HAFF Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, November 2, 1999

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)): Order. Colleagues, I see a quorum.

With your permission, I would like to deal with one procedural matter before we hear from our witnesses, who are now taking their seats. That item is shown near the end of the existing order of the day for our committee, and that is the consideration of a report from our Sub-committee on Private Members' Business. There is a draft report, which is being circulated for your reference.

As is customary, and this is required by the rules, this committee will consider the report adopted and report it to the House of Commons. That will allow the private members' business schedule to begin in the House. You'll all be familiar with the subcommittee procedure. You now have the report. I would consider a motion, if someone would move that the first report of the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business be adopted.

Mr. Larry McCormick (Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Lib.): I so move.

The Chair: Is there any discussion on that report? Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): Are these items that were declared votable in the last Parliament, or are these brand-new votable items?

Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher): There was a draw on September 19 of the 30 items to make up the order of precedence. From those the subcommittee selected which ones should be recommended to be made votable. Those that were reinstated under the new provision of the standing orders are in addition to the 30 items that were selected in the draw.

The Chair: Mr. McCormick.

Mr. Larry McCormick: I have a comment I'd like to make, Mr. Chair. I think the chair has missed something very important that I mentioned to him the other day. I want to mention that it was my first opportunity to chair this Sub-committee on Private Members' Business, and I was glad to have the support of colleagues who sat there before and knew from experience what we were doing. But, Mr. Chair—and maybe I'll just leave it this way—we came very close to coming into this meeting asking to change the name of our committee. We thought it should be called the consensus committee. It was a great opportunity for me to work with these people and to see all the good work that is being done by members around the table on all sides of the House. So I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity.

The Chair: All the members around the table join in expressing their thanks to that subcommittee, which spent a large number of hours sorting out private members' business for this report and for the better health of the private members' business in the House.

Is there any further discussion?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. Thank you Mr. McCormick.

Now we'll proceed to hear from our witnesses. Today, colleagues, we're delighted to have with us representatives of the five parties in the House of Commons that are registered under the Elections Act. I will go through the formality of introducing them. I'm sure each of you recognize many of the parties now here as witnesses. I'll follow the list as shown on the agenda: from the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Terry Mercer, national director, and Mr. Jack Siegel, who is the co-chair of the Standing Committee on the Constitution and Legal Affairs; from the Reform Party of Canada, Mr. Greg Yost, senior researcher; from the Bloc Québécois, Louis-Philippe Bourgeois, deputy director general, and Ms. Lorraine Godin, principal agent; from the New Democratic Party, Mr. Peter Julian, assistant federal secretary; and from the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, Susan Elliott, national director, and Paul Lepsoe, legal counsel.

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Colleagues, I think we're in agreement that the best way to proceed here is to ask one representative from each party to present for 10 minutes. After we've gone through each of the five presentations, we'll move to a period of questions, where we'll follow our usual format, meaning the one we followed over the last meeting or two.

So if we're in agreement, I'll ask for the presentations from our witnesses. If there is no objection, I will follow the agenda we have. I'm not too sure why the order is the way it is, but if there is no objection, I'll just follow it. It shows the Liberal Party of Canada as being first. Mr. Mercer and Mr. Siegel.

Mr. Terrence M. Mercer (National Director, Liberal Party of Canada): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for allowing us to appear. I'm only going to make brief comments, and Mr. Siegel will make the balance of the remarks on behalf of the Liberal Party.

I want to take the opportunity to thank the committee and the previous committee we met with some time ago. One of the strong recommendations made by myself and some of my colleagues from the other parties was to reconvene the ad hoc committee that advises the chief electoral officer. We have been meeting quite regularly under the chairmanship of the chief electoral officer, and I think it's fair to say that the progress we've made collectively has been good. There has been an open exchange of ideas and thoughts on the changes that may be there.

I think the one thing we can say is that the exchange of information on changes Mr. Kingsley is making internally at Elections Canada with regard to rules and regulations and some of the more technical aspects of elections has been very sound. We would like to thank the committee for helping us establish that and also publicly thank Mr. Kingsley for his willingness to allow the ad hoc committee to proceed.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Siegel for the balance of the remarks. Thank you.

Mr. Jack Siegel (Co-Chair, Standing Committee on the Constitution and Legal Affairs, Liberal Party of Canada): Thank you.

There is a document I prepared that should be in the hands of all of the committee members. I may as well plainly admit that I have a partisan's perspective on the bill. What I've done in this document is identify a number of issues, some of which are of more interest and have more range for discussion than others. Although I think every point in here warrants some consideration, I'm going to simply highlight the ones that are enclosed in boxes, with one or two exceptions.

To begin, and perhaps following off from Terry's comment on the advisory committee, the first proposal on page 3 is one that flows from a discussion at the last meeting of the advisory committee where we were discussing access to the annual update of the national register. The non-parliamentary registered parties raised some concern that they don't have any access to this information.

They have suggested, and we agreed around the table at the time, that I raise in some form or another the notion that if they're going to run a candidate in a riding where they haven't in the past, as a by-election or a general election approaches, it might be seen as reasonably fair to allow them to have access to a copy of the register for that riding before the writ is actually dropped. It should be on a level playing field in most respects.

So the proposal that's contained here addresses that. It would allow any registered party to obtain a copy of the register if Parliament is being dissolved, if there's a by-election pending, or after 40 months from the last election, three and a half years, and we know we're approaching the next general election.

Moving on to the next proposal, there has been something of a dispute going on between the parties and Elections Canada over the last few years, particularly in the lead-up to the most recent Ontario provincial election. This relates to access to the voters' list and the use of the voters' list by provincial parties.

Each of you have a copy or have access to a copy of the list. In addition to the information received from Elections Canada, you may well have added some value to that list in terms of phone numbers and identifying your own supporters, Liberal, Conservative, Reform, what have you.

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Elections Canada took the position that it was not information we could share because we couldn't pass the list of names over to our provincial counterparts. We ended up with what I thought was a rather bizarre resolution in that the provincial people could give the federal ones their copy of the list, and the federal office, which didn't have a lot of volunteers around at the time because they were all working provincially, could then transpose the phone numbers and the previous political support onto the lists.

That seems to me to be more than a little bit unwieldy, and particularly where there's a data-sharing arrangement in place between the province and the federal government in any event. Quite frankly, there's no policy reason that the provincial counterparts can't make use of the list for the purpose of canvassing and campaigning. So that's what's proposed in this provision here.

Outside of the box, as it were, on page 5, the other point to be made is that your own use of the list right now is limited to what is defined under the special voting rules—God knows why the definition currently appears there, but it does—to “political purposes”, which is defined as communicating with your electors, and which may or may not be quite the entire scope of what realistically and politically ought to be done.

I'm suggesting that a member or a party should be allowed to use the list for political purposes in the broadest sense, keeping in mind that there are confidentiality matters with the use of the list and making sure it's not used for commercial purposes that still need to be protected.

Moving on to financial matters, there is one in particular here. You may or may not be aware of the mechanics under the Elections Act and the Income Tax Act that allow that an election could be called, let's say on June 1, and a cheque written to your official agent, reasonably enough, to help you out in your fundraising. Your official agent legally is not allowed to issue a tax receipt for that donation if it's received before your nomination papers are filed, which could be a week or two into the campaign. Certainly Elections Canada returning officers are not equipped generally to receive the nomination papers for the first 24 to 48 hours at a minimum.

An amendment is suggested so that when candidates are going to run, and perhaps provide some sort of registration formalizing that intent, receiptable donations through their official agents can be made as of the moment the writ is issued without any difficulty.

Certainly, having been an official agent myself in the past and having been misinformed about this rule at the time, I can say it creates no end of confusion. Most people think that as soon as the election is underway, it's underway.

Moving to general election administration, on page 7, I'm a little concerned with the notion of having a by-election if there's a tie vote. I think some people have taken the view that ties never happen. Well, a few of us in various contexts have experienced something to the contrary. I believe in the most recent Saskatchewan provincial election there was a tie vote in a riding, and somebody mentioned, I think, that there was one in Nova Scotia. It seems to me to be a pretty high-priced solution to what to do about the tie to hold a complete new by-election, both in terms of the public purse and our own resources as political activists.

If a by-election is to be held immediately after the general election, say two or three months later, how many of you are in a position to raise enough money to run that election campaign full tilt all over again? How different is the campaign you're going to run, knowing that the government has already been decided? You probably can't just recirculate your literature if you're not the governing party. And even if you're the governing party, it doesn't make sense—“Elect a Joe Blow government”—since you're not doing that any more.

I suggest the status quo in this document, but since I wrote it, I've been persuaded that's simply not in the cards, and that's fine. But I would suggest that perhaps the committee try to brainstorm a little about solutions to this, short of a by-election. Maybe a runoff election should be held 10 days later. Make it simple. If you've already voted on election day, you don't vote again. It's simply an extension of voting hours to get some more people out to break the tie. Certainly, in my submission, some solution short of spending several hundred thousand dollars to break the tie would be in order.

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On page 8, clause 81 of the bill is a wonderful advance, from my perspective. In the campaigns I've run, in various roles over the years, we've had ongoing disputes with managers of different residential facilities about whether our canvassers are really allowed to be in the door. Even when, in the last round of revisions, the right was put right into the Canada Elections Act, it was a pretty lame provision in terms of enforcement.

The provisions here make it clearly an offence to keep someone out of an apartment building or any multiple residence. The question now arises, to my chagrin, does that go a little too far? A case in point would be women's shelters—battered women who are in a vulnerable state and probably shouldn't be approached by strange men willy-nilly who have an absolute right of access to what is in effect their home. The suggestion here, and I've provided some draft language to the committee, is to allow the chief electoral officer to designate exempted facilities for residences that are primarily for the purpose of providing refuge to somebody. Those exempted facilities we don't have absolute access to; however, there is a quid pro quo. The managers of those residences would have an obligation to circulate the literature that we drop off to them.

So it's not that we're insulated from any campaigning at all; our literature can be distributed. But we're not going to be in a position to physically approach them. I would suggest that is a fair saw-off.

