:
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll begin the meeting this morning. I apologize for the delay. Obviously, we have to have this room this morning because of our teleconferencing, which will start at the noon hour. I thank you for your diligence and your patience.
I want to advise members that this meeting is being held in public. Again, we are dealing with our continuation of Bill .
I also want to remind members that at 12 o'clock today we will start our video conferencing. So we have one hour for our first witness.
I would like to welcome the director general of Élections Québec, Monsieur Marcel Blanchet.
Thank you very much for being with us this morning, Marcel. Normally what we do is offer you a few minutes for an opening statement.
Then we would start, colleagues, with our usual round of questions, the first round being seven minutes. I want to just remind members that we have one hour, and if we could keep our questions short and to the point, we'll probably get through more questions than we normally do.
Monsieur Blanchet, the floor is yours.
Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I was very pleased to accept your invitation to come and talk about Quebec's experience with compiling data on electors who voted at polling stations.
To begin with, I would just like to say that important changes in that regard were introduced in Quebec in 2001.
Indeed, in March of 2001, legislation was passed in Quebec to create the position of electoral list clerk as part of elections staff. These changes had previously been discussed at the Advisory Committee on the Elections Act.
Just for the benefit of Committee members, I want to point out that these legislative amendments came about as a result of a ruling by the Quebec Superior Court in the Hébert case, in 1999. This particular ruling overturned sub-section 137, as it was worded at the time, dealing with compensation for political party representatives in polling divisions.
The applicant, Jacques Hébert, who, at the time, was the Executive Director of Action démocratique du Québec, had challenged the constitutionality of a provision under which the representatives of parties that ranked first and second in the riding in the previous election were paid to collate data on electors who had voted, and the fact that these individuals did not provide access to that data to other parties — in other words, to third parties and independent candidates.
Consequently, since 2001, party representatives at polling stations are no longer paid by the Chief Electoral Officer. The duties of these “checkers” — pardon the expression — are now carried out by electoral list officers. As election workers recommended by the political parties that ranked first and second in the previous election, they are now paid by the Chief Electoral Officer. The Elections Act states that they must make information regarding electors who have voted available to poll runners working for all authorized political parties and independent candidates.
Like other election workers, electoral list officers act under the authority of the returning officer. During the election period, they are trained by the returning officer. That training is based on guidelines developed for them by my office.
When training the electoral list officers, the returning officer is required to emphasize the fact that they must be both neutral and impartial, even though they have been hired as a result of recommendations made by the political parties. They are not to engage in any type of partisan activity on voting day. Like other members of elections staff, they take an oath and swear to carry out their duties in accordance with the Act.
At the polling station, two electoral list officers work as a team at each table, under the responsibility of the deputy returning officer. The guidelines provided to electoral list officers lay out the information they need to perform their duties. They explain how to use the material made available to them. Specifically, electoral list officers are required to compile the line numbers of electors who have voted at the polling station, and to record that information on the forms provided for that purpose. So, every time a ballot is placed in the ballot box, the two electoral list officers black out, on the form, the line number of the elector who has just voted. That line number is provided to them by the poll clerk. At regular intervals — approximately every half hour — electoral list officers provide copies of these forms to the officer in charge of information and order at each polling station, or to one of his or her assistants, who then passes them on to the political parties and independent candidates' poll runners.
I just want to briefly digress to say that I have provided the Clerk of the Standing Committee with copies of the instructions given to electoral list officers. Those instructions include an appendix with copies of the compilation statements of electors who have voted.
The legislative changes that resulted in the creation of the position of electoral list officer have had no financial impact in Quebec. The fact is the compensation previously paid to senior representatives of the political parties is now paid to electoral list officers. They receive the same compensation as poll clerks.
In the 2003 General Election, the 38,000 electoral list officers assigned to 19,364 polling stations received total compensation of $3,541,597. In the 1998 election, compensation paid to 43,891 senior political party representatives was $3,848,087.
As you can see, there is a difference between 1998 and 2001. There were fewer in 2003 than in 1998 because there are no electoral list officers on site for advance polls, inmate voting or at mobile voting stations, which was the case for political representatives in 1998. So, there were some slight savings realized in that area.
