumerator. We're still going out and putting people on the list. We still have the advantage of not forcing people, as in the United States, to sign up to register.
As I say, I don't see, if we do not have mandatory voting, why we should have mandatory voters' lists. I think that's the answer I'd give to your very interesting question.
Mr. Pagtakhan: You indicated that the use of the list will be only for electoral purposes. Is it clear in the bill the definition of what will constitute electoral purpose? Is it in relation to the writ period? Is there a need to clarify this definition?
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Mr. Gray: It was the objective of Mr. Kingsley and me to make that clear. If it's not clear, let's try to address it during clause-by-clause debate. I thank you for bringing that concern to our attention.
The Chairman: Mr. Frazer, I didn't mean to overlook you. You hadn't given any indication -
Mr. Frazer (Saanich - Gulf Islands): I'm used to it.
The Chairman: You usually let us know. We'd be happy to consider you.
Mr. Langlois, please.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: Mr. Chairman, I must speak on private members business. If Mr. Frazer doesn't mind, I'd like to make a very short comment immediately.
I'd like to first of all thank Mr. Pagtakhan for his relevant remarks. Mr. Gray, I would also like to raise the question of local returning officers. The Bloc Québécois carried 72% of the Quebec constituencies in the last election. I don't think that many returning officers who were appointed came to tell us that they had previously been militants of the Bloc. I think that this is an amendment that the government should consider.
However, I did want to ask you whether the amendments that you expect to table concerning polling hours will be made available to committee members for the appearance of Mrs. Terrana next Tuesday, I believe.
Mr. Gray: I still have to work on obtaining a consensus within the cabinet. I'll do my utmost to provide you with this information for Mrs. Terrana's appearance. I cannot give you a commitment but I'll do what I can.
Mr. Langlois: I'm sure that the government has the same concern as most members of Parliament, mainly the need to assess the pros and the cons. My colleague, the Honourable Member of Calgary West, made a brilliant speech in the House on this subject.
Mr. Gray: I'll attempt to provide a few options.
Mr. Langlois: Yes.
Mr. Gray: Right now it's impossible for me to give you a commitment that we will provide you with our amendments in their final form. However I'll do my utmost.
Mr. Langlois: Thank you very much.
[English]
The Chairman: We'll conclude with Mr. Frazer.
Mr. Frazer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not certain if these questions are better going to the minister or to Mr. Kingsley when he appears. Perhaps if I get them on the record, Mr. Kingsley would have the answers if it is decided that way.
You mentioned in the bill that it was the prerogative of the individual who put in his or her tax return to accept that this information would be shared with Elections Canada.
Mr. Gray: That's right.
Mr. Frazer: Do you know if that provision is also applicable to the driver's licence information used at the provincial level and to the citizenship information used to update the list?
Mr. Gray: I'll give you a partial answer and I'm sure Mr. Kingsley will amplify. The same concept will apply to citizenship. They'll have people -
Mr. Frazer: They have a choice.
Mr. Gray: Yes, that's right.
With respect to provincial information, it will depend on provincial law, either through existing legislation and agreements between the provincial government and the Chief Electoral Officer, or through new legislation. In other words, we can't dictate to any province how to handle it. I know this has come up in consultations between Mr. Kingsley and his counterparts, and I think he can tell you better how each province intends to deal with it. We have to leave that to the provincial authorities and their law.
Mr. Frazer: Since being able to vote in a federal election is really a federal matter, and since Canadians are able to say that they accept or don't accept, could it not be a federal provision that individual Canadians will have a choice on their driver's licence to say whether they want to participate in a federal election, with their name going in?
Mr. Gray: That's useful and maybe that's the way it will go in any or all provinces, but I'm advised that we cannot dictate to the provinces. I hope your suggestion is taken aboard. That would be a very good way of doing it. People now tick off various things on their driver's licence renewal or application anyway.
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Mr. Frazer: I don't know whether your government study got into it or not, but the whole purpose of C-63, as I understand it, is to save money. It's also to streamline the system somewhat, but it's to save money. I understand the only province that has a permanent electoral list, B.C., finds - or there are reports - that rather than saving money it is in fact more expensive than the enumeration system. Has this been looked at in depth? Or is this for Mr. Kingsley to answer?
Mr. Gray: I know it has been looked at by Mr. Kingsley. You'll be delighted to go into his cost analysis and contrast that with jurisdictions in great detail. I certainly was exposed to his analysis and it's not only persuasive but weighty. So I would prefer that you invite him to present it to you. If you too find it weighty, don't say I didn't warn you.
Mr. Frazer: Thank you.
The Chairman: Mr. Gray, on behalf of the committee I want to thank you and express our appreciation to you for being our first witness on this important change to the electoral law.
For those of you who want to keep your calendars, on Tuesday next week Ms Terrana will be here at 11 a.m. That would be November 5. We would then, I would propose, colleagues, begin clause-by-clause some time that week, so we would be able to report to the House by Thursday, November 7, or Friday, November 8.
I'm just giving everybody fair warning. That's the schedule I'm proposing as your chair. If there are any changes, please advise the chair.
I also want to give you a reminder that we are receiving this bill after first reading, so if you have some suggestions, some ideas, I really would ask that out of respect for your colleagues you funnel those through the chair. I would be happy, with your clerk, to circulate those ideas and suggestions, because after next Tuesday we'll be in a mode of receiving... For example, Mr. Gray, as you know, has already given us some ideas for some changes.
That's what I would be proposing. Any comments before we adjourn?
We're adjourned. Thank you.