With respect to by-election hours, I'm involved right now in the by-election that's about to be held in York West, where I'm getting the most rolled eyes from people who are saying “We're voting from 9.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m, and you want me, therefore, as an election-day volunteer, to be out working until close to 11 p.m. Are you crazy?” Certainly during the general election, I think the saw-off of staggering hours has been a very good one and was successful, with the Saskatchewan exception that's being addressed elsewhere in the bill.

However, my suggestion is that in a by-election, the compromise that's set forward in the bill doesn't go quite far enough in remaining with staggered hours where voting hours are in different time zones. That would be the case in the present set of four by-elections, and we'd still have these same hours. The whole purpose behind staggered voting hours is so that the polls nationwide aren't closing in one place while voting is going on for hours and the people in British Columbia are being told, well, the government has been decided. I would suggest that quite frankly nobody in the pending by-election in Saskatchewan really cares in the slightest who gets elected in Toronto, Hull, or the town of Mount Royal—and we're in different time zones. It's not going to affect a single vote. Why not simply set 8.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. as the voting hours in all by-elections period, full stop?

Subclause 136(4) of the bill refers to a ban on candidate representatives from using a communication device in the polls. I can understand that to some extent, but on the other hand, having worked as election-day legal counsel in the past, I found that a cell phone—because I've had it for the last several years—has been an incredible asset, not for communicating with my own people, but for communicating with the returning officer over some incredible screw-up such as a ballot box that wasn't sealed and was leaking ballots on the floor—it's happened—or a deputy returning officer who is simply completely out of touch with the reality of the requirements of the job.

So an exception is suggested to allow the use of such a device to communicate with Elections Canada, with the returning officer, or with the peace officer in case there's something of a different nature going on in the poll, if there's a problem that needs to be resolved at the polling station. And draft language has been provided there.

Clause 166 of the bill touches a subject that's near to the hearts of everybody who's been attending the advisory committee. Elections Canada has read the existing legislation to prohibit campaign representatives from so much as carrying a coloured file folder into the polls on election day. It's assumed that as a Liberal I will be carrying a red file folder, but quite frankly, I may want to use a yellow file folder to distinguish my inside people from my outside people. With all due respect to my friends at Elections Canada, it seems to me that this goes a little too far. I've heard in the last general election of somebody who was wearing a red blouse being turfed from the voting station because that was somehow a partisan garment.

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What is suggested here is some limiting language that says if you're carrying or wearing something that doesn't have any text on it, doesn't have a party logo, or doesn't have a graphic associated with the party, then it's perfectly acceptable. I think that would be reasonable, given that in any event our scrutineers at the polls are wearing badges that say “Liberal” right on them, so it's not like it's a secret.

There are two last points to go into with respect to the special voting rules.

First, you may be aware that effective the day after the election is called, as soon as the returning office is open, an individual can go into the returning office and vote. They use a write-in ballot. The write-in ballot is also used for incarcerated electors under the special voting rules, military electors, and for out-of-country electors. In all of those cases, the write-in ballot requires the name of the candidate, but particularly in the first ten days of the campaign, the nomination papers for the candidate may not yet have been filed.

I tested the system in the last election. I went in and happily voted for the individual who I expected would be the nominated Liberal candidate, being an incumbent MP in my riding. But that might not always be the case. It seems to me there is absolutely no harm or policy reason why somebody can't vote for a registered party in that context. It's on the nomination papers; there's a letter from the leader of that party; there's no ambiguity whatsoever about who the candidate is. A vote that is cast in the riding of Don Valley West that has the word “Liberal” on it would be a vote for John Godfrey.

Finally, clause 243 of the bill partially addresses a problem that occurred in the last election. An individual who is quadriplegic and lives at home, not in an institution, cannot therefore sign the application for a special ballot. The application for a special ballot requires a signature. Elections Canada took the position that this is not a signature function that could be exercised by somebody even exercising a power of attorney. Therefore, it is suggested that there be some remaining provision, perhaps resurrecting the notion of a proxy vote in these very limited circumstances so that somebody using a power of attorney or getting clear authority from an individual who is disabled can cast a vote on that person's behalf without requiring their signature.

That's a rapid race through a number of provisions. Hopefully the members of the committee will have an opportunity to look at the other things at leisure. Certainly I welcome an opportunity to discuss any of this after everyone's presentations are over.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Siegel.

I want to acknowledge to colleagues that Mr. Siegel did significantly go over the ten minutes. I intend to be as liberal with others as I have been with him, but as long as the points keep coming succinctly, that should be good enough for colleagues, I hope.

We'll now move to the Reform Party of Canada, Mr. Yost.

Mr. Greg Yost (Senior Researcher, Reform Party of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First, before I begin I would like to put on record that the short notice that was given of this meeting made it impossible for us to get some of our executive councillors here from the national office in Calgary, people who are far more familiar with the running of the national campaign than I am.

As I believe everybody here is aware, the Reform Party has pushed for major systemic reform in our election system for quite some time. As a general comment, we regret that the government shows little if any interest in changing the system to make it more democratic. We view this bill as being, at best, tinkering at the margins and solving some relatively minor problems.

We regret that there does not even appear to be a recognition of the rapidly changing technology that is available to make elections run smoother. For example, there does not appear to be a provision for even experimenting with electronic voting. We hope the committee will consider that and perhaps open the way for the chief electoral officer to give it a try.

Several things, like the Internet, may be of use to us in the future. As for the reference to voting on the first day without knowing what the party is, we are always concerned about people voting when they don't know who the candidates are, and we believe, particularly overseas, the use of the Internet might make it possible for everybody to know who the candidates are immediately upon the closing of the nominations. Then they could have a proper ballot, rather than voting without knowing who is actually the candidate.

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I will not spend very much time on the major systemic reforms we have talked about. It seems highly unlikely that they will go forward, but I still wish to put them on record.

Fixed election dates are, in our view, a key to a more professional, better-run election. It makes it easier for everyone to plan in advance. The chief electoral officer knows when the election will be and can arrange for the hiring of people in plenty of time so they can be trained, the parties know when it's going to happen and can organize themselves, and even the media can organize its coverage well in advance.

We have often spoken of the need for elected senators. We believe that is going to come someday.

There should be enhanced representation by population. Particularly, British Columbia and Ontario are shortchanged as of this moment.

Fixed dates for riding distribution would be extremely helpful to the parties. Having been a candidate, I am aware of the difficulties we had in the last election trying to decide which boundaries we might actually be running on. Having basically two contingency plans was a problem. Fixed dates for riding distribution, in combination with fixed election dates, would resolve a great deal of problems.

Many of the Reform Party ideas that we have put forward consist of giving the people a voice. Through referendums and initiatives, they can let the politicians know what they want done. We find it hard to understand why there is such resistance to trusting the people to express themselves.

Finally, with respect to systemic change, we put forward the idea of recall. What do electors do in a riding if their member who has run on one platform changes to another party? There is no way for them to express that they consider this to be wrong. What do they do if they get a member such as Jag Bhaduria, who became essentially a pariah and unable to represent them? They are left without representation for several years. We think that is wrong and there should be a recall mechanism.

In dealing with the Elections Act, the overriding objective should be an election that is as honest and fair as we can possibly make it. We believe there should be a preamble to the Elections Act to set out how important an election is. It is the central part of our Canadian democracy. It would be a reminder to all concerned, to election workers in particular, of the importance of what they are doing.

If people are to believe the election is fair, non-partisanship has to be central. It should go from the top to the bottom of the personnel involved in running elections. At the moment, we have non-partisanship only at the very pinnacle, with the chief electoral officer and a few of his staff. At a minimum, the returning officer in each constituency should be hired on merit, although we support everybody—revising agents, deputy returning officers, and poll clerks—being hired on merit.

Many of the problems that have been expressed in the past regarding the competence of people who are running specific polls, or even returning officers, would be addressed were we able to have non-partisan appointment. As I say, recruitment well in advance of the election would allow for proper training and would eliminate many of the problems that have happened.

We are aware that in any election involving people, problems will arise. It's important that those problems be solved quickly and fairly.

We have put forward the idea of an investigations team empowered to move swiftly during elections. What if some situation like the one that appeared in the Quebec referendum—an abnormal number of ballots being disallowed—were to arise in a federal election? The chief electoral officer should have some mechanism for getting in there quickly and solving the problem right away.

All the efforts to have a fair election procedure are undermined if there is voter fraud. The accuracy of the voters' list is essential. We must ensure that only eligible voters are enumerated and that only eligible voters actually cast a ballot. There may be some electronic means that can be used if the chief electoral officer can come up with them, but at a minimum we believe there should be a requirement to provide proof of identification before voting.

We've also spoken of the need for election in a riding to be postponed on broader grounds. This is rather near to my heart, since I was the candidate in Winnipeg South and was evacuated from my home along with approximately 20% of the electorate in my constituency. Provencher was much worse. Anybody who was in Manitoba at the time knows it was not really possible to run an election campaign there, for the voters to be properly able to consider the issues and to make an informed choice.

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I do not criticize Mr. Kingsley for the decision he made because in law it was the right decision. The vote was practicable. However, it does not, in our view, allow the people a proper opportunity to prepare to vote in an informed manner, and we suggest that there should be an expansion of the grounds. It's not likely to happen often, but when it does we believe the rights of the electors to be informed should be more important than just holding it on the same day as everybody else no matter what the conditions.

We also believe that everything should be done to ensure that the electorate is well informed. For that reason we do not support limitations on third-party spending. Various organizations, such as the Taxpayers Federation and the police associations, have in the past wanted to advertise, and have advertised in specific ridings. We believe the public can assess the validity of the positions that are put forward by these groups and make a decision based upon that. The limits that are imposed upon them, in our view, are intended essentially to shut them out of the process, and we consider that wrong.

Similarly, we believe that Canadians are perfectly capable of coping with opinion polls and that they should not be banned for 48 hours. They can decide for themselves how much weight to give to a poll sprung at the last moment, particularly as the act now proposes to require that the methodology be described in the first 24 hours.

