:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm pleased to appear before the committee today to discuss , the purpose of which is to add two advance polling days to the election calendar.
[Translation]
This bill provides greater flexibility for us to serve electors by giving them more opportunities to exercise their right to vote. In so doing, it facilitates participation and access to the electoral process. Access is, in fact, one of the strategic objectives Elections Canada set itself in the five-year strategy plan that we recently developed.
However, the bill presents a number of operational challenges, which touch on three elements: the fact of having two consecutive polling days in some 64,000 polling stations: differences in rules applicable for the day before election day and for election day itself: and, lastly, the proposed timeframe for implementation.
These challenges are in addition to a series of changes to the electoral process that include Bill , passed last spring, and upcoming changes addressed in different bills recently introduced in Parliament. The adjustments resulting from the successive changes present challenges for electors, political entities and election officials that must be taken into account.
With regard to the first challenge, the bill provides for one last advance voting day the day before polling day. Day 1 in our jargon, and that is how I will refer to it this morning. Day 1 polling would be held in all of the approximately 64,000 polling stations used on polling day. This creates several operational issues for Elections Canada. I would like to focus on four in particular.
The first operational issue is recruiting and retaining election officers; indeed, this was already a major challenge even before the introduction of Bill , owing partly to the fact that returning officers must wait for political parties to supply the names up to the 17th day prior to election day to hire deputy returning officers and clerks. And on that day, the political parties have usually supplied less than half of the names needed to fill openings. This means that, 17 days before polling day, most of the recruiting has yet to be done, and we need to be ready for the advance voting days, which start one week later. Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to train up to 800 people in order to fill the 500 to 600 positions in each electoral district.
The second operational issue relates to polling stations and opening hours. Polling stations will be open from noon to 8:00 p.m. in all regions of the country, which effectively means a 10-hour working day, if one includes preparation time prior to opening the polling stations and procedures required following the close of the polling stations. However, in British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon, polling stations must open again at 7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. the next day for approximately a 14-hour work day, for a total of 24 hours' work over two days. Not only is this a great deal to ask of election workers, but also a short rest period increases the risk that workers who are not rested and ready for election day will fail to report for work on that day.
:
The third operational issue relates to polling stations. Polling stations will be in the same location for day 1 and for polling day. In rural areas, the only places available for use as polling stations are often schools or places of worship. It is possible that churches are available only on the Monday, while schools are available only on the Sunday.
In fact, some 11% of the approximately 20,000 sites currently used for polling on Mondays are in churches or other places of worship. We believe that, in many cases, schools or churches will not be available for two days in a row, on a Sunday and Monday.
Our fourth operational issue is that there are certain risks associated with leaving uncounted ballots in the care of some 64,000 election workers. It is possible that some people will quit—or worse, disappear—between day 1 and day 0. It would therefore be preferable to consider alternatives in order to give returning officers ways of coping with these inevitable situations.
To address the challenges presented by two consecutive polling days, I would ask that you consider the three following solutions.
Firstly, day 1 advance polling stations could be open for eight hours, as is already the case, but on a staggered schedule from east to west. Thus, polling stations would open at 11:00 a.m. in the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario, at 10:00 a.m. in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and at 9:00 a.m. in British Columbia. In this way, polling stations in British Columbia would close at 5:00 p.m. instead of 8:00 p.m. on day 1, giving election officers in the western provinces comparable rest time as eastern provinces and thereby reducing the risk that they fail to report in the morning of election day.
Secondly, returning officers should have the discretion to locate a polling station at two different sites in the event that it is not possible for polling to take place at the same site on both day 1 and day 0. Our aim would be to have polling take place in the same location on both days, but in some cases there might be no choice but to use two different sites.
My third proposed solution to the aforementioned challenges is as follows: returning officers in each of the 64,000 polling stations should be given discretion to decide on the best solution for safe-keeping ballot boxes and uncounted ballots, in accordance with instructions from the Chief Electoral Officer. Such instructions would include a range of options for returning officers such as storage in a secure location at the polling station site or the office of the returning officer, or even at the deputy returning officer's home.