In the next general election, overall compensation for electoral list officers is expected to exceed $5 million. That increase in relation to 2003 can be attributed to a higher number of polling stations and higher compensation. The hourly rate set under the new regulations on compensation, which came into effect on August 30, rises to $11.79 from $7.85.
As the institution responsible for safeguarding the principles that underlie the electoral system in Quebec, the Chief Electoral Officer responded positively to these legislative amendments creating the position of electoral list officer. In my opinion, these provisions represent a considerable improvement as regards equity and equality for the political parties. The principles of equity and equality are among the most fundamental principles of our democratic system.
Although I am in favour of the principle for the reasons I have just given, our experience in the 2003 General Election showed that improvements could be made in terms of the duties of the electoral list officer.
Indeed, we noted that there is not enough work to occupy two people in every polling station.
As well, the political parties are having a great deal of difficulty recommending enough people to act as electoral list officers in every single polling station. When the political parties do not make recommendations, it falls to the Chief Electoral Officer to recruit staff to fill those positions, which is no small task.
When the returning officer is not able to fill all the positions, I am authorized under the Elections Act to make special arrangements to appoint a single officer for each polling station. If it proves impossible to appoint an officer to perform these duties at each polling station, the returning officer has to ask the deputy returning officer or a poll clerk to perform these duties, although that happens in only very exceptional cases.
Recruitment issues are so serious that in every general election and by-election held since 2001, I have had to make special arrangements. In my 2003-2004 Annual Report, I recommended to the National Assembly that there be only one electoral list officer per polling station, rather than two.
Thank you for your kind attention. I am now ready to take your questions.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Blanchet. Thank you for accepting the Committee's invitation to come to Ottawa.
I am very interested in the actual mechanics of the job, as well as the specific duties performed by these officers. There are a number of details that you did not touch on in your presentation. That is not a criticism, but I would like to clarify a couple of points.
First of all, when we — and here I refer to the Committee — made a similar suggestion to the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, his response was that the costs would be prohibitive and that we would need to have a photocopier in every single polling station. I have the feeling that the people we talked to did not clearly understand what we were talking about, and that perhaps we did not provide an adequate explanation.
You mentioned that the lists are turned over to the officer in charge of information and order approximately every half hour. How exactly are those lists handed out?
First of all, what do electoral list officers at the table use to record that information?
:
Thank you, Mr. Blanchet. I have a great deal of respect for the electoral system in Quebec which, in a sense, has been a model for the rest of the country for the last 20 or 25 years. I found your presentation very interesting.
I have a few questions relating to things that you did not address in your presentation, and particularly people who may be forgotten or fall through the cracks as a result of the system we are considering putting in place through this legislation. I am referring to the homeless and Aboriginal Canadians.
[English]
Perhaps I'll switch to English at this point.
Those who might be neglected or might not be able to exercise their franchise.... You've had a similar system to the one we're looking at adopting; indeed, to a large degree, the Quebec system is the model we're looking at adopting, in terms of requirements for identification when one votes. And you've dealt, I believe, with the problem of those who might potentially be left off the voters list, who might be unable to exercise their franchise.
I'm wondering if you can tell us what we ought to do, and what you have found it useful to do, to ensure that those who are homeless and aboriginal, in particular, are able to exercise their vote—especially those in the Grand Nord, or areas where they are very far removed from easy access to polls.
:
It's important to realize that the Quebec system is not perfect. Last year, as a result of recommendations I made following the 2003 General Election, a package of measures was passed by the National Assembly in Quebec which substantially amended the Quebec Elections Act, in order to make it easier for people in difficult circumstances to exercise their right to vote.
In that respect, we also took some inspiration from provisions in the Canada Elections Act, and particularly the one that allows an elector to vote at the office of the Returning Officer. That particular option was not available in Quebec. In fact, we are seeking to broaden it to allow any citizen to vote anywhere in Quebec, at the office of any returning officer. Those votes would be counted in the riding where they have their residence. To that end, we have established a proper procedure, including the development of computer systems. We are also planning to allow people who are unable to get around to vote at home.