Everything should be done as well to make it easier for Canadians to challenge the status quo of the existing parties, and we are now one of them. Not only are we opposed to third-party spending limits, but we also think the rules allowing people to enter the process and to collect and to contest an election should favour the maximum individual freedom. If some Canadians want to get together to form a political party and run candidates under the party banner, they should be allowed to do so. There should be no artificial limit as to the number of candidates they must have, as long as it's more than one, in our view.

People have in the past been able to work their way through which parties were serious and which were frivolous, and I won't name them off and pass any judgments myself. That's a judgment for the people to make themselves by deciding who they'll vote for. They are capable of making that decision.

Similarly, the deposit necessary to be a candidate should be low, in fact nominal. We are now proposing to refund the money at the end so it has nothing to do with moneys that Elections Canada needs in order to process this. But $1,000 strikes us as very high. We would suggest that it should perhaps be dropped to about $200.

I think I managed to get it in under ten, Mr. Chair. I thank you for your time.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll now move to the Bloc Québécois, Mr. Bourgeois or Ms. Godin.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis-Philippe Bourgeois (Deputy Director General, Bloc Québécois): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to begin by thanking the committee for allowing the political parties to present their point of view on Bill C-2 this morning.

As you know, the majority of Quebeckers are represented by members of the Bloc Québécois in the House of Commons. That is why the Bloc Québécois has a mandate to articulate the ideas and democratic values of the people of Quebec and their institutions.

That is also why the Bloc Québécois has given careful consideration to Bill C-2. Although certain amendments have brought improvements, there are still major aspects of this legislation and the way in which the Canadian electoral system works that could be improved immediately by way of further amendments.

Today I will address a few major points that the Bloc Québécois gave particular attention to in its study of Bill C-2: first, party financing; second, the representation of women in the House of Commons; third, the appointment of election officers; fourth, election expenses and financial reporting; fifth, voting procedures; and sixth, special voting rules.

I will first deal with party financing. Bloc Québécois members have on numerous occasions defended and promoted the idea of democratic financing when discussing these issues with members of other federal parties. The idea is making some headway, but the Liberal government is still resisting the notion of any amendments...

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[English]

The Chair: We carry on with simultaneous translation, and you're doing an excellent job of reading and presenting, but our translators would appreciate it if you could slow up a little bit.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis-Philippe Bourgeois: No problem. I will speak more slowly, Mr. Chairman.

As I was saying, Bloc Québécois members have on many occasions defended and promoted the idea of democratic financing in discussing these issues with members of other federal parties. This approach to party financing has made some headway and continues to do so, but the Liberal government is still refusing to consider legislative amendments that would make party financing more democratic.

I will give you a few examples of the Bloc Québécois's representations regarding grassroots financing. On March 18, 1994, the Member of Parliament for Richelieu, Louis Plamondon, sponsored a motion based on the principles of the Quebec democratic financing legislation; this motion was debated by the Sub-committee on Private Member's Business.

During the debate on Bill C-63, the Bloc Québécois tabled amendments on political party financing. These amendments were defeated. In the wake of the Corbeil affair, the Bloc Québécois once again moved that the House adopt an unequivocal position on the financing of political parties. This motion was worded as follows:

That this House condemns the attitude of the Government, which refuses to introduce in-depth reform of the legislation on the financing of federal political parties, even though the present legislation allows for a wide range of abuses.

What was the result of this motion? It was defeated by the Liberal government, even though all the other parties in the House voted for it.

The Bloc Québécois is of the view that democratic financing of political parties would certainly make the Canadian election system more democratic and would make it possible to meet this essential objective supported both by the political parties and the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada; Canadian voters have a right to expect this.

The position of the Bloc Québécois is clear: changes to political party financing should take into account the main aims of the Quebec legislation on democratic financing.

First, we believe that only voters should be allowed to make political contributions to parties, candidates and riding associations. Second, a limit should be placed on the contributions that voters can make to political parties.

Second, the Bloc Québécois is concerned about the representation of women in the Canadian Parliament. Bloc Québécois MP Caroline St-Hilaire addressed this issue by tabling, on April 22, 1999, Bill C-497, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (reimbursement of election expenses).

It is more than important, in our opinion, that measures be put in the Elections Act to promote and increase the presence of women as election candidates and as members of the House of Commons. Active and non-coercive measures, such as the reimbursement percentage for political parties that adhere to standards set by the Elections Act in this area seem to us to be a tentative solution.

Some countries have developed the means to achieve ambitious objectives and have met these goals or are on the way to doing so. It is essential for our electoral system to be at the forefront with respect to the representation of women in politics.

The public's right to know is certainly one of the main concerns of the chief electoral officer, as he mentioned here just last week. His concern is shared, I believe, by all political parties and, for the Bloc Québécois, this aspect is crucial to the proper functioning of election campaigns. The information cannot be transmitted or held by people who are not perceived as being impartial, whether that perception is justified or not.

The Elections Act, and in particular Bill C-2, should adequately reflect this concern, especially with respect to the appointment of election officers. The way in which returning officers are appointed seems to us to be in total contradiction with the impartiality that is required to carry out the duties. Why are returning officers not chosen by a public competition rather than political appointment, as is provided for in the current Elections Act and Bill C-2?

The 35th Report of the Chief Electoral Officer contains a relevant quote to this effect, which came from the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing:

In any democratic system, it is essential that the electoral process be administered with efficiency, and that the Elections Act be enforced with impartiality. Elections staff must be independent of the government of the day and free from any partisan influence.

I need not remind you that all the opposition parties supported changing the way in which returning officers are appointed.

Still on the issue of recognizing the right-to-know principle, Bill C-2, in the opinion of the Bloc Québécois, should have strived for greater transparency by requiring that all election expenses returns be submitted to Elections Canada.

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The Bloc Québécois still has trouble understanding why some expenses, transactions and transfers of funds are not subject to the obligations under the Act, while pointless restrictions are imposed concerning audit methods instead of using generally recognized accounting standards as the general principle.

The Bloc Québécois will also be proposing amendments to the provisions on voting procedures. The establishment of the permanent voters' list has substantially changed the election process. You will recall that voters had only one opportunity to become familiar with this change to the system.

We feel that it is essential for voters to be better informed and educated, in particular on how to register and how to vote. Some people believe that the technological solution could change traditional voting methods, and it is crucial that the initial steps be carried out properly. Mandatory identification of voters is only one example.

The possibility of testing methods such as electronic voting necessarily raises questions not only of a technical nature, but also with respect to the confidentiality of the voting process and the “one voter, one vote” principle. You will no doubt agree that the lack of specific criteria for voter identification in Bill C-2 leaves us less than confident that we are ready to take as important a technological step as implementation of electronic voting.

All aspects of special voting rights will also be looked at very closely by the Bloc Québécois when Bill C-2 is under consideration. Those provisions of the Elections Act gave rise to certain difficulties in the 1997 general election and subsequent by-elections.

The proposed amendments to the Elections Act do not entirely satisfy the concerns raised by the Bloc Québécois since the last election, most notably in the January 21, 1998 report tabled by Mr. Yves Rocheleau in this committee.

Throughout the debate on Bill C-2, the Bloc Québécois will defend and articulate, as I said earlier, the democratic values and ideas of Quebeckers. The Bloc Québécois will contribute to the debate because its prime objective is to strive to make the electoral system even more democratic.

Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

We'll now go to the New Democratic Party, Mr. Julian.

Mr. Peter Julian (Assistant Federal Secretary, New Democratic Party): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to thank the members of the committee for inviting representatives of the five major parties to appear before you today. It's very important to have that ongoing collaboration, as this is the third, fourth, or fifth time, I believe, we've met with the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs over various aspects of the Canada Elections Act. It's a good opportunity for us to review again some of the strengths of the existing law and of course some of the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed changes.

[Translation]

I am pleased to speak to you about our position on Bill C-2. As you know, the NDP is the party that exerted the most pressure, 25 years ago when the minority Liberal government elected in 1974 was in office, to have fundamental changes made to the Elections Act. Our biggest concern involved financing and the establishment of a new ceiling for expenditures during election campaigns. NDP MP John Solomon made reference to this in the House. It is an aspect of the legislation that we feel is fundamentally important.

[English]

The campaign financing elements of the existing Elections Act are of fundamental importance, and we can see in the example of our neighbours to the south what a fundamental impact to democracy occurs when there are no spending limits. Effectively, politics becomes the exclusive domain of millionaires, and in the United States this has led, as we know, to a serious decline in participation rates in elections. The result today is that most adult Americans no longer vote.

[Translation]

We want to maintain and even increase participation in elections in Canada, and it is in that vein that I will make a few comments about Bill C-2.

[English]

One or two of the measures contained in Bill C-2 do deal with ways to help with increasing awareness, information, and participation during election periods. The right of access to condominiums is a positive change in the act. The return of the $1,000 candidate deposits also allows candidates who submit all the required financial records by strict deadlines governed within the Canada Elections Act to receive their deposit back, and we of course favour this element of the act.

The donation tax credit increase is way overdue; $100 in 1974 was estimated to be the equivalent of $309 in 1991 by the Lortie commission, and we support the move to increase that donation tax credit from $100 to $200, of course, because the NDP has the largest donor base in the country, with 87,000 members and 45,000 contributors. Our contributors tend to be those who give smaller amounts, but tens of thousands of Canadians give those small amounts, so it's important to have a donation tax credit that is in keeping with inflation and allows them to continue to provide those donations.

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However, what we find unfortunate is what is missing from Bill C-2, that is, measures that would lead to the increased involvement and participation of the Canadian public. One element is that of proportional representation. We believe it should be examined in some depth. Canada is one of the few western democracies that does not have some element of proportional representation in its legislature. Given the great diversity and the great size of Canada, we believe different approaches to proportional representation should be examined.

As well, fixed election dates were supported at our recent national convention held here in Ottawa. It makes good practical sense for Canadians to know well in advance when they will have the opportunity to choose a government.

We are also concerned that missing from Bill C-2 are any aspects dealing with the question of lowered voting age. Lowering the age from 18 to 16 has been a long-standing recommendation of Nelson Riis and the national New Democratic youth.

