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]

Monday, November 29, 1999

• 1540

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River,Lib.)): I see a quorum. We're continuing our clause-by-clause study of Bill C-2, the Canada Elections Act.

Colleagues, before we proceed, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, has sent us a letter dealing with issues that were raised very recently at committee. The letter, dated November 26, was received today and either has been or will be distributed to you forthwith. Mr. Kingsley has addressed four issues that were raised at committee. You may take the reply under consideration as we proceed with our clause-by-clause consideration.

When we left off last week, we completed clause 30, and we had previously completed and carried clauses 31 and 32, which brings us now to clause 33.

(On clause 33—Solicitation of names)

The Chair: I see that there are four amendments, all delivered by the Bloc. We are in the bill at clause 33 and we are in the amendment book at amendment BQ-11, which is located on page 28 of amendment brick 1. You will all note that there is a second brick, which I will call brick 2, and the face of it says group B. Despite all of the best efforts of our clerk and our staff, unfortunately a third brick, group C, has been added. So you will have as amendments the big brick, the second one called group B, and the third one called group C. We are now, as I said, dealing with clause 33 and amendments BQ-11, -12, -13, and -14.

I would look to the Bloc, Monsieur Bergeron, to explain amendment BQ-11.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr. Chairman, it is a very reasonable amendment that aims simply at extending the time limit by four days to allow registered parties to supply the names of people to act as revising agents. We note that the three-day time limit may be a bit tight. We therefore propose to extend this time limit on all political parties from three to seven days for submitting their list.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson on that.

• 1545

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): We would be concerned that if you add an additional four days to when the revising agent is set to be prepared, you're going to back up every other thing that flows from this that Elections Canada has to do. Elections Canada is working as quickly as they can to get proper voting lists ultimately ready for voting day, so they don't have a lot of flexibility in their schedule. That's why we're opposed to adding an additional four days.

The Chair: All right. Are there any other comments on this particular amendment? Seeing none, I'll put the question on amendment BQ-11.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron, amendment BQ-12.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I see great open-mindedness on the part of the government regarding motions presented by the opposition. I had believed that the government would be receptive, but since the beginning, it has not been receptive to amendments by the opposition.

Be that as it may, proposal BQ-12 aims simply to amend subsection 33(3), which says:

(3) A returning officer shall appoint revising agents to work in pairs and each pair shall consist, as far as possible, of persons recommended by different registered parties.

We would simply like to remove the reference to "as far as possible", since it must be recommended and recommendable that those people in fact be people on the lists provided by the registered parties.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The phrase “as far as possible” is an important safety valve. It gives the returning officer some discretion to make sure the job gets done. That's why it's there, rather than committing them to a rock-solid formula that may in some cases interfere with actually getting the job done.

The Chair: Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question on amendment BQ-12.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron, amendment BQ-13.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, once again BQ-13 seems to me to be a very reasonable amendment. It's aim is to ensure that a returning officer who wants ro replace a revising agent must explain his or her reasons in writing. The effect of this would be to increase transparency and avoid arbitrary decisions on the part of returning officers. In this committee we have had ample time to discuss and we know that returning officers are appointed through a process that seems debatable to some. Since that system is in place and it seems that we don't want to change it, at least at the time being, it would be at least desirable to allow a certain transparency by ensuring that we avoid arbitrary decisions by returning officers by forcing them to justify their decisions, which seems a minimum to me, when people do not meet the requirements to act as revising agents. A returning officer can have quite legitimate reasons for refusing a revising agent, but it seems to me just as legitimate that the returning officer explain the reasons why he is refusing a revising agent.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Ref.): I agree with the concept in principle, Mr. Chairman, but I'm wondering about something. I'm just reading through it here, and I notice something about 48 hours after being advised of the refusal. Can my Bloc colleague direct me to the part that deals with the written reason for that?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It says in the amendment that a returning officer must immediately put the reasons for his decision in a report and send a copy of it, without delay, to...

That is without a doubt. The 48 hours are designed simply to allow the returning officer to replace the person if the political parties in question do not provide other names. For the same reasons mentioned earlier by Mr. Knutson, for the returning officer to be able to act quickly, he or she must have the discretion of appointing another revising agent if the political party in question does not supply other names.