With respect to the Aboriginal population, we are facing the same problems as we are everywhere else. Last week, I attended a meeting with my fellow Chief Electoral Officers from the other provinces and territories of Canada. As you know, Aboriginal Canadians are not always particularly interested in voting. Consequently, we have to advertise to encourage them to take part in our democratic system, because the problem there is not one of access. We do everything that is required to ensure that they have all the information and everything they need on site to exercise their voting rights.
As for the homeless, they generally do not have an address. That is their situation, by definition. We encourage them to register in places where they generally go to have a meal, get washed or sleep. In fact, shelters for the homeless in Montreal and Quebec City can serve as a residence for the purposes of the Elections Act, so that these individuals are able to exercise their right to vote.
That is basically what we do. Once again, we do not have any more effective or innovative measures in place to accommodate these people. Our system works well. We do not receive complaints from them to the effect that we are not providing them with what they need to exercise their fundamental right to vote.
:
At the federal level, the person guarding the ballot box is also called the deputy returning officer, and the person we call the “secrétaire” in the Quebec system is called the “greffier” at the federal level.
In addition to that, each of the parties has its own representative at the table. When there are six or seven political parties, the deputy returning officers are tearing their hair out. They may decide that they want only two people to be at the table. If that is the case, the others are behind crossing the names off their lists. That is the way the system works.
As Mr. Proulx mentioned, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, and the members of his team, some of whom are here today, told us that there would need to be a photocopier in every polling station. Now, either they did not realize that we use NCR forms in Quebec, or they want to make things as complicated as possible. As the saying goes, give a dog a bad name and hang him. So, you don't have photocopiers in polling stations.
Mr. Kingsley argued that this will cost money, and the Government Leader repeated that. The two objectives are: not to increase costs, and to ensure that the voting process runs smoothly. If we decide at the federal level not to go with a system of electoral list officers because of the costs and we ask the poll clerk, who is already responsible for striking the names off the list, to fill in the bingo card at the same time that he strikes off the name of Michel Guimond, elector 122 in polling station 126, would that slow down the process?
That can be done while the elector is in the polling booth voting. That is not necessarily something that is done in front of him. While the elector is voting over there, does the clerk have anything else to do while waiting for the next elector to show up? Does such a system make for a less fluid voting process, in your opinion?
Mr. Jim Quail, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre, and Ms. Tina Marie Bradford. Thank you very much as well. Tina, we can recognize you here, since you were the last one to shake your head.
Witnesses, I want to let you know you're being fed our voices in English only, but members, you can ask questions in either of the official languages, as you prefer. I would also ask the witnesses, when you are not speaking, to please turn off your microphones, if you're allowed to do that. I'm not seeing that you have individual microphones, but if there is any opportunity for you to turn the mikes off out there, that would help us here.
As well, our experience with video conferencing is that it's most beneficial for us at this end if you speak slowly, as obviously our translators do not have copies of your message.
Witnesses, I know you were instructed that you have five minutes. Certainly I'll respect that instruction, but if you don't need the full five minutes, don't feel obligated to take it. That's all I need to say.
We can start with opening statements and we can start with Tina Marie. We'll have you go first, and then we'll move straight across to our right. Introduce yourself, and then give your opening statement. Thank you.
:
Mr. Chair and committee members, my name is Tina Marie Bradford and I am a labour lawyer practising in British Columbia.
Until last year, I was a resident of the riding of Vancouver East. The problems of poverty and various types of substance addictions and mental illness are particularly prevalent in one area of the Vancouver East riding and this area is commonly known as the downtown eastside.
I'm going to speak briefly about my experiences as an organizer of a group of volunteer lawyers who assist marginalized citizens in the downtown eastside during elections--municipal, provincial, and specifically federal--in helping them obtain sufficient identification to allow them to vote in elections.
I have fulfilled this role as an organizer and a volunteer in the last two federal elections and the last provincial and municipal elections.
To give you a bit of background on the downtown eastside, this fairly small area--a few square blocks--is a hub of poverty for Vancouver. Many of the downtown eastside residents are often homeless or transient, and many live in rooming houses or hotels or shelters where crime is prevalent. Due to their circumstances, most of them have quite a bit of difficulty obtaining government identification, and if by chance they do obtain this type of identification, their belongings are regularly stolen, so they don't have them for long.