Also, we're concerned about continuing problems with access to the permanent voters' list. We will continue to fight to ensure that Canadians can exercise their right to vote as easily as possible. Permanent voters' lists with problems, which we have seen in urban areas, is a concern that we have raised at the national advisory committee of Elections Canada. We will continue to fight on that standpoint.

For this reason of increasing access, increasing the ability of Canadians to vote, we strongly oppose the elimination of rural vouching for neighbours in rural areas. Effectively we're concerned about making it more difficult for Canadians living in rural areas to exercise their right to vote.

[Translation]

I will now deal with aspects of the bill that we support. We agree with the idea of limiting advertising expenses for third parties. We call for a tighter framework for expenses, and it is therefore logical that this principle should apply to everyone involved in the election process.

We also support changing the polling hours in Saskatchewan. The amendments made before the 1997 election contained an error, and we are pleased that it is being corrected.

We support the possibility of replacing official agents who do not meet the requirements of their position and cannot carry out their duties. That will make it easier for candidates. We have even recommended to the committee and to Elections Canada that these provisions also apply to returning officers.

Finally, we agree with the provisions on sending nomination papers by fax or electronic mail, which will make it easier for people living in large ridings in the northern, eastern and western parts of the country.

There are aspects of Bill C-2 that we support, but we are disappointed by the lack of certain provisions. In order to build a more solid basis for promoting the participation of Canadians and moving further with the reforms adopted in the 1970s, and particularly in 1974, we will need to be more imaginative and dynamic.

Those are my brief comments. I will now wait for the question period and comments from the members of the committee. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

We move now to the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, with Ms. Elliott and/or Mr. Lepsoe.

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[Translation]

Ms. Susan Elliott (National Director, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Susan Elliott and I am the National Director of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. I am accompanied by Mr. Paul Lepsoe, who has acted for a number of years as a volunteer legal counsel for the Progressive Conservative Party and who advises us on issues relating to the Elections Act.

[English]

I will be making the balance of my comments in English. If there are questions or discussion, Mr. Lepsoe is able to answer questions in both official languages and also has considerably more background in legal and technical matters than do I. I will rely upon him in that respect.

For your reference, we have distributed a copy of the party's presentation on this bill to the committee today.

I do want to thank the committee for this opportunity for us to appear. Committee members may recall that my predecessor, Ross Reid, appeared with Mr. Lepsoe before you last year as part of the preparation of your report on possible amendments to the bill.

We are pleased to note that a specific non-legislative suggestion of ours to your committee at that time has since been implemented, namely, the re-establishment of regular consultative forums between Elections Canada and the registered parties. We also note that certain of our legislative suggestions are reflected in Bill C-2, specifically the abolition of the outdated and confusing blackout provisions at the beginning of the writ period and the maintenance of the prohibition on voting by convicted criminals in penitentiaries.

I do want to address three broad areas today: first, the process to be used for review of the bill; second, some of the substantive provisions of this bill; and finally, some technical drafting issues, which will be addressed by Mr. Lepsoe.

In terms of process, we think two principles should guide the work of this committee: one, there must be adequate time for a thorough study of the bill; two, there should be an attempt to achieve agreement of all parties in the House on the final form of the bill—if necessary, through amendments as the bill proceeds through the legislative process.

The bill before us is apparently the first complete rewrite of electoral legislation since Confederation. Surely no one party should unilaterally determine what those rules are, particularly, if I may say, one governing on a mandate from only 38% of those who voted last time. I would note that the amendments to the Elections Act under the last PC government were carried out on the basis of all-party agreement.

As an aside, if I might be permitted, we all know that the Liberal government has on occasion been willing to implement other Tory policies. Adopting a policy of attempting to achieve all-party agreement on electoral reform is a reversal that we would endorse. In any event, a complete rewrite of electoral legislation does demand adequate time for thorough study.

Finally, I have a word on the process after this bill—hopefully only after some amendments—is adopted by Parliament. The scope of the changes will necessitate a rewrite of all of those important interpretive guidelines to candidates and parties that are issued by Elections Canada. In the distant past, such guidelines were originally written in consultation with representatives of the parties. This was done, presumably, in order to be able to gain practical insight into both what needed to be addressed and how to do so in a manner that would be comprehensible and useful to volunteers in the ridings. We hope this committee will insist that Elections Canada carry out such consultations again.

Turning now to some of the substantive provisions I wish to address, my remarks are unfortunately limited because the principle of adequate time for thorough study has already been breached. The party was asked to appear only a week after the bill was tabled in the House and was then asked to submit a written brief within five days.

We are a party of volunteers. Our people affected by the election rules are also volunteers and are spread across the country. In short, we have not had enough time to study the bill in detail nor to receive feedback from the volunteers who will be affected by the provisions. But I would like to make the following preliminary comments.

First, in regard to third-party advertising, the PC Party is opposed to almost the entirety of part 17 of the bill, which concerns regulation of third-party groups and limits on third-party advertising. We think the provisions are so broad as to be unworkable, unnecessary, and probably unconstitutional.

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Our key concern is the new and quite sweeping proposed controls on issue advocacy. This is not an issue about the rich maintaining access to the system. These controls may affect other groups as well. For example, a coalition of environmental groups that came together to conduct a national awareness campaign could be virtually shut down by these provisions. Small groups trying to conduct local issue awareness campaigns would find the reporting requirements to Elections Canada perhaps impossibly onerous.

In terms of the integrity of the electoral system, there is possibly a good argument to limit the amounts that can be spent by outside groups to target specifically named candidates in specific ridings, in terms of limiting advertising that directly supports or opposes specific candidates. This party supported such limits in 1993. Now, according to the courts, we might not have gotten the balance right in 1993. Upon reflection, perhaps we did not. But trying to achieve the right balance is as far as this matter should go. This bill goes much further; in our view, it goes too far.

There was no attempt to regulate general issue advocacy in the 1993 amendments, and there still shouldn't be. There are already adequate provisions in the bill to prevent political parties and candidates from colluding with outside groups in order to get around the limits on candidate and political party spending. We suspect the overbreadth of these third-party controls may arise because of the minister's personal loathing of the National Citizens' Coalition. And while we carry no brief for the NCC, we do think Canadian democracy can withstand the lack of detailed regulation of interest groups by Elections Canada.

Our position is very similar with respect to controls on the publication of opinion polls contained in the bill, which is my second point. In the 1993 amendments, there was no attempt to regulate the publication of opinion polls beyond a brief blackout at the end of the election period. Again according to the courts, we did not get the blackout balance right in 1993, so the provision was struck down. Trying to achieve the right balance in terms of a blackout on opinion polls is now probably next to impossible in light of the Supreme Court's decision in the Southam case. We therefore think the matter should simply be dropped. Instead, this bill goes much further, attempting to regulate the reporting of opinion polls even outside of a blackout period. It goes too far. All of these provisions should just be dropped from the bill.

Finally, on election and party finance, some of our concerns identified thus far about election and party finance provisions of the bill are addressed in the annex concerning technical issues that we have attached to the written summary of our remarks. There are a couple I would like to reference briefly.

First, we suggest that both the dollar threshold for the amount of tax credits for political donations as contained in the Income Tax Act, and the dollar threshold below which small donations need not be reported, should also be indexed to inflation.

Second, we are concerned about the extent of the changes to reporting requirements for candidates and political parties. Our party, like most, does not have additional resources to devote to more administrative tasks. At the riding level, these tasks are filled almost exclusively by volunteers.

Third, a provision in the bill reduces the types of election expenses of political parties subject to reimbursement. This would mean that the amount of the subsidy would effectively be lower than the 22.5% it has been in the past. We think there is public support for the principle of some public funding of election expenses. Therefore, to try to maintain such funding at least at a level closer to the one it has been at in the past, we suggest that the percentage eligible for reimbursement be set at 25%, exactly half of that of candidates.

In closing, while not part of the bill before us, it has been suggested by the minister responsible that parties might receive financial incentives based on the number of female candidates nominated. I speak as a representative of the party that named the first female cabinet minister, Ellen Fairclough; the first female foreign affairs minister, Flora MacDonald; and the first female Prime Minister, Kim Campbell. I also speak as a woman political activist myself. The minister's suggestion should not go beyond the trial balloon stage. Apart from the gross distortion of the rights of party members to choose their own local candidates, and apart from the repugnant suggestion that Canadians cannot or must not choose for themselves who shall represent them, I find personally insulting the offensive suggestion that should I want to be a candidate, my party needs financial incentives in order to find my candidacy, or that of other women, attractive.

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It is beyond question that Canada needs to identify more women qualified and interested in public life, but we need not buy them. This suggestion is an astoundingly creative means of wasting taxpayer dollars in an effort to manipulate our democratic process.

On that note, I would like to ask Mr. Lepsoe to close with some technical remarks.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe (Legal Counsel, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada): Thank you, Susan. In terms of technical issues, I'll be very brief. I would start by noting that an Elections Canada backgrounder on the bill lists as the first so-called key change brought about by this bill to be the reorganization and clarification of the election statute “to make it easier to read and to apply”. That's a laudable goal, particularly for a statute such as this, which must be regularly used across the country by thousands of volunteers and temporary Elections Canada workers.

However, in my view, some clarity would actually be lost by this bill when compared to the Elections Act as it now reads. And that's saying something. Evidently, more clarity could be achieved with some work on this bill. I'm not going to go over the extent of the changes that could be made, but in the annex to the written summary of our remarks, we have listed at least some proposed technical amendments to the bill, most of which are designed simply to add clarity.

There are other technical changes to add for clarity, which in our view should be made in addition to the ones we have listed in the annex. For example, the all-important definition of election expenses in this bill can only be gleaned by reading several sections spread throughout the bill. In our view, it should be contained all in one place.

[Translation]

Ideally, these changes to the bill will reflect the work and contributions of all parties in the House. As a result, in third reading, the content of the bill should receive the support of all parties in the House, even if other new aspects, as were mentioned by some today, are not included.

That is our presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate the efforts of all five parties to keep their remarks targeted and succinct. We've managed to get through the exercise in less than an hour, and that's a tribute to everyone's contribution.