• 1550

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was looking for something along the lines of the word “written”. I guess that's in here in the phrase “record the reasons”. I skipped over that.

I generally support this in principle, Mr. Chairman. It's only fair that if somebody is refused a job or somebody loses a job, they would be able to find out the reason. That seems fairly reasonable to me. My only concern and worry about putting something like this into the bill is the whole question of bureaucracy and paperwork and whatnot. But in these circumstances, it is such a sensitive subject that it's probably meritorious that we actually have a reason for somebody being refused a job.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The government is opposed to this, because it would add an extra administrative burden on the returning officer. I would point out to colleagues that when in the middle of an election campaign, those offices are under a fair bit of pressure just to get the job done.

I know in my own case, with one name I submitted, there were some complaints about the person, and the returning officer just told them their services weren't welcome. The returning officer explained to me that he didn't have a lot of time to sort these things out, complaining about issues of compatibility or whether the pairs could work together. He didn't really have time to go into great detail. Sometimes people just have to be removed swiftly in order to get the job done.

The Chair: Ms. Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): Piggybacking on what Gar said, the other thing we're concerned about is, if a returning officer has to sit there and give written reasons, you can get all kinds of lawsuits after for unfair dismissal and all kinds of nonsense, and it will put that returning officer in a very difficult position.

I agree with you: the paper trail in this case was rough. We couldn't give them enough names, so they went and got names from anyplace they could, and everything went smoothly. So this isn't something you want to get hung up on.

The Chair: Okay, colleagues. You've heard the issues. I'll put the question.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: I'll now go to the fourth amendment on that clause, BQ-14.

Monsieur Bergeron, would you describe the amendment?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, again in the spirit of cooperation that the government offered at the beginning but that does not seem to have materialized in the study of the opposition's amendments, this amendment is aimed at more or less the same objective as the one that has just been defeated.

The one that was just defeated was about the refusal by a returning officer to nominate a revising agent whose name was supplied by one of the political parties. Amendment BQ-14 is aimed at forcing the returning officer to justify a decision to replace a revising agent already appointed and who, for one reason or another, is not doing the work well or does not meet the job requirements and must be replaced.

It seems obvious to me that in a democratic society and one as evolved as ours, we do not throw someone out that way without at least a minimal explanation of the reasons for doing so.

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): For all the reasons given in the previous discussion, it just seems to me to be adding a complexity and an administrative procedure that are unnecessary.

Nothing in here says a returning officer has to appoint any of the people suggested by any of the parties. Give the person the authority to do their job, get rid of somebody who's not performing well, and replace them. At 48 hours or 24 hours before an election, you don't have time to go running around writing reasons for every decision.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I'd just observe how quick we are as members of Parliament to make sure the rules are all in favour of the things we like, such as efficiency during an election campaign. We wouldn't extend the same benefits to any corporate employer out there who for other reasons needed to get rid of an employee quickly. We would want them to go through the entire process for months, with appeals and goodness knows what else. So I just make the observation that it's easy for us to make laws to suit ourselves here.

• 1555

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: What an astute observation from one of my fellow colleagues that private sector employers have to go through a lot of hoops in these situations, but different rules are being set up for political officers.

On the same principle that I argued before on amendment BQ-13, and as well for the sake of transparency, I still support this.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 33 agreed to on division)

(On clause 34—Deputy returning officers)

The Chair: There's an amendment in the name of the Bloc Québécois, BQ-15. Mr. Bergeron, would you introduce that, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the principle is exactly the same, but this time it applies to deputy returning officers. We propose that a returning officer may not dismiss a deputy returning officer without justifying the decision. I repeat that in a democratic and evolved society like ours we cannot dismiss someone without showing cause for such an action.

I imagine that under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that person would in any case have a legitimate reason for presenting his or her case to a court if dismissed without a justification of the reasons for doing so.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you. Is there any further discussion on that?

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: We stand by the reasoning raised in the previous two amendments.