[English]
The second challenge regards the rules applicable to voting day and the day before voting. The bill states that advance polling rules will apply on day one. On the day after, of course, polling day rules will apply, but it's the same election workers who will have to apply both sets of rules. As a result, they will need to be given additional training so that they can apply different procedures for each of the two polling days they are hired for.
For example, during the advance poll, the poll clerk must complete the register of the names of electors who voted and have it signed by the elector, who identifies himself or herself and provides the required piece of identification before he or she can vote. By comparison, on election day, once the elector has identified himself or herself and provided the required pieces of identification, all the clerk has to do is find the elector's name on the voters list and cross it off. Electors then can vote. This makes the process much quicker, much more fluid, and simpler for both electors and electoral workers.
To address this challenge, I would ask you to consider amending the legislation in such a way that the polling day rules for the conduct of the vote also apply to day one advance polling, except with regard to polling hours. This recommendation would have two effects: one, obviate the need to enter in the register the name and address of electors who have voted and to have electors sign the register; and two, allow bingo cards to be provided to the candidates' representatives every 30 minutes instead of just once at the end of the day, as is the case on the other advance voting days.
Lastly, I would bring to your attention the fact that our reading of the bill is that certain rules applying to polling day will not apply on day one. I'm thinking, for example, of the ban on election advertising and on the first publication of an election survey, as well as the right each employee has to three consecutive hours in which to vote.
The implementation period is another challenge. I'd like to address it, given the significant impact the bill could have on the conduct of elections. As drafted, the bill would come into force three months after royal assent. I have to tell you right off that Elections Canada can't possibly get ready to hold an election according to the new rules in such a short period of time.
The proper implementation of Bill will require considerable effort to educate voters, update the manuals, train election personnel, and upgrade the 11 computer systems affected by the amendments. Each of these activities require detailed planning, the development and adoption of stringent programs, and painstaking execution. None of these activities can be carried out satisfactorily within the three months set aside by the legislation.
Meanwhile, we still have work to complete to comply with the December 22, 2007, and April 22, 2008, coming-into-force dates for certain provisions of Bill . The overlap with the implementation of Bill adds to the complexity of the task, particularly when it comes to modifying the computer systems.
Finally, all implementation and communication activities must be carried out while remaining ready at all times for a general election or byelection.
For all these reasons, I would ask you to defer the coming into force of Bill until January 1, 2009, assuming that the legislation receives royal assent before March 1, 2008. For my part, I pledge to do everything in my power, as was the case for certain key provisions of Bill last summer, to implement the legislation ahead of schedule if the preparations have been finalized.
Before concluding my remarks, I'd like to point out that the initial implementation costs of this bill will be a bit less than $3.5 million, and adding the two voting days will cost upward of $34 million for each general election. Ninety-four per cent of these costs have to do with the additional advanced voting day the day before the vote. The last general election cost $277 million, including reimbursement to parties and candidates of $54 million. These changes would therefore represent an increase of 14% of the total cost of a general election.
It may therefore be worthwhile to review the impact of these changes on voter turnout for a general election following the bill's coming into force.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, Elections Canada supports the objective underlying this bill, which is to make it easier for electors to exercise their right to vote. I would ask you, however, to consider certain amendments to the bill in order to provide some limited flexibility in the administration of those new rules.
Furthermore, I would ask you to defer the coming into force of the bill so that we can have time to put in place the tools needed to ensure the success of the new provision while ensuring the integrity of the electoral process.
In closing, I would like to provide the committee with some technical documents suggesting wording for the proposed amendments to the bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the Elections Canada team for once again appearing before the committee. Given the bills that we will be studying, I imagine that we will have the opportunity to meet with you often over the upcoming weeks and months.
Mr. Mayrand, I think that all parliamentarians around this table, and indeed the majority of Canadians, would agree that if the objective of this bill is to facilitate voting, then so much the better. After all, who would oppose a noble cause? However, as the saying goes, too much of a good thing can spoil everything.