As the chair, I want to point out that the work we do in this place is protected by a number of immunities and none of us, including witnesses, are obligated to account for what is said in this place. Those are protections in the public interest.

Earlier, in some of the remarks, there was a reference to a former member of the House of Commons being described here as a pariah, and in the interests of trying to keep some balance and acknowledging that no one may call us to account outside this place, just for the record I want to confirm that the honourable former member referred to in those remarks carried on his responsibilities to his constituents to the best of his ability while he was here, and he was nominated by electors to run in the election subsequently.

We are all entitled to our views—it's a free country—but the definition of pariah that I've just asked for refers to any person or animal of a degraded or despised class; a social outcast. I just wanted to say that all members here are held in high regard by colleagues and we should not use the absence of an honourable former member or abuse our freedoms here to express ourselves. I don't take away from any of the expressions. I just wanted to perhaps leave a balance. If everybody is satisfied with that, we can move on.

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I'll go to questioning. We'll recognize the opposition first. Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Siegel, you gave a very thorough presentation that covered a lot of areas. One of the areas you covered was the inability of certain people to vote in the prescribed manner. I'd just like to ask you a question in connection with that. In the presentation of the chief electoral officer, he mentioned that he would like the bill to include provision for him to experiment with electronic voting methods. That could include touch-tone telephone, the Internet, and inserting some sort of electronic card at the polling booth. I'd just like your comments as to whether you believe having that ability might perhaps answer some of those concerns.

Secondly, you mentioned the words “in the broadest sense” in terms of the use of the voters' list by members of Parliament. I'd like you to define for me what you mean by the words “in the broadest sense”. What do you see members of Parliament using that list for in the light of the changes you've suggested?

You didn't mention anything about the 50-candidate rule, and I'd just like to get your feelings on that. As you are probably aware, the Ontario court struck that down and said that two people could constitute a party. It certainly seems to me that the 50-candidate rule is rather arbitrary. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason to choose 50. Maybe 10 or 12 would be more appropriate in light of what happens in the House. Perhaps you could give some comments on that.

Finally, with regard to the candidate deposit, the courts ruled that it was improper to withhold some based on the percentage of the vote achieved by a candidate. So for the refund of expenses that occurs for all people who get over 15%, and I think it's 11% for parties, the logical extension of that is that if someone challenged that rule, it would probably be struck down as well and a refund would apply to all candidates and parties that run in the election. Do you have some feelings on that aspect?

Mr. Jack Siegel: I'll try to run through these briefly. On the subject of electronic voting, you've probably come across one of the most hostile people to the notion that you'll find, having acted on behalf of a municipal candidate in a judicial recount involving an electronic voting process that went terribly awry. To this day my former client has no idea whether he might really have won the election if anybody had been allowed to see the ballots. Add to that, in terms of the notion of Internet voting, the ability of creative people to crack security methods that might be imposed. I don't think the system we have today is so terribly flawed or slow in reporting results that we need to open up new avenues for potential abuse.

With regard to political purposes in the broadest sense, my point of view on the use of the voters' list is that there is no reason it can't be used for purposes of persuading people of views, raising money, recruiting members for your party, or any political activity. The protected use for the list, which we should not enter into and which I believe has been consistently prohibited for some time now, is putting that to any commercial use. To turn it over to a direct marketing firm would be the most blatant and inappropriate usage of the list I could imagine. But if you're using it for any purpose that relates to matters of public policy, I really don't see a problem with it.

With regard to a party of two or a party of five or whatever, I can't say that I have very strong views one way or the other, although it seems to me there might be some symmetry if the standard for a party electorally was the same as the standard for a party in the House itself. I believe the number is 12, and that makes perfectly good sense to me.

With regard to the candidate deposit and return, I don't think much turns on that. Candidates who get less than 15% of the vote typically tend to have spent very little money in any event. If we are going to extend it to the whole breadth of candidates, I might suggest that everybody who is running should be expected to take something out of their pockets, or out of their supporters' pockets, more correctly, for the purpose.

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So perhaps there should be a minimum threshold of having spent 15% of the overall limit before you qualify, as opposed to providing what becomes in effect a free podium at some public expense to absolutely anybody who can, by hook or by crook, find enough signatures to get onto the ballot.

Mr. Ted White: Do I have any time left, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Ted White: I'd just like to follow up a little bit, recognizing that you're hostile toward the idea of electronic voting. I'm certainly aware of instances in the past where there have been some problems with this fledgling technology. That's not to put aside, of course, the fact that there can be abuse under the present system. A person who isn't the actual voter can vote. People can register on the voters' list an animal or a thing. So there is plenty of abuse possible with the present system.

But I think the key issue here is that the chief electoral officer has asked for permission to experiment in order to find out if he can use these things, which he's not allowed to do at the moment. Notwithstanding your objection to the idea, are you saying you don't trust the chief electoral officer to carry out some experiments and find out whether it actually works?

Mr. Jack Siegel: My concern is not with the experiments but with the subject of the experiments. Which of you wants to be the subject of an experiment, using the electronic vote counting machines in particular, that leaves you, years after the fact, not knowing whether you really were elected if anybody had been able to see the ballots? I think the price of experimentation in the absence of certainty in a democratic electoral process is simply too high. Do it knowing that it works, not to see how it works at the expense of somebody's franchise.

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron, Mrs. Parrish, and then Mr. Solomon.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr. Chairman, curiously, you will find my comments extremely brief. To begin with, regarding the possible introduction in the bill of a provision allowing the Chief Electoral Officer to test what we can call electronic voting, it is probably possible to obtain some clarification on this issue. We have been aware of this for some time, and I have some reservations about the introduction of such a provision in the Act. After listening to Mr. Siegel's comment, I believe that I have stronger reservations than before. Some of my concerns are based essentially on the comments by Mr. Bourgeois, but others involve the symbolism of the Act of going out to vote and choose the people who will in fact be leading our society.

That said, I have two questions. The first is on an aspect that is of particular interest to me, that is, the grassroots financing of political parties, and I therefore address my question to all the political parties. Curiously, all but one of the parties have been strangely quiet on this issue. I would therefore like to hear your views on the possibility of changing the current rules regarding political party financing in two respects.

The first involves establishing a ceiling for contributions to political parties. At present, although the Act allows for funds from almost any source to be contributed to political parties, it does not set any ceiling. That goes against the principle of equity, which is so dear to the Minister with respect to this bill. It creates unfairness in the electoral process because we know very well that, on the basis of their contributions, not every person or organization might get the same attention from elected members.

The second aspect relates to the possibility of limiting financing of political parties to individual voters, to those who ultimately choose the people that will be representing them.

My second question is more specifically for Mr. Siegel. On page 7 of his presentation, he indicates that he prefers the status quo where the rules are concerned in cases where election results show that two candidates have received the same number of votes; under the present rules, the returning officer can decide the winner.

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I find that suggestion somewhat strange since, in the current system, returning officer positions are essentially political appointments. That being the case, there is no doubt that a tie- breaking vote by the returning officer would not be fair and objective, but rather political in nature. If the candidate of the party in power were tied with a candidate from another party, the candidate elected would not be the choice of the voters in that riding, but rather that of the returning officer appointed by the governing party.

That creates a kind of paradox; either we change the way in which returning officers are appointed—and you have been strangely silent on that as well—or we change the way in which a tie is broken between two candidates, or we change both. We cannot keep both these conditions that currently exist, as you propose.

[English]

Mr. Jack Siegel: To address, firstly, the subject of the donations from our perspective, I don't believe limits on donations are going to solve much in the way of anyone's problems, nor do I believe large donors carry that much additional clout. There's such a multiplicity of donors coming from conflicting points of view. If we're going to enter into a competition whereby if donor A who opposes the issue gave a little bit less than donor B who favours that issue and the government of the day is always going to go with the larger numbered donor, I think that's an overly simplistic view of the entire political process, quite frankly.

With regard to who may donate, I'm very concerned about the notion of limiting it to two voters in particular. I would suggest that anybody who lives in this country, whether or not they are voters, is entitled as a matter of constitutionally protected freedoms to contribute to the party of their choice.

With regard to the tie-breaker and the returning officer, in the document before you I have said the status quo should be retained. In fact, since writing it I have been persuaded that this might not be the best route to go, although the issue revolved less around the partisanship of the appointment of returning officers and more around the issue of disenfranchising anybody. In theory one might argue that they always get to vote if their vote matters under the existing system, and they are always by law required to be resident in that electoral district anyhow, so their vote could have gone into the hopper. But it's only cast, as in the case of the Speaker of the House, when it's going to decide the issue. That said, I don't think that argument is necessarily sustainable.

The issue continues to boil down to if we are going to have the existing mechanism of breaking a tie eliminated, can we not, please, come up with something, short of having a completely new election for that riding? That strikes me as an overwhelmingly expensive, burdensome, and stressful solution to a much simpler problem.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I would invite the other political parties to answer my question on grassroots financing of political parties.

Mr. Greg Yost: May I start?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Please do.

Mr. Greg Yost: On behalf of the Reform Party, I must say that we are against the idea of grassroots financing. We prefer that everyone should be free to contribute as they like. We believe that it is more important for Canadians to know who has contributed to pay for the advertising, and they can judge for themselves if there has been undue influence through unreasonably large contributions.

We believe that party financing should be open to all existing sources: corporations, unions, etc. All those who want to contribute should be able to use their money the way they want.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: No ceiling?

Mr. Greg Yost: No ceiling.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: With respect to grassroots financing, I think that most of our contributors, like those of all parties, are individuals contributing modest amounts. I am therefore not convinced that we need stricter regulations in this area. The Quebec wing of the Conservative Party adopted grassroots financing a few years ago. That was its choice, and not that of the party at the national level. I am not convinced that we need tighter restrictions.

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On the issue of a tie between candidates, frankly, I hope that the committee has other issues to look at. There are a lot of matters that are more worthy of consideration in the bill, in my opinion. I therefore do not really have an opinion on it.

Mr. Peter Julian: I believe that Mr. Bergeron was referring to the Quebec Act. As you know, the Quebec legislation does have certain advantages. However, it also has shortcomings.