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Are there situations particular to the province of Quebec that Mr. Bergeron might be able to enlighten us on that caused this to be raised as a more serious issue for him and his party and those dealing in Quebec than possibly what we face in my own election, say, for example, in Calgary West?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, although I understand the meaning of my colleague's question, I must simply answer him by saying that I have not done a comparative analysis of what goes on in his riding and what goes on in general in Quebec. The fact is that it is a question of principle.

Given the partisan nomination process for returning officers, we must ensure a certain transparency in the system and avoid having the lists supplied by other political parties being ignored or not really taken into consideration very much by the returning officer for reasons that are just as partisan. If the returning officer has valid reasons for dismissing or not naming a person, these valid reasons should be put in writing and given to the individual involved. That seems obvious, logical and legitimate to me in a country such as ours or yours.

[English]

The Chair: The chair has a question I'd like to put to the counsel. In hirings and dismissals by returning officers, can I assume that the normal Canadian and provincial laws with respect to employment law would apply in that context? Just because we don't specifically enumerate common sense and written documentation, would returning officers be bound by the normal Canadian laws in that regard?

Mr. Michael Peirce (Director, Legal Operations, Privy Council Office): That is right.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 34 agreed to on division)

(On clause 35—Poll clerks)

The Chair: There's an amendment, BQ-16.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, it's exactly the same situation, but this time for the clerks. I will not elaborate further.

[English]

The Chair: We understand the intent.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 35 agreed to on division)

• 1600

(On clause 36— Appointment)

The Chair: There are two amendments from the Bloc Québécois.

We'll take BQ-17 first, Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment is similar to the one made to clause 33. It is aimed at extending the time limit imposed on political parties to supply list to fill the clerk and deputy returning officer positions. I know that I will be told that in fact this will extend the whole process. That's the end of the debate.

[English]

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: I'll now move to the next amendment. Monsieur Bergeron, would you care to introduce amendment BQ-18.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, amendment BQ-18 seems to me even more relevant and more important that the amendments I presented previously. I hope that I can once again count on a certain openness on the part of the government.

[English]

Mr. Rob Anders: We don't have an English translation.

The Chair: Colleagues, the issue here is the proper French description of the wording. The amendment deals with the wording in the French version.

Mr. Bergeron, would you explain the deficiencies as you see them in the existing French text, or would counsel care to comment on what they see as the accuracy or inaccuracy of the current French wording.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I think that the French version is correct. The problem is in the English version. The beginning of the translation of this amendment is in English, but what follows is in French. I think it is a technical problem that is beyond my control. I will try to explain the purpose of this amendment.

It is simply to ensure that when there are vacant positions and the lists are supplied by the political parties involved, the returning officers must necessarily use the lists supplied by the political party unless they have exhausted them and there are still positions to be staffed.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'm not qualified to comment on the French language, so I'm going to ask the officials to speak.

The Chair: Perhaps Mr. Peirce or Ms. Mondou could comment.

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou (Privy Council Officer, Legislation and House Planning, Privy Council Office): As for the problem you raise regarding the translation, if I understand correctly, there is a problem only in the French version; there is none in the English version. So the changes you would like to make apply only to the French version, which would mean that the English is correct. We have looked at this amendment with the writers and I admit that we do not understand its meaning. If you wish, we could set it aside for the moment and discuss it. If someone wants to explain it to us later on, there will be no problem.

[English]

The Chair: So we're having difficulty articulating the purpose of the amendment. Is that our difficulty?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Well, the problem is that in the French text the returning officer does not have to use an external list different from that supplied by the political parties to staff vacant positions. It seems much clearer in English than in French. I propose that we accept Ms. Mondou's suggestion and defer this clause for now in order to clear up this point.

• 1605

[English]

The Chair: Let's see if your colleagues on the committee accept Ms. Mondou's suggestion.

Do we accept the suggestion that we stand this down until we sort out the translation?

(Clause 36 allowed to stand)

(On clause 37—Refusal to appoint deputy returning officer)

The Chair: Clause 37 has an amendment in the name of the Bloc Québécois, BQ-19.