If anyone here were to pull out their wallet, they would be able to produce a number of pieces of identification quite easily. For people in the downtown eastside, this is quite difficult. They generally don't own a car, they don't have a driver's licence, and because they don't own a car, they don't have access to insurance papers. They don't own property, so they don't have property tax notices or anything to do with owning property. They don't qualify for credit, so they don't have credit cards or debit cards, and they certainly couldn't negotiate the process to obtain a Canadian passport because they don't even have the most basic identification. And even if they did have some of these things at some point, they're quite often lost.
In the past few elections, it became apparent to a number of concerned citizens that people were being turned away regularly at the polls in the downtown eastside. In 2002, a group of lawyers came together in a desire to help these disenfranchised individuals.
A process was developed whereby we would go into the downtown eastside for the advance polls and on election day and we would set up tables on the street in high pedestrian areas. We would swear what's called a statutory declaration for these people, which they could then take to the polling station and it would be accepted as sufficient identification for them to vote.
Just what is this statutory declaration? I don't know if the committee has the statutory declaration in front of them that I forwarded.
:
I had better speed up then.
The statutory declaration is a form prescribed by the Canada Evidence Act. It is similar in nature to what people know as an affidavit, something that you would submit to court, but because it is not going to court, it is called a statutory declaration.
The statutory declaration contains the person's name, their residence, their signature, the three requirements that are set out by the current act, and then the person swears the statutory declaration in front of the lawyer, because in B.C. lawyers are able to act as commissioners for taking oaths.
In the last two federal elections we have sworn approximately 350 to 400 statutory declarations for each election. So we've allowed approximately 350 to 400 people to vote who might otherwise be turned away from the polls.
Bill removes the ability to rely on only one piece of identification, such as the statutory declaration, and now creates a requirement that you have two forms of identification. So the work we've been doing helping these people would no longer work. They would be turned away if they showed up to the polling station with only the statutory declaration.
The effect of this is that, of course, a large number of these people would be turned away. When we swear the statutory declarations, we do a precursory investigation to confirm that they are who they say they are. We'll ask them to go through their pockets to see what kind of identification they have, such as a rent receipt, a court document, a promise to appear if they have been released on bail, or a prescription in their pocket with their name on it. So we would confirm their eligibility before we took their oath and swear the statutory declaration for them.
Now, if these people have anything at all, they would take that to the polling station, and it is not likely that this form of identification would be accepted.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Murray Mollard. I am the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. I would like to thank the committee for the invitation to speak.
The association, as some of you may know, is over 43 years old and works on a large range of civil liberties issues, but the right to vote and political rights are at the heart, I would suggest, of the work we do. Democracy and making effective people's freedoms within a democracy are core principles and values, which the association strives to protect.
We see this issue with respect to Bill . The impact it will have in terms of preventing eligible voters from exercising their fundamental right to vote is a top priority for the association.
I wanted to do something for the committee besides just sitting here and asserting that there will be people who are disenfranchised. I made an effort to contact a variety of social service agencies within the area that Tina Marie has referred to--the downtown eastside--that provide direct services for clientele and for marginalized people, homeless people, drug-addicted people, transient people, and people with mental health difficulties. I want to read into the record some of those letters. They have been sent to the committee, but I just want to quickly read some of those.
The first letter is from, Ethel Whitty, the director of the Carnegie Community Centre.
I am writing to express my concern regarding Bill C-31.
Thousands of individuals in the city of Vancouver are without proper identification due to poverty, illness or disability or having no access to a stable address. Many of them are known to their neighbours and the present system of verification of identity during election registration allows them to exercise their right to vote.
Changes to this system that would demand two pieces of identification for registration to vote would effectively disenfranchise them. I urge you to seriously consider the consequences of enacting Bill C-31.
This is a letter from Karen O' Shannacery,the executive director of the Lookout Emergency Aid Society:
I read with concern that the Act may change to require either proof of identification or require someone to take his or her oath as well as be vouched for by someone with id. This will place an unreasonable hardship on our residents and clientele, and will almost certainly eliminate the opportunity for the vast majority of them to vote.