To my mind, the current federal voting system is extremely flexible. Take for example voting by special ballot and postal voting. We already have three advance polling days in addition to polling day itself, yet still people are seeking to add two more. If we carry on down this track, we will soon find ourselves with 36 polling days.
We have to be certain, and I am not, as yet, that such a measure will result in increased voter turn-out. When the minister appeared before the committee, we asked whether studies showed a correlative increase in voter turnout. He mentioned a number of studies from other countries that showed that allowing people to vote on Sundays increased turnout by 10%. He also mentioned a poll carried out by Elections Canada in 2003. This is something that I would like you to discuss with us at greater length. As you have provided us with a working paper on voter turnout today, I was wondering whether you had carried out any additional work on the subject. After all, although facilitating voting may result in an increase in voter turnout, the difference may be negligible. I would like to hear your viewpoint on this matter.
In addition, I would like to know whether you can provide us with a daily breakdown of voter turnout statistics for advance polling days—in other words, how many people choose to vote on a Friday, a Saturday and a Monday. At the moment, we assume, for example, that people will be more inclined to vote on a Sunday than a Saturday, for example.
Lastly, I would like to discuss my concerns about recruiting election officers. As far as I understand, this is a bigger and bigger challenge with each passing election. I'm not talking about our volunteers, I'm talking about paid electoral officers. We have just had three by-elections in Quebec, and our three returning officers struggled to fill the positions. We need people to work four, five or six days over approximately a week. I am very worried about this situation.
:
Firstly, a number of surveys have been carried out on how voter turnout is affected, and I believe the minister mentioned them when he appeared before the committee to discuss the bill. In addition, this morning we circulated a study on potential impacts on voter turnout that we commissioned from Professor Blais of the Université de Montréal. Obviously, it is a very complex issue. A number of very diverse factors can affect voter turnout. We have to consider factors such as age, demographics, geography and voters' individual circumstances.
In the 2003 survey to which you referred, citizens who did not exercise their right to vote often blamed factors such as scheduling conflicts with family or professional responsibilities.
The bill provides voters with another option by allowing them to vote in all polling stations either on the day before polling day or on another advance polling day. I am unable to give you concrete conclusions as to the exact effect the bill will have on voter turnout. It would seem reasonable to suggest that by giving voters more options it will be easier for them to manage their schedules and find a convenient time to go to the polling station.
With regard to a day-by-day breakdown of voter turnout statistics, I am unable to give you any such information this morning. Indeed, I'm not even certain that we have such information. It is something that we would want to do were the bill to be adopted, so that we could measure its impact. By way of a general comment on voter turnout, Canada has witnessed a decline in turnout over the past four or five federal elections, with the exception of the 2006 election where an increase of just over 4% was recorded. We will have to wait until the next general election to see whether it was a one-event increase or whether it is indicative of a new trend.
We have also noted that there has been an increase in the number of votes cast using the alternative voting procedures, even if such ballots still represent a relatively small percentage of the overall vote. Three per cent of voters use the rights accorded under the special regulations to vote either at the office of the returning officer or by mail.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, thank you very much, Mr. Mayrand and your team, for coming out here. It's always a pleasure to have you before our committee.
I occupied myself during your presentation by attempting to simultaneously listen to you and read the report of Professor Blais and two other co-authors, one whose name I can't pronounce. I have a number of questions that arose out of what they were discussing and that overlap to some degree with your comments.
The thing I was looking for in the study--and I don't see a specific number--was their projection as to the actual percentage increase in voter turnout, what they anticipate. They say it would very likely happen, but it would be modest. I'm not sure if there is an actual number they give.
And secondly, I was hoping to find--and I don't think I saw in here--any information as to where you'd be likely to see greater or lesser degrees of impact on voter turnout.
I'll ask you if there is any further information you have or light you could shed on those two subjects, and then I want to come back after that with some further discussion.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank you for your presentation, which was very informative, even if it did raise more questions than it answered.