For us, the issue of transparency in financing is important. It is something that we fought very hard for around 1974, before the legislation covering that aspect was passed.

We also believe that democratic sources of financing—I am talking in particular about unions and people affiliated with the party who vote freely and who pay contributions—should continue to be allowed.

We also raised the issue of returning officers. We agree that under the current procedure, they can be appointed without having the necessary skills or aptitudes. If they do not have what it takes, they should not be in the position. That is one aspect of the current legislation that does not make much sense.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Do I have any time left, Madam Chair?

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.)): In keeping with our democratic tradition, I'm going to pass now to the government side of the table and then we'll come back to Mr. Solomon.

Carolyn Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): I'd like to use this opportunity a little bit to ponder out loud, which I am wont to do. The legislation addresses the access to high-rise and to condos, which is very important. I'd like to ask my learned friend Mr. Siegel, from whom I've asked for advice in the past, this question. During the 1997 election the lists of nominators for my opponents were all incomplete. On the surface they looked legitimate, as though they had enough nominators. Upon close checking, it was discovered some people lived out of the riding, some people weren't Canadian citizens, and in fact my two prime opponents, the Reform candidate and the Tory candidate, did not have the number of nominators required.

The onus was on me to bring this to someone's attention, which would have then meant there was no contest and I would have been the big, bad Liberal that disenfranchised these candidates, so we went through with the election and we wiped them out anyway. This legislation doesn't seem to address whose onus it is to check these lists and to in fact file an objection. In your experience, has this ever happened before?

Mr. Jack Siegel: I'm sorry. Let me clarify. Has it happened that...?

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: That I really was running against two candidates who didn't have the right number of nominators—legitimate nominators.

Mr. Jack Siegel: In my experience, it's not often checked. I am aware of the one episode related to me by the chief election officer of Ontario, while he was telling war stories one day, of a candidate from our party whose papers were inadequate when he was the local returning officer. He notified that candidate about six hours before the filing deadline that he'd better turn in some better papers. I think that's a reasonable courtesy to extend if there's been an unintentional foul-up.

I think, by and large, returning officers and ourselves see the obtaining of these signatures as something of a formality that probably doesn't get the amount of attention it warrants.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: My second comment surrounds the whole concept of the by-election following a tie. I agree with you; given the battles I've been through, if someone told me I had to do it again in ten days or two weeks, I'd tell them they can take their job and shove it.

The concept in Parliament and in most school boards and other places where I've had experience is that a tie vote usually fails. It almost puts it on the returning officer by breaking the tie. The returning officer is there by the governing party. Therefore, just in concept, a tie vote fails because the returning officer casts a ballot for the incumbent. I have no problem with the old system, and I don't think even opposition parties should have a problem with it, given the long history of a tie vote failing.

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On the coin flip, in your comments you say it's frivolous, and I agree with you. I think you cannot decide. We've done it at nominations, but I don't think you can decide on a publicly held seat by the flip of a coin. The perception is horrible.

I want to support you in your objection to the by-election. I think it's unacceptable as well.

Thank you, Madame Chair.

The Vice-Chair (Ms. Marlene Catterall): We'll go to Mr. Solomon next.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): Thank you very much, Madame Chair, and thanks to everyone for the presentations. They were quite informative and give us some idea as to where the parties stand.

I want to ask the Reform Party and the Conservative Party representatives, how do you define third parties?

Mr. Greg Yost: To me, it seems relatively simple. It's a group that is not actually a party presenting a candidate as such. It can be anybody out there. It can be me as a citizen deciding to spend some money because I'm unhappy with one of the candidates, or something along those lines. If I'm not a candidate and I'm not part of a registered political party, then I'm a third party to that election.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I don't think there's any magic in it. A third party is neither a candidate nor a political party or their organizations acting in the election. I think the acts define fairly clearly what an election expense is, and I don't think there's a problem with differentiating between an election expense conducted on behalf of the candidate or a registered party and everything else.

Mr. John Solomon: So, in essence, a third party is everybody except the political parties.

In Ottawa we have roughly 3,300 registered lobbyists. These lobbyists represent everything from the banks to the Red Cross, and all sorts of organizations in between. These 3,300 registered lobbyists plus the other 29,995,000 citizens in this country have basically four years to spend billions of dollars to put their viewpoints forward, and I think many of them do spend collectively hundreds of millions of dollars to influence a political party or political parties in the House of Commons.

So both your parties are saying we should have limits for political parties during the five-week election campaign, but for the other millions of people, and in particular these very powerful lobbyists as well as their very rich clients, who represent tens of thousands of wealthy and huge businesses and business families, there should be no limits during that five-week period. Yet they have three years and 47 weeks to put their case forward to do whatever they feel is important to sway public opinion.

You oppose the fact that there should be a five-week regulatory approach towards third-party limits so that people can maybe get a sober second thought and look at what the parties are actually saying as opposed to all the pollsters and the business people and the unions and the individuals. I'm kind of curious. If both your parties are so supportive of democracy, this is the most anti-democratic thing you guys could propose.

So, to both of you, how do you square limits on parties during a five-week period but unlimited expenditures for third parties for three years and 47 weeks between elections, plus higher limits for these 29,995,000 individuals and probably 10,000 groups during an election campaign? I'm not quite clear. I'm from Saskatchewan and we don't have a lot of these complex things there, so I'd like to know why your position is like that. How do you square that off to us, persuade us how this is going to work?

Mr. Greg Yost: I'd begin by saying that I think it's relatively obvious that the vast majority of Canadians do not fixate on the election and how they're going to vote until there's actually an election going on. A lot of people out there do not consider the issues and the positions of the various parties, and they begin to make their minds up in the course of an election campaign. Having received calls from firearms owners on the day of the election asking what the heck was the position of the Reform Party, I began to wonder what it takes to get the message out to some people on certain issues.

So I reject the suggestion that because people are free to spend an enormous amount of money if they wish for three years prior to an election, that's necessarily going to be as effective for them as concentrating their resources, and in many cases extremely limited resources, during the course of an election campaign.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I have a couple of comments. I don't necessarily disagree that there's a nice academic argument that can be made in isolation as to why issue advocacy by third parties must also be regulated and limited in the same way that partisan advertising by parties and candidates is. But this bill has to operate in the real world, and I think the extent of the regulation of third-party advertising that is contained in this bill is probably quite unrealistic.

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How do you even define issue advocacy? As a lawyer, I'm frankly kind of shaken by how we're going to charge people with an offence for conducting issue advocacy, whatever that can mean. I think it's just a practical problem with how you really do control people expressing their opinions on public policy issues. So that's sort of the principle of the thing.

Secondly, as to the practical reality, I want to pick up on one point you mentioned. I'm someone who still bears the scars of the 1988 federal election campaign. We both know there were all kinds of pro and anti-free trade interventions by groups in the 1988 election campaign. Frankly, I can tell you that the anti-free trade election interventions that were conducted were, in some cases, very effective. To say that this is strictly an issue that only one point of view is always going to be propounded by groups is just wrong. In our brief we've used the example of environmental groups.

Mr. Solomon, I don't know if you want to tell environmental groups, even of two or three people, that they potentially are going to have to be regulated by Elections Canada. I don't know if you want to take that responsibility or not. Our party doesn't want to take the responsibility of telling any possible groups, environmental or otherwise, that they're now subject to regulation and control by Elections Canada.

Mr. Terrence Mercer: One of the points that is missing here is this: I don't think there's any greater contribution any Canadian can make to public life other than putting their name on the ballot, and I have respect for all of you who have done that, and I have respect for all the people who ran against you and who you defeated, because they've made that sacrifice and have subjected themselves to public scrutiny. The members of the public have made their decision based on what knowledge you presented to them and your opponents did not.

I think if people feel that strongly on an issue, there's lots of room on the ballot. Get your name on the ballot. If you have an opinion and you really want to express it, then do so, and I think the Reform Party is an expression of that. They had a whole bunch of people who had opinions that differed from their friends in the Conservative Party, and they got together and formed the Reform Party. They ran, and now they're the official opposition in this country.

I think there's a need for a limit. As an individual, I made a presentation to the Lortie commission specifically on limiting third-party advertising. I think it distorts and corrupts the image of what an election is about. It's about people seeking the support of people for....

You're not elected to Parliament for one issue; you're elected to Parliament to represent all the people, and I think you have to put your name on the ballot and be elected by all the people. As I say, we have the greatest respect for all the candidates who have put their names forward. For those people in third-party organizations who have a strong opinion, there's lots of room on the ballot.

The Chair: We've gone over the time. I know I'll get back to you, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Peter Julian: May I respond to that question?

The Chair: Sure, Mr. Julian.

Mr. Peter Julian: I think Mr. Solomon raises a very interesting point.

We have an example to the south of us of what happens when there are no spending limits for political parties, for candidates, and for third parties: tens of millions of dollars—massive amounts—used in campaigns. What has happened with no limits? What has happened with the participation rates? In the United States, they continue to tumble. Most adult Americans don't vote.

There must be some concern we should express here. If the American example shows us that having massive amounts of capital invested in election campaigns, basically the wild, wild west of election financing both by third parties and by political parties, leads to a reduction in the participation rates, then that's a concern we as political parties and you as legislators must be addressing.

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The Chair: Thank you. We'll go to Mr. Harvey for a five-minute round.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): I would first like to thank our witnesses. We are at the thinking stage and as was pointed out by the representatives of our party, among others, this is a job that must be taken seriously, Mr. Chairman.

A new election period will be upon us in the near future, but I wonder if we need to hurry to adopt these amendments. I would like to hear from Mr. Siegel, among others, on that.

Second, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, confirmed to me here, in front of my colleagues, that he felt that it was essential to change the way in which returning officers were appointed. I would like to hear your reactions to that statement by Mr. Kingsley. In the last election campaign, in 1997, 75% of returning officers had no experience and were not always able to carry out their duties.

And I would like to have your point of view on this question. Suppose we arrive at a consensus for permanently scheduled elections. In the case of a minority government, what would happen?