I won't read all of this letter, but I'll read the concluding paragraph:
We believe that our residents and clientele should have as much right to vote as anyone else, and that means we have a responsibility to make voting accessible to them. People should be able to attest to their identity and eligibility to vote through a statutory declaration. We urge you to not implement the contemplated amendments, and use this alternative process.
This letter is from the executive director of the Motivation, Power & Achievement Society, Roberta Chapman:
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MPA wishes to go on record as opposing Bill C-31.
This bill will make it extremely difficult if not impossible for those who are homeless to vote. The homeless are one of the most vulnerable populations with regards to social service funding reductions and should be able to exhibit that by voting.
MPA believes that “statutory declarations” are the appropriate path for those who are transient or homeless. We need to be encouraging everyone to vote and that includes homeless people. Many of the homeless are stricken with mental illness as a part of their difficult lives. This Bill only serves to remove them even farther from the voting process, giving them less say rather than more. Who is more compromised than the homeless population, and if not them, who will speak on their behalf in the vote?
Again, I won't read from the whole letter. This letter is from Jean Swanson, the co-coordinator of the Carnegie Community Action Project:
I am writing on behalf of the Carnegie Community Action Project to inform you that the requirements of Bill C-31 for 2 pieces of ID for voting eligibility will completely disenfranchise thousands of people in our neighbourhood....
This provision must be stopped if we are to call Canada a democracy.
I think there are considerable concerns by those who actually work directly with and will, as Tina Marie has also attested, know the very significant problems that marginalized people have in obtaining ID and retaining ID.
Our association believes that there should be amendments to the bill. We would urge you to consider carefully and implement provisions. For example, there could be amendment to proposed subsection 43.1(2) of the bill that would allow a sworn statutory declaration to establish the elector's name, eligibility, and residency. The act could also be changed. There would need to be another amendment in paragraph 161(1)(a) that would recognize that the statutory declaration could be used.
We note that the statutory declaration at this moment is reliant upon voluntary lawyers to come forward and provide their services. So it's not necessarily a holistic solution to this problem. We would urge you, for example, to consider permitting your deputy returning officers to take an oath, but not with the vouching system. I know Tina Marie maybe in the questions can speak of her experience of how the vouching system is ineffective because of the problems of these individuals not necessarily knowing others who would have to be on the registered voters list and have the requisite ID as well. Although we understand the reason why you put it in there was as a safeguard, we see the vouching as really a barrier to providing and ensuring people who are eligible to vote actually vote.
:
Yes, I'll be brief. My name is Jim Quail. I've been practising law in British Columbia for 26 years, and I'm the executive director of the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
One of the things we do is represent low-income groups and individuals dealing with test case litigation having to do with infringements of their rights. If this legislation is enacted as it is, I can assure you this will be one of the files that we'll be taking on, and I can assure you that, in our view, it is highly vulnerable as it is now written.
I've also participated personally in the volunteer lawyer squads in the downtown eastside on election days, but I won't spend my time talking about that.
In any event, I would urge Parliament to simply eliminate these amendments from the Canada Elections Act. I would also add that this is not just a poverty issue--I think that point has been made--but it will create a situation where many electors who have come to the polls will be sent home to obtain the requisite identification. So not only people having problems in terms of owning identification, but also people with mobility problems in particular--seniors, people with disabilities--will in many instances be presented with a barrier that will make it impossible to vote, particularly if they decide to go to the polls late on election day.
I will get more into the legal issues, which are the main points I want to make.
Parliament needs to be aware that what it's proposing to do would mean to add further legal requirements for an elector, a Canadian citizen, to be entitled to receive a ballot. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees every citizen the right to vote in parliamentary elections, and I think it would not be a very large leap to find the government having to justify the legislation under section 1 of the charter.
I say that it adds further obstacles or requirements in terms of legal entitlement to receive a ballot in the following sense. A person would be required to own identification, either in the form of government-issued photo identification or as yet unknown scheduled identification that would be listed by the Chief Electoral Officer.