You gave the example of the Ontario election, where a significant number of people used advance poll voting. Unfortunately, overall voter turnout remained essentially the same. We experienced exactly the same situation in Quebec in 2006. The advance poll vote led us to believe that we would register record turnout—especially as there were three parties in the race—but, at the end of the day, voter turnout was exactly the same as it had been in 2003.
As this is both a fairly costly and extremely complex bill—and I will come back to its complexity later—I cannot but wonder whether it would not be better to carry out the survey and studies before we enact legislation. For example, will there be a spillover effect? This question is particularly relevant given that we are talking about two consecutive days. Will people who would have gone to vote on Monday simply decide to go on a Sunday? At the end of the day, we could end up with the same level of voter turnout.
Were the spread of the advance days different, the impact could be very different. Imagine a scenario where you could not vote on the weekend because you had to be out of town for a few days. If you are not able to vote on the Sunday, you are not going to be able to vote on the Monday either. However, if the advance polling day were held on the previous weekend, or a few weeks earlier, it would open up other possibilities for arranging your schedule.
Would it be possible for Elections Canada to carry out a study to ensure... I have a copy of the study that you gave us and it seems very interesting. As Ms. Robillard said, nobody can be against a noble cause, but if the disadvantages outweigh the advantages... Allow me to quote from the study, it says:
[...] but that the correlations are not very robust. This suggests that all of these measures may have a positive impact on turnout, but that the effect is somewhat weak and uncertain.
I am no expert, but it would perhaps be preferable to commission Elections Canada to carry out more in-depth studies, particularly on voter behaviour, to ensure that we do not experience the same spillover effect that seems to have occurred in both the Quebec and the Ontario elections.
Would it be possible for the committee or the House to ask Elections Canada to carry out some studies before proceeding any further with our debate and the process of adopting the bill?
:
From the outset, Sunday is a problem for me. People could raise religious considerations, but it goes much farther than that. In fact, allowing stores to be open on Sundays has already messed up our weekends.
At the end of the week, people who have a pay cheque only have a certain amount to spend. Now, families have lost their weekends. They no longer exist. I'm afraid that Elections Canada will be causing people who need rest to lose even more of their weekends. That is why weekends exist. That is the comment I wanted to make. There is no respect for Sundays and weekends. Everyone wants to take them over and make people work. Our society is lacking that. It is as if we have to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There's no more room for rest. At the outset, it is not a good idea.
Having said that, I do have a suggestion to make. Of course, it would be up to us to do it, since we are the legislators. You say you are looking for people. Many people could help Elections Canada, but they cannot do so because of the regulations. For example, people who are receiving employment insurance could volunteer. At home, we have the highest unemployment rate in Canada. Many people could work, but because they have to declare their income, at the end of the week, they will have lost more money than they have earned. A large number of people could help throughout Canada. Since this is about working for the country, perhaps an exception could be made in that specific circumstance. In the case of Elections Canada, it could be excluded as income under employment insurance. That could be a future recommendation. It would be a lot easier to find people. People know how to count. If they calculate that they will have lost money by the end of the week, they will not even consider it worthwhile to go.
As regards the churches, your comments are very accurate. Some rural regions no longer have community centres. They have closed. The church is the only place available. That will become a problem. I would like to hear you elaborate a little more on that.
Moreover, you suggested that the office of the returning officer or even the deputy returning officer keep the ballot boxes. I have a problem with entrusting the ballots to one person. It is a huge responsibility. That could lend itself to controversy and cause squabbling. We would have to be careful so that it did not turn into a circus.
:
At the moment, there are just over 2,000 churches that are used as voting places. So far, we have not exactly determined how many of them would be available for voting on Sunday. The preliminary information we have from people in the field indicates that we would have to expect that many of these churches would not be available on Sunday.
That said, we will have to look at other options. That is why one of our suggestions today is that the committee consider an amendment that would provide greater flexibility regarding the polling place. We think that in some cases, the two polling days could not be held in the same location. This further complicates the information we need to give voters, and could be a problem.