Mr. Bergeron, could you introduce that for us, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Once again, Mr. Chairman, this amendment extends the time limit so that the candidate can supply other names to the clerks and deputy returning officers so that the deputy returning officers and clerks come equitably from all political parties.

[English]

The Chair: Any discussion? Going once, going twice. I'll have to put the question, then.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Since our trusty legal beagles have informed us that, as it turns out, deputy returning officers have to abide by the same rules that govern businesses in the province or nationally, I unfortunately have to inform my Bloc colleagues that I'll probably be changing the nature of my vote on this.

The Chair: They're not devastated yet.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Allow me to correct a small interpretation error. I believe we were at BQ-20. I just presented BQ-20.

Obviously, BQ-19 deals with the returning officer's obligation to justify his or her decision to refuse tho hire or to dismiss someone. I simply wanted to clarify that.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you for that. This gets into the similar territory we've dealt with in some of the other amendments.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: Since Mr. Bergeron has kindly already introduced amendment BQ-20, is there anyone who wishes to discuss BQ-20?

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: To be fair, Mr. Chairman, I was on BQ-19 when he was introducing BQ-20, so that's what I was reading, that's what I was understanding. I would appreciate an introduction to BQ-20.

The Chair: Okay. Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I am happy to see that the translation is so efficient that it manages to understand my explanation of BQ-19 even though I was explaining BQ-20. But then the fact is that BQ-20 extends the time limit so that candidates can submit their lists to the clerks and the deputy returning officers. I know the government will oppose it because that would push back all of the time limits, and so on and so forth.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bergeron must have given some thought as to why he was suggesting that it be extended up to 48 hours. Why is it necessary to go to two days? Are there some good reasons for proposing that amendment?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, we think that it can happen, under certain circumstances, that in certain ridings political parties have more problems preparing the lists that must be given to the returning officer. It is designed to allow more participation by political parties in the appointment of deputy returning officers and clerks in all ridings. The aim is to make the returning officer wait for these lists from all political parties before unilaterally going ahead with appointments.

[English]

The Chair: This is another amendment imposing more process on the situation, so we've had discussion on it.

[Translation]

[Editor's note: Inaudible]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: ...qualitative of the amendment, Mr. Chairman. I am sure we could have done without it.

• 1610

[English]

The Chair: These are not unreasonable suggestions at all, Mr. Bergeron, so I'm going to put the question on the—

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It's probably as neutral as the returning officers you appoint.

[English]

The Chair: I'd like to put the question.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to say that while I want to accord as much time as possible to those who wish to put forward lists of names in these circumstances, if we haven't adopted some of the previous amendments on the whole idea of open competition for these positions, we may be loath to go ahead and be part and parcel of the process here. I'll probably be abstaining from this, because I disagree with some of the ways in which we've gone about selecting them. I think we would have been better off adopting the Bloc motions in open competition.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 37 agreed to on division)

(On clause 39—Registration offices)

The Chair: Clause 38 has already been carried, so we'll move to clause 39. There are four amendments, one from the government and three from the Bloc Québécois. The first amendment is in the big brick, and I'd ask Mr. Knutson to introduce amendment G-1.

Mr. Gar Knutson: It's making a minor change, adding the word “desk”, and I believe it's self-explanatory.

The Chair: All right, it inserts the word “desk”.

Is there any discussion? Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I suggest we defer this clause because it seems that only the English version causes a problem. I don't really understand what it means and I would like to have it explained to me. I would therefore like to defer this amendment.

[English]

The Chair: I think we got the drift of this one.

Are there any others? I'm willing to hear from members.

Mr. White, and then Mr. Anders.

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

I'm afraid I agree with Mr. Bergeron. I don't understand the purpose of this at all. I don't see what's wrong with “registration officer”. In fact, putting the word “desk” there doesn't even make sense.

The Chair: Mr. Peirce.

Mr. Michael Peirce: The word “desk” is used throughout. For example, you'll see in subclause 39(1) that it refers in the second line to “registration desks”. It is consistent throughout the French version, but the word “office” was inadvertently used in 39(2) instead of “desk”, so this simply replaces “office” with the word “desk” in order to make it consistent throughout the bill.