When you look at the realm of government-issued identification that has the bearer's photograph and address on it, we're essentially talking about drivers' licences and passports. Maybe prison guards and other occupations have badges that have their photo and their address, I don't know, but essentially, for all intents and purposes, those are the only two pieces of identification that an elector might have in the ordinary course. If you don't have a card, if you don't have a driver's licence, and if you don't happen to have a passport, you cannot vote under that section. You'd be required to produce the two other pieces of identification yet unknown.
The vouching process is not an adequate remedy because you would have to line up a registered voter who lives in your own poll, which might only be a couple of hundred voters, who has the required identification, who is available to attend at the polling place with you, and who is not vouching for any other voter. It is an absolute certainty that these amendments would result in a substantial number of people who are constitutionally entitled to vote being denied a ballot.
Essentially what it's doing is saying to people, you might be a citizen entitled to vote, but we're not giving you a ballot. This is a measure to prevent someone else, hypothetically, from receiving a ballot fraudulently, which is already an offence under the legislation, which is already subject to penal sanction. The question might be asked, what is it that you're seeking to fix?
We see this as a fairly straightforward matter, where, on the face of it, there's an infringement of a charter right and the government would have to show that it's reasonably justified under section 1. I suggest to you that reliance on anecdotal evidence is not going to convince the court that this passes muster. I'd urge the committee and Parliament to take a very close look at this and seriously contemplate eliminating these amendments altogether from the Canada Elections Act.
Those are my comments.
First of all, I would suggest to you that a sworn declaration is a pretty good piece of identification compared to other pieces of identification that people can obtain that could potentially be listed by the Chief Electoral Officer. There is a criminal sanction if someone swears a false statutory declaration, so I'd suggest that you take that very seriously as a way for people to identify themselves.
Another aspect that the committee might want to look at would be the restrictions on the vouching process. For example, I refer to the fact that the person doing the vouching has to reside in the poll, which is a rather extreme restriction. The provision that the voucher can only vouch for one elector is a rather extreme restriction as well. For example, a welfare worker or someone of that nature might know a number of people. Someone who works in a community centre in an affected area might know and be perfectly, validly, able to vouch for a number of individuals, but really that resource is eliminated for all practical purposes. They can vouch for one elector, and that's it for that election.
If you're looking at ways to reduce the impact, I'd suggest those would be two ways of doing it: providing in the statute that a sworn declaration in a prescribed form would be acceptable identification, and have a mechanism perhaps for them to be sworn at the polling places; and doing something about the vouching process and what I suggest are unnecessary restrictions on the scope of that remedy.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question will be to Ms. Bradford.
You've had the experience, having worked on the ground in the East Hastings area, so I want to focus a little bit on your comments on this.
It seems to me that what you're trying to do, in a sense, is engage in a kind of enumeration of voters who have been left off the voters list primarily due to homelessness. This raises a question that hasn't really come up all that much in our discussions around the bill. It certainly hasn't come up in the Chief Electoral Officer's testimony, but I think it is very much an underlying problem, and that is the abandonment of the old enumeration system.
The idea was to do focused enumerations and to require the Chief Electoral Officer in particular to do focused enumerations in areas of high homelessness shortly before the time of the election, in order to ensure that some of this was captured. If that were done, would that ameliorate the situation? Would it make it somewhat better, in your opinion?
I'm asking Ms. Bradford. I have a follow-up question, but I only have three minutes.
:
Thank you, Monsieur Godin.
Witnesses, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for joining us today and for assisting us in our research. In particular, I want to thank you for your dedication to Canadians in your area and making sure that Canadians all across the country are well served. That has not gone unnoticed.
Mr. Mollard, Mr. Quail, and Ms. Bradford, we very much appreciate your taking the time this morning. I don't like the word “dismiss”, but you are in fact dismissed.
Committee members, I want to move very quickly. Very briefly, there are just a couple of issues, and we'll adjourn the meeting. We're still in public, but we're short on time. I remind members, there is no meeting this Thursday. We do have a number of witnesses coming on December 5. Some have not confirmed, but many have.
I was not clear at the last meeting, colleagues. The member from the New Democratic Party requested that representatives from the Canadian Federation of Students appear before the committee as well.
Is it the wish of the committee that we invite them to appear, most likely with the other groups on Tuesday, December 5? Is it the wish of this committee?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: We will make that invitation.
Mr. Reid, please.