I would like to ask a fourth question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. I think that it is more efficient that way. Mr. Bourgeois of the Bloc Québécois talked about democratic financing. At present, we believe that democracy can be exercised through corporate donations as well as those from individuals. Does he feel that the current legislation on the financing of political parties is undemocratic?

Thank you very much.

[English]

Mr. Terrence Mercer: With respect to the question on the appointment of returning officers, one of the criticisms I think we have of Elections Canada generally, and particularly the office here in Ottawa, is the lack of political expertise from whatever party people may come. To us it doesn't matter where Mr. Kingsley's staff comes from. But we think he should be seeking out people who have political experience, practical experience, so that when they make decisions they will be basing them on practical, on-the-ground experience. I think that's a very real thing that's necessary at the returning officer level. The system we've had in place, while, yes, indeed there was a large turnover of returning officers in the last campaign because of redistribution, I think generally speaking across the board has worked very well.

We don't always agree, interestingly enough as the governing party—Mr. Siegel has practical experience of this—with the returning officers who are appointed, even though we're part of the party that selects them. We had cases during the last campaign of returning officers appointed by us who we had difficulty with. But that's the human factor. We think generally across the board the 301 returning officers did do a good job.

The Chair: Mr. Harvey had three or four questions there. Were they directed to one person or to the panel?

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: I said that my questions were for Mr. Siegel.

If there was a consensus to the effect that elections should be held every four or five years, what would happen in the case of a minority government? In such a case, the election cannot be set for a certain date.

My other question dealt with grassroots financing. I would like to point out to Mr. Siegel that in answering Mr. Bergeron's question, he talked, among other things, about the respective influence of corporations and individuals on the basis of their contributions, and he said that that was a simplistic view. I would like to believe that his statement does not represent his considered opinion of the issue.

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[English]

The Chair: Firstly, Mr. Siegel, on the issue of the fall of the government in the House, and then to Mr. Bourgeois with a follow-up question.

Mr. Jack Siegel: With respect to the issue of the notion of combining fixed election dates with a parliamentary system of government, quite frankly my view is that it doesn't work. The two are incompatible for the very reason of your question. All you can do is say we'll have fixed election dates except if we have a minority government, which is the only time it really matters, in terms of the government falling anyhow. In that case, we'll still have these variable dates, so we'll never have certainty. If we want to go to a republican system, then let's throw out the baby and the bathwater and start over.

With respect to the other point, very briefly, I stand by my comment. I think it is overly simplistic to think that all policy decisions are decided simply by who donated the most. I wouldn't be so naive as to say that donations don't play any role at all when people get somebody's ear, but any group that simply, as a sitting government, capitulates entirely to their donors will face the wrath of the electors in the next election. And this is such a fundamentally basic point that I think very few governments go that far.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Bourgeois.

Mr. Louis-Philippe Bourgeois: I certainly did not mean or intend to give the impression that I felt that the current financing framework was undemocratic. However, the Bloc Québécois firmly believes that if only voters had the right to finance political parties, the current system would be more democratic.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Solomon, I think you had another question. Let me check with the clerk here. Ms. Catterall has her name on the list. Are you signalling that you wish to ask more questions? Good, we'll take your names.

Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Mr. Chair, I'm going to put this question to the representative of the Progressive Conservative Party, who made a fairly strong position in terms of measures to increase the representation of women in Parliament. I wonder if she's aware of the Lortie commission report of eight years ago now and the substantial research that commission did into the participation of women in politics, the number of barriers there were to women becoming involved in politics, and in particular the finding that the parties—and I say this of all parties—tended, when they were seeking out candidates—because this whole nomination process is not a spontaneous thing, as she well knows—to seek out the types of candidates they had seen succeed in politics, and generally those tended to be male.

Is she aware that this recommendation came from the Lortie commission as one of a number of recommendations, not to give preferential treatment to women, but to remove a very significant barrier to the participation of women in politics? That was simply to provide an incentive for the parties to change their traditional ways and to be in fact more proactive in seeking out women candidates as well as men candidates. On the basis of that substantial work that was done by the commission, I'd be interested in knowing how the Progressive Conservative Party comes to its position in opposition to that very strong recommendation of the commission.

Ms. Susan Elliott: Thank you.

A recommendation that was made eight years ago probably warrants some updating.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Yes.

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Ms. Susan Elliott: I'm a strong believer in removing obstacles, and I'm a strong believer in parties providing incentives that will encourage more women to participate in politics. My objection is to the notion that the government, through law and through taxpayer money, would provide incentives on the basis, not of removing obstacles to people who face them, but of gender. For example, what about obstacles faced by members of our aboriginal communities, by visible minorities, and by those with a physical handicap? There are a number of obstacles that are faced. I am 100% in support of removing obstacles. I am 100% opposed to using taxpayer money for incentives based on gender.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I would suggest maybe the representative of the Progressive Conservative Party might want to go back and reread why the Lortie commission made this specific recommendation, and if she has any second thoughts on it, let us know. But the whole purpose of our elections law is to equalize the opportunities and to democratize the whole election process, and that was certainly the thinking behind the Lortie commission when it made this recommendation. I think part of their analysis, and certainly my experience, is that when one democratizes the process for one group, one tends to democratize it for all groups. But when one group is over 50% of the population in Canada, I think it's particularly important to take some fairly assertive measures to remove those barriers. I don't know if the other parties wish to comment on their position on opening up the process in this way.

The Chair: Mr. Julian.

Mr. Peter Julian: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to comment particularly on the remarks I read in the newspaper from the Reform Party and also Ms. Elliot's comments regarding the participation of women in politics and nominations. Their reaction seemed to be based on the fact that they saw that as anti-democratic somehow, that women would get nominations and run for political office.

I was surprised by those comments, particularly in light of the successful NDP initiative to put in place an affirmative action process where local members—and there are 87,000 members across the country—chose women candidates. As you know, 36% of our candidates in the last election were women, 40% of our caucus now is composed of women, and 50% of our newly elected members in 1997 were women. It's not an obligatory result but an obligatory process that our riding associations and members went through across the country. And when political parties make that effort, as the NDP has done, we can succeed in some way diminishing the gender gap that exists right now, which is a serious problem, in my opinion, in Canadian politics.

The Chair: Thank you.

Does anyone else from the other parties have a question?

Yes, Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I have one final question on a point Mr. Siegel made. I thought he brought a very important point to our attention, which is the issue of shelters for battered women and similar institutions designed to offer protection to people at risk, but I'm not sure how you protect such places from canvassers without also identifying them. I don't know if you've given any thought to that, Mr. Siegel, as to how we might avoid that problem, which can be just as risky or more risky.

Mr. Jack Siegel: I think it's a very good point. The difficulty is that if you have access, you have a greater problem. Certainly if they are identified it may be in the development of a procedure that the locations are not then published and distributed to the campaigns, but rather they are provided with a document from Elections Canada to show to any canvasser who comes knocking on the door and would otherwise claim a right of entry. At that point the canvasser is given to understand that they can go no further, but leave their literature, please, at the door.

The Chair: If I could ask you, colleagues, to focus on one question, we may be able to go rapid-fire through the next ten minutes.

We'll start with Mr. White, and your chair will think about the next one.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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My question is to Mr. Julian of the NDP. Is not the real issue with third-party spending that when members of Parliament are targeted by third parties, it's usually because that third party feels the member of Parliament hasn't represented his constituency, or the party hasn't represented the people, adequately? The third party targets that member of Parliament or party as having not done what the people wanted.

So with regard to third-party spending limits, are we not really treating the symptom rather than the cause of the problem? Many people would argue that it's the dysfunctional nature of Parliament itself that causes the problem, where it's a place of the parties rather than the people.

I know the NDP is supportive of proportional representation and certainly has a history of being very representative of the people who sent them to Parliament. So I would ask whether or not you can see that link, that third-party spending comes because that third party doesn't think the member of Parliament is representing the riding properly, and whether or not that would actually disappear if there was a more democratic process in the House itself. Then there would be nothing to fear from third-party spending.

Do you have any comments in that regard?

Mr. Peter Julian: Yes, I do. Thanks for the question.

I guess I disagree with the premise. If we look again at the American example, third-party spending has very little to do with groups that come together informally and a great deal to do, as Mr. Solomon mentioned, with lobbyists, who are trying to continue to have the influence they have in Washington, and in our case, Ottawa.

So the question, I guess, is more one of when we have groups, whether informal or very formal and very wealthy, should those groups not be regulated to the same extent that political parties are? Our feeling is, yes, there is a responsibility to the public to know who contributes to that and to see that there are some limits in terms of expenses a third party can apply.

I doubt very much we're talking about environmental groups, having been involved as an environmental activist. I think what we're talking about, as Mr. Solomon mentioned, is very high-powered lobbyists with deep pockets. If those folks want to be involved in the political process, they're free to do so, but they must be subject to the same limits to which political parties and candidates are subject.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'm getting the most heat from you, Monsieur Bergeron, so ask a quick question.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Winston Churchill said that democracy was the least imperfect political system. Mr. Julian indicated earlier that the Quebec law on grassroots financing of political parties had certain advantages, but also some shortcomings. I would like to say that, from what I have seen, the Quebec legislation in this area is certainly the least imperfect system for financing political parties.

Mr. Siegel said that it was perhaps a bit simplistic to claim that there could be a connection between party financing and how important each person's vote was. I would merely like to say that it is simplistic to think that an individual who contributes $5 or $10 to the Liberal Party's campaign fund has the same access to the Prime Minister of Canada as a company that has put $25,000 in the election coffers of the party. In my opinion, that is what makes all the difference.

It was also mentioned that all Canadians should be able to contribute to political parties. I agree, but they must do so as individuals, as voters.

Mr. Lepsoe said that he felt that the issue of tie-breaking was of minor importance and that he hoped that this committee would not waste time on it. I would say to Mr. Lepsoe, with all due respect, that it is not up to him to decide and that the electoral system must be based on the principle of equal weight being given to each vote cast.

In fact, all the political parties seem to emphasize transparency rather than amending the Party Financing Act to make it the Grassroots Financing Act.