With respect to the safekeeping of ballot boxes, the bill in its current form is such that day 1 would be an advance polling day. At the moment, the deputy returning officers are responsible for safeguarding the ballot boxes on the advance polling day right up till the time the votes are counted. We raised this issue, because the proposed system would mean that the current number of deputy returning officers, 3,000, would increase to approximately 64,000. And they would be responsible for safeguarding the ballot boxes.
The other difficulty in this regard is the following. It could happen that a DRO would not be available on the following day, but because of the hours of work, we would have a little time to find the individual and recover the material. The fact is that Bill provides that in some locations, the vote will end at 8:00 p.m. and begin at 7:00 a.m. the following morning. This would leave very little time to recover the material, in the case of an incident. For purely operational reasons, we suggest that the committee consider an amendment that would provide for some flexibility in this regard. This discretion would be exercised in accordance with public instructions given to DROs and returning officers.
:
This round I'll speak as quickly as I possibly can, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, through you to our guests, thank you so much for coming. It's always great to have our Elections Canada friends here.
I just want to start off with a little bit of a preamble related to what Mr. Godin said and what my friend Marcel just said about who we could get to work. These are all personal choices. If someone would like to top up their EI by working a couple of days for Elections Canada, then I'm sure they'll make that choice. As Mr. Proulx said, it's the same thing with someone who is collecting welfare, or whatever it's called in each province.
Certainly it's a personal choice as to whether they take a job with Elections Canada and whether that will top up their income. In every case that I can think of, it would certainly be a top-up. They may be limited out.
The other thing Mr. Godin mentioned was that we're now taking up another day. You're driving people to the polls on a Sunday. Three provinces in this country now do their voting on Sunday. Certainly what this adds is a day of choice. If, in fact, you do not want to vote on the Sunday, all this has done is add a choice. Am I correct? We're not telling you that you can't go on the Monday. It's there.
We talked a bit about the structure of voting and how hard it might be to get.... In a lot of small villages, in rural ridings like mine, the church is where we vote. I don't know of any voting polling station in my riding--I'd have to look across the country, as I'm sure there are some--where we actually vote in the sanctuary. For the most part, it's in a church hall or in the front area, or something to that effect.
I think the voting on Sunday can be accommodated in a room in a church that isn't the sanctuary, where mass may take place. In fact, I suggest to you that in many of my small villages, going to church that day will then give the opportunity to head downstairs and place a vote.
Again, this is about offering choice. You mentioned in the beginning that one of your strategic objectives at Elections Canada is to increase voter turnout and increase access. Do you believe that does that?
Do you not think, then, as a result of this investment and as a result of the confidence that we probably all place in this report, that we should actually heed its findings?
I mean, I've read this report, and there's not a single conclusion in this report to indicate that what's being proposed here by the government is going to work. In fact, what we see is that it's going to cost $3.5 million to start this up. It's going to cost $34 million per election, which is a 12% increase overall in costs per election. I would expect the government to be all over this as a value-for-money proposition, for example, but if you go through this page by page, I have marked at least 20 different locations where this report concludes that this proposal is simply not going to work.
Isn't it possible that the elephant in the room here, for Canadians who are watching these proceedings, is the following: that we're not quite sure why voter turnout is down; that perhaps there are larger questions looming about why voter turnout continues to drop; and that a band-aid solution of bringing in a voting day on a Sunday before the Monday, according to this report, is going to have a negligible effect for $36 million?
Shouldn't we, as responsible parliamentarians on all sides of the House, actually heed the findings of the evidence presented here before us today?
:
First to comment on that, I think there are many factors, as you said. One of the factors is definitely long lineups and congestion at voting stations, and certainly having a second day would have an impact on that.
I did want to raise one concern I have, which has to do with the integrity of the ballot boxes. I noticed in your presentation, on page 8, you talk about perhaps the polling boxes returning to the deputy returning officer's home. My concern is that ballot box integrity is very important. There's a whole process in place to ensure ballot box integrity, whereby it's verified that the box is empty, scrutineers can verify that it's empty, and then it's taped, the day starts, and it's taped at the end of the day, etc.