The question that I would like to ask each of you deals with transparency; I believe that there is a shortcoming in Bill C-2 regarding trust funds for candidates.

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Currently, a candidate, a prospective candidate or even a member of Parliament can create a trust fund that can be transferred to his or her campaign fund when an election is called. All that will appear in the election expenses return will be: “source, trust fund of candidate.” It will be impossible to know exactly where the money is coming from and who donated to the trust fund.

Since you all seem to be on the side of virtue and transparency, what is your position on the existence or the possible existence in the current bill, of trust funds for candidates?

[English]

The Chair: If I may, Mr. Bergeron, you put your question to each of the witnesses. If they each reply, it will take us way beyond my expectation of a quick response.

Witnesses should not feel constrained to provide an answer if they don't really want to, but we'll go through quickly if everyone wants to.

Mr. Siegel.

Mr. Jack Siegel: I think I can keep it very tightly within the time constraints.

Clause 428 of the bill provides for disclosure if a registered party establishes a trust fund. Now, that does leave out local candidates, without question. The issue is, however, those donations generally....

People who donate want to avail themselves of a tax credit outside of the writ period when the trust fund would be getting set up. They are therefore going to want to contribute to the registered party in one way, shape, or form.

I read clause 428 as requiring, quite frankly, this level of disclosure wherever receipted funds are therefore going to be used. Otherwise, the interpretation you are left with is merely where we take money from a general fundraiser, where everybody's donations are disclosed anyhow, and set it aside into a trust fund for some purpose—maybe for women candidates, I don't know. But that would take us into another area.

It seems to me that if we're going to move towards monitoring these funds, this is a good first step. Maybe it requires some refinement, but I think it catches the lion's share of what both you and I are talking about and what we agree upon, quite frankly.

The Chair: Thank you.

We're going to go right across the board here, because all the parties seem to have an interest.

Ladies first, with Ms. Godin.

[Translation]

Ms. Lorraine Godin (Chief Agent, Bloc Québécois): I will answer Mr. Bergeron, by saying that I agree that trusts should be disclosed.

I feel that the bill does not go far enough and has a major deficiency. The trusts are required to make returns, but the returns do not need to be audited. They should be audited, just like the election expense returns of the political parties. Anything can be put in a return when it can be filed by just anyone without being audited. That is a deficiency that needs to be corrected, in my opinion.

Mr. Greg Yost: In principle, we agree that we should be able to find out who was responsible for creating these trust funds, but there may be a practical problem. Over four years, a riding association tries to collect this money and spends the money here and there. What should be reported exactly? Should we report the latest donations received? I don't know. It's a practical issue. If we could come up with a solution, we would be in full agreement that it should be made public. [English]

The Chair: Mr. Julian.

[Translation]

Mr. Peter Julian: Some progress has already been achieved in this bill, but it is true that an audit is not required. This is an important aspect. There is already a requirement that the official report of candidates be audited. This is a shortcoming which, I feel, should be corrected.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: I'd like to say two things. First of all, Mr. Bergeron, I think that you misunderstood me or I didn't explain my opinion properly. I responded to Mr. Siegel's comment by talking about a tie vote requiring a by-election. I wasn't challenging the whole issue of equality. I apologize. I probably expressed myself poorly. It was a very technical point.

As for trust funds in the ridings, quite honestly, I think that this is almost a hypothetical question. As Mr. Siegel said, most people want a receipt for their donation.

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Consequently, there is simply no basis for this idea that there are, throughout the country, tremendous amounts of money that are not being accounted for in either the party reports or in the candidate reports. Since most people insist on having receipts, the contributions are disclosed in either the party reports or the candidate reports. We shouldn't try to come up with rules for a problem that doesn't exist. This would be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to address the issue of rural vouching. In western Canada and Saskatchewan, for example, where I come from, because of the Liberal agricultural restructuring that's going on, that is, fewer farmers, larger farms, farther places to travel to, less money to travel with, and poorer highways as a result of the “No National Highways Program”, we have a situation that has just developed in this elections bill with a proposal to eliminate rural vouching.

I just want to get viewpoints. I know Reform supports the elimination of rural vouching—they're on the record earlier as saying that—but here is a situation that occurs in Saskatchewan that exists now. Election day happens to be during harvest, seeding, spraying, or haying, or is the general spring, summer, or fall election date, and the odd name here or there is sometimes left off the voters' list.

So the farmer is on his tractor or his combine or his swather and he has to run with his half-ton to town to vote—and he may not have his driver's licence with him out in the combine or the tractor or the swather. Without rural vouching, if he's not on the voters' list, his neighbours who know him, along with the three or four party representatives and the DRO in the poll who know him—even some neighbours there know him—can't vouch him in. They can't do it if this amendment is passed.

I'd like to ask the Liberal Party, in particular, and the Conservatives where they stand on rural vouching, which I think is really important to maintain. That example is very rare, but if this is eliminated from the bill, it will eliminate a small number of voters. They won't travel 8 or 10 or 12 miles to the polling station to find they have no picture ID on them and then go all the way back; they just won't bother—and as we know, fewer people are voting.

I'm wondering whether you would support the elimination of this amendment so that we could retain it for the purposes of those kinds of rare examples on the prairies.

The Chair: Mr. Siegel.

Mr. Jack Siegel: I have two points in response. One, until you asked your question, I never understood what the problem was, since we were replacing it with election-day registration. It seems to me we're dealing with the rather focused problem of forgetting ID. That, quite frankly, can apply equally, and equally inconveniently, in a Toronto traffic jam: I hopped on the subway, came in from work during my three-hour window, and left my driver's licence on the desk, so what am I going to do?

What we need is a consistent approach to election-day registration that applies to every Canadian. If it is election-day registration, perhaps there needs to be a fail-safe. The language in the legislation, I believe, is “upon presentation of satisfactory proof of identity”. In dealing with Elections Canada in the 1997 election, I was successful in persuading them that in appropriate cases satisfactory proof of identity could be an affidavit; you could swear out a statutory declaration on the spot.

If you go too far, maybe it opens it up to abuse again. If there are some constraints and perhaps the affidavit supported by someone's attestation that the individual is who they say they are, I don't know that we have a problem. The most important principle, to me, is equality of treatment for all Canadians.

Mr. Paul Lepsoe: Mr. Chairman, I think this is probably a very good example of the general point we were trying to make, that is, we need an opportunity for the volunteers across the country—for instance, those in rural ridings—to give us a bit of feedback on these provisions.

That was an example of a seemingly small technical provision, but it may mean a lot in rural ridings. I personally am not convinced that election-day registration is the answer. In the large urban polling stations, there is a registration desk, but it's not necessarily the case in every polling station you can register at.

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As I said, it's probably a good example of something that does need to be looked at through feedback from the people in the ridings who actually have to deal with these provisions.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Julian.

Mr. Peter Julian: Mr. Siegel seemed to be making a reference to a made-in-Toronto policy—

Mr. Jack Siegel: Oh, please.

Mr. Peter Julian: —for access to voting lists, and we would strongly disagree with any made-in-Toronto process.

Basically, equality of treatment means allowing, in different parts of this vast country, an ability for folks to get on the list and exercise their right to vote. Eliminating rural vouching is certainly one of the worst aspects of Bill C-2. It eliminates something that is a time-honoured tradition and a way of making sure that folks in rural areas have the ability to exercise their right to vote democratically, as Canadians. As a party, we definitely very much oppose eliminating rural vouching for that reason.

Mr. Ted White: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, just for the record, as the critic for this bill for the Reform Party, I'd like to make it clear that we haven't taken a position on rural vouching. We're waiting for clarification from Elections Canada people about the points made by Mr. Siegel and how well that would work, and we're getting feedback from rural communities. Mr. Solomon, with all due respect, is incorrect.

The Chair: That's not a point of order, but—

Mr. John Solomon: It was your own person who—

The Chair: —your representation has been noted.

Mr. John Solomon: —said they wanted picture ID for all voters, so I would assume that includes the elimination of rural vouching.

Mr. Ted White: It doesn't mean we can't change, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: You say you've changed. Okay.

The Chair: We're literally going around the table now.

Your chairman has a question, for any one of the parties, on the requirement for a minimum number of candidacies before a group is recognized as a registered party. The bill has found it necessary to pick a number, however arbitrary that may seem.

I'm sometimes embarrassed by the amount of paper burden and regulation involved in modern governance. In order to become a registered party now, there are apparently quite a lot of applications, registrations, certifications, audits, and filings. So the question is this: if one recognizes a low number of candidacies, like two or three or ten, to be a registered party, would a party of that size be big enough to handle the paper burden, the filing burden, the audit burden, and the costs and administrative procedures associated with being a registered party? Could you give us some insight into that?

Mr. Terrence Mercer: I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that a small number does make it difficult. There are at present at least 14 or 12—each meeting we go to, there's a new number, but I think it's 12—registered political parties, only five of which are represented in the House of Commons. Some of these parties are relatively small. At our ad hoc committee meetings, they have equal standing and do express their opinions rather forcefully.

It may be unfair for me to say this because I represent a rather large party with a good-sized permanent staff, but the burden of filing does not seem to be that great. Also, I think you have to look at the other side: the burden should be fairly heavy, in the sense that there needs to be some accountability to Elections Canada that the parties are indeed fulfilling the obligations as set out for registry, particularly on financial reports. I think it's very important that we put those constraints in there, that no matter what number you choose—and I leave that to you—the regulations should be such that there are some hoops they must jump through in order to maintain their status.

The Chair: Thank you.

Colleagues, will that allow us to conclude, then?

I want to point out that we have a full day tomorrow, but for some reason I wasn't able to spoil the end of the week for you and it looks like we don't have any proceedings on Thursday. I see some smiles.

• 1345

I want to thank our witnesses very much for their contributions. Our members are most grateful.

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I have a closing comment. I would simply like to congratulate the clerk on the quality of the meal we had today. I do not know whether this was owing to the presence of the cameras or not, but at any rate, I simply wanted to make this point.

[English]

The Chair: The clerk does a good job all the time.

Thank you, colleagues. We stand adjourned.