I also heard in your presentation that you'd like to see—not in its detail—the advance day just before the election day and the election day being together, and perhaps all ballots going into the same box. I've got a real concern with this idea of the ballot boxes going back to the deputy returning officer's home, particularly how it looks to the eyes of Canadians. There are always reports and rumours about things that happen on election day, and certainly in the public's perception, these being in people's homes is a huge cause for concern.
I'm wondering if you have other practical solutions. I'm thinking of one in which you have two separate ballot boxes. You have a ballot box for this advance day, and it's treated like an advance poll ballot box: it's taped, it's sealed, and it goes back to Elections Canada. On election day you've got your election day ballot box at the same poll, but it's a separate box; it goes through a separate verification process, etc. I wonder if you could comment on that.
I would like to say that the Liberal Party fully supports all efforts to increase voter participation. We strongly believe that all Canadians should have the opportunity to participate in the electoral process equally.
Having said that, we do have some concerns that I will highlight for you today in general terms, and I will be happy to expand on those when asked.
Our concerns are threefold. One, this government has done no consultations or studies to show that this bill will actually increase voter participation. It appears that this is yet another piecemeal attempt at electoral reform, a move done without consultation or adequate study. Two, we have logistical concerns over the fact that this bill effectively creates two election days. Three, we have specific concerns regarding subclause 176.6(5), and subparagraph 167.2(a)(ii).
As you know, this bill will amend the Canada Elections Act to add two additional advance polling days for national elections. This effectively creates a two-day election. Our main concern is that election days are resource-intensive for both Elections Canada and political campaigns. Unless we know whether or not these measures will increase voter participation, it is difficult to justify the added time, expense, and logistical challenges of a second full day of voting. Keep in mind that in the last election there were 62,000 polling stations on election day, requiring the attendance of over 124,000 deputy returning officers and poll clerks.
The value of increased participation in the electoral process may be priceless, but before jumping off this cliff, it might be helpful to have some hard evidence that all of this will make a substantial difference. We would urge the committee to undertake such a study, and we ask the government to consider implementing this on a trial basis for the pending by-elections prior to rolling it out on a national level.
In addition, this bill may have logistical consequences that the government has either ignored or failed to address. For example, an ordinary advance polling station located in a church would be required to be open on a Sunday, and all 62,000-plus polling stations would need to be situated in locations that were available not merely for a day on Monday but on the consecutive Sunday and Monday. The committee would be well advised to study these issues carefully, as they would have unintended consequences.
We also have specific concerns with two subclauses of the bill. Subclause 176.6(5) provides that the poll clerk is to give the candidate's representatives a list of who voted upon closing of the advanced polls. Our concern is that if this list is only distributed to candidates' agents in this way, campaigns can only know who voted if they have a scrutineer available at every polling station at closing time. This is logistically unfeasible.
We propose a revision that requires each returning officer to provide each candidate with a copy of the list of who has voted no later than 11 p.m. on the day of any advance poll.
Finally, we recommend that subparagraph 167.2(a)(ii) be deleted, as it appears to be redundant in light of clause 176.1.
To summarize, while we are supportive of the bill, I would advise the committee to carefully study the impacts of the bill, as it appears that the government has not done so.
I appreciate having been invited to share our thoughts on this matter and will be happy to field any questions you may have.
:
Obviously, the New Democratic Party of Canada will support all efforts to encourage greater voter turnout. This has always been an issue of the utmost importance for our party.
However, just like my colleague from the Liberal Party, we share Elections Canada's concerns, which were mentioned by Mr. Mayrand. We are concerned, for example, that ballot boxes may be moved about, by the time it's going to take to implement the proposed provisions, and about the cost involved. We are looking at a 12 % increase in the general election budget. There was consideration of the 35 days of polling, but at the end of the day, it is 30 days in total instead.
In any event, the current Elections Act provides for several polling possibilities. This is why the money should perhaps be used on awareness and to encourage people to use the other existing methods and polling days including the advance polling ballot and special ballots which may be sent at any point throughout the campaign right up to the Tuesday before polling day.
We also are concerned about staff recruitment. I'm not necessarily referring to recruiting people, because I think it will actually be easier to find people to work on Sunday than on Monday. Rather, the problem is with training. If the election staff all have different schedules, there may have to be ongoing training of a large number of people throughout the whole process.
On several occasions throughout any given polling day, local identification of people is a problem. Either people are poorly trained, or they've been trained but have their own personal spin on what they're supposed to do on polling day. The problem only gets bigger when different people turn up to do the same job.
Our job, as a political party, is to get people out to vote, and this is always going to be our goal. But the fact remains that some people are always going to be a little upset about getting calls on a Sunday morning or having to answer the door when people come and try and get them out to vote. As a political party, we're going to have to be very careful about that. So, with that in mind, I encourage you to not necessarily see Sunday as an ordinary polling day.
In closing, I think that Bill , which was enacted during the last parliamentary session, could have included a focus on voter turnout. Had this been done, now that the act has been passed, we wouldn't be facing so many problems today.
Thank you.
I would like to thank both of you for coming because I think you bring a very important perspective. It's interesting that a lot of your concerns in your briefs very much reflect some of the concerns we heard from the Chief Electoral Officer.
Clearly there's an interest in getting more Canadians involved in the process. I'm sure that every political party, ours included, has looked at the youth not coming out and participating at the levels we'd like to see.
Mr. Hébert-Daly, you talked about the mail-in vote. I'm just wondering if either of you, from a party perspective, have had discussions amongst the grassroots, or maybe at the party bureaucratic level, about looking at e-voting or other methods of voting other than these additional days. If the intent of this piece of legislation is to increase voter turnout, it strikes me that this is a bit like giving the same message, either repeating it or yelling it louder, rather than finding another method of reaching potential voters.
I wonder if either of you could comment on any kind of investigation you've done into alternative methods of engaging electors, especially young people.
:
My question is for Mr. Hébert-Daly.
Earlier, you said the money would perhaps be better spent if Elections Canada went on a publicity blitz, increased awareness, and gave people more information and training, etc.
I think I'd like to tackle another issue this morning. I'm referring to the problem concerning people's names on the electoral list. In times gone by, they used to send someone from house to house, and that's how the list was drawn up. I remember Mr. Kingsley was against that. He wanted to do away with that practice and use the lists provided by provinces.
For example, I can tell you that it's my belief that on the Elections Canada lists, there are the names of people who are deceased. They've appeared in my data base six times, and I think everybody is in the same boat.
The Elections Canada list is inadequate. It's time to use the $32 million to employ people to go to people's homes just before the election, to find out if they actually live there, and to update the list. It would also encourage people to turn out and vote.
I'd like to hear what you have to say about this.
Thank you to our witnesses for coming here. We're glad you came.
I think, Mr. Hébert-Daly, you've been here before. So thank you. It's always a pleasure to see you.
I'm not sure, Mr. Mortimer, if we met before, but I very much enjoyed your presentation, and actually the questions I have are directed to you because you give some interesting details that I thought were worth mentioning.
The first one is your suggestion of using the legislation on a trial basis. By-election turnouts are, of course, notoriously bad, and anything we can do to boost them presumably would be beneficial. So it's not a bad idea. I guess the concern I have is that we've just heard Elections Canada mentioning they would have some logistical problems in pulling this together within the limited timeframe.
Unfortunately, until you asked your question, I hadn't thought of asking this to the Chief Electoral Officer, but the question is, do you think there'd be a problem, logistically, with preparing by-elections in a short period of time, or do you think those logistical issues would be less likely to be a problem in terms of the advance time that's necessary, whether they could be done perhaps at a more advanced rate than the pace that Elections Canada is proposing for dealing with a general election?
Then I have a second question, and if you can answer the first one, I'll get back to you on it. It's a more specific thing.
We've all said at one point or another that we want to increase voter turnout. We're willing to do anything we can to do so, or at least anything within reason. Then the resistance-to-change animal comes out in us all and says yes, but not if it means changing things.
We say that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome. I don't think we can stay where we are and expect to get a greater voter turnout. It may only be anecdotal. We've asked for studies. We've said to study it some more. Well, we have a study here, and the Chief Electoral Officer says that the study itself can only be a guide towards where we might get, because until we do it, we won't know whether in fact we will change it or not.
We're all, in our own ridings, asking people why they didn't get out to vote. We are told that it's a time and place thing. They don't have the time. They're busy working. They're trying to spend time with their families.
We're going to give them the option of voting on a Sunday if they want, and if they don't, they can go on Monday or they can go over to Elections Canada. In the case of a large rural riding, it's not easy to get to the Elections Canada office and do a special ballot, even though it's available almost every day. So we're offering choices, and that's truly what this is about. It's about us agreeing that unless we step forward, we'll never get over that hump of declining voter turnout.
I also want to address very quickly that we continue to say that one of the other problems is a voters list that is just not accurate. We all agree that this is the case, and many of us spend a great deal of time trying to look at our voters lists. I think we picture this panacea of the old days when we used to go door to door and get an accurate voters list, and then they would post it on a telephone pole at the end of the street and you would be able to check it off. I'm not certain, under today's privacy rules, that this is truly what we want to do from an enumeration point of view. For those of you who are like me and do door-to-door, we are finding that very few people are at home anyway, so a door-to-door enumeration is maybe a panacea from the 50s that we think is a correction that's out there.
I'd like your comments on that enumeration thing, what we could do to fix that, and then certainly on why we are being resistant to opening up more opportunities for people to get out to vote.
:
Everybody's good. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you very much. And a special thanks to our witnesses for coming out today and being prepared for a plethora of questions. We certainly appreciate that.
Colleagues, I want to clarify that in checking with the clerk, I confirm that the Green Party was not actually extended a formal invitation. I recall one of the members of the Bloc made a note that that would be a good idea. However, it did not end up on the Bloc's list of requested witnesses, and as such a formal invitation was not made.
If it's the wish of the committee, I have a couple of suggestions based on some conversations with members. We have had the Bloc request, perhaps, that the invitation be extended again to the Bloc representatives. If that's the wish of the committee, we can do that. We can invite the Green Party. We can also extend the wish to the Conservative Party of Canada as well, in that framework.
The other suggestion that has been brought to me is that we offer an invitation to the authors of the study we reviewed. In fact, one of the authors has been invited already. They're on the list to be invited. So if it's the wish of the committee...I just want some direction. Do we extend the invitation at this point, re-extend the invitation to the Bloc and the Conservative Party and include the Green Party? Is that something the committee wants me to do?
All right. I'm seeing you're okay with that. We'll instruct the clerks to do exactly that.
Secondly, we have on the witness list already one of the researchers.
A voice: We have two.
The Chair: Do we want to invite...we have two? We have two of the three. Shall we invite the third researcher? Let's do that too.
Thank you very much, colleagues. That solves two problems. Please, before you go, I have two other things.
You have received, and you will receive again, a letter from me regarding the ethics commissioner's invitation to show up at one of the meetings for perhaps the final 20 minutes, simply to introduce herself and become familiar with members of the committee. I'll send that out. We don't need to make a decision on that today.
We've had the same offer from Monsieur Mayrand for the committee to actually go over to Elections Canada and visit the facilities and meet some of the folks.
I'll send you a letter out regarding those two matters. Give that your attention, and we'll make a decision on those two at one of the future meetings.
At the next meeting, colleagues, we're hoping to get a group of witnesses here. That will be next Tuesday, and it will be...we're not sure, but it will be a full list in panel style; one hour followed by a second hour. With that, I think we're finished with potential business.
Monsieur Godin.