Mr. Ted White: Oh, I see. It's the word “office” that we're replacing, not the word “officer”, which is at the end of the line?

Mr. Michael Peirce: That's correct.

Mr. Ted White: I get the drift now. Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, out of curiosity, I would put this to our legal beagles and officials here. I'm wondering whether or not they considered inverting that process so that instead of using the word “desk” in subclause 39(1), they referred to it as “offices” instead of “registration desks”. In other words, it would be standardized with “office” or “offices” rather than “desk” or “desks”.

Mr. Michael Peirce: It was done briefly, yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: Was there a particular reason why the legal beagles chose “desk” as opposed to “office”?

Mr. Michael Peirce: It was to continue to standardize language by using “desk” throughout the bill. Also, frequently it's a desk as opposed to an office.

Mr. Rob Anders: So it was simply because the word “desk” had been used first, in subclause 39(1).

Mr. Michael Peirce: It is used other places in the bill.

Mr. Rob Anders: Oh, I see.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: On a point of order, I understand that Mr. Anders didn't intend it to be insulting, but I'm beginning to wear down on the term “legal beagle”.

Mr. Rob Anders: I didn't invent it, the government members invented it.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I know you didn't, but these two professionals are highly paid and highly respected individuals, and calling them “legal beagles” is starting to wear on my nerves a bit.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Highly underpaid.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Highly underpaid, and much valued.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Parrish. I think colleagues will keep that in mind as we continue. I'm sure no offence was intended.

Ms. Catterall, is this a point of order?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: No, it's on this amendment. I just wonder why we do use “bureau” en français and “desk”.

• 1615

[Translation]

Mr. Michael Peirce: Those are problems for Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: What is my problem?

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's not exactly a problem, but...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I have many, but to which are you alluding now?

A voice: “Bureau” in French.

Mr. Michael Peirce: “Bureau” means desk and office. In french, we have the same word for both.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes the word “bureau” can have both meanings.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I have one question for Mr. Knutson. If I vote in favour of this amendment, will Mr. Knutson promise to vote in favour of one of mine?

The Chair: We're getting into bartering here.

On the issue, Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In the spirit of non-partisan cooperation established in this committee to discuss the Elections Act that will direct the upcoming elections, in which we will all participate as political parties, we will vote against.

[English]

The Chair: All right. Well that sounds pretty collaborative to me. Now, I want to deal with the amendment G-1.

Mr. Rob Anders: I'd like a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: Now, Monsieur Bergeron, would you be able to introduce amendment BQ-21, which is in the big brick?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, as a result of the votes taken previously regarding the proposals to extend the time limits for the presentation of lists, I withdraw this amendment.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Bergeron.

We move to amendment BQ-22.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I have a point of order. Just as a point of information, the government is prepared to accept BQ-22.

The Chair: Now, this is great, except your chair would simply ask Mr. Bergeron, for the record, to introduce the purpose of the amendment.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I was under the impression that this proposed amendment was very similar to the one we decided to defer a few moments ago. I am please to indicate its purpose to you.

The amendment is aimed simply at making the English and French versions agree and to ensure that the returning officer cannot appoint registration officers to positions for which the parties have not submitted enough names.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: We then move to amendment BQ—

• 1620

Mr. Rob Anders: I heard a member raise a point of order asking for a recorded vote on this point.

The Chair: I'm going to move to amendment BQ-23. Mr. Bergeron, could you introduce that.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In the same spirit as the amendment that has just been adopted, the proposed amendment is to remove the clause "as far as possible", so that the teams be made up of representatives of the parties that finished first and second, in order to favour the balance between the representatives of all the involved political parties.

This is in the same vein as the deferred amendment and the one that has just been adopted.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you. Is there any discussion?

Madam Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I think it is putting an impossible task on the officers in some cases.

Respectfully, Mr. Bergeron, what would you suggest, then, if we don't leave in “as far as possible” and you can't find enough people? What happens?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The problem we now have, Ms. Parrish, is to know what "as far as possible" means. This concept is so vague and elastic that in can be interpreted in any way by the returning officer. The idea therefore is to remove the concept of "as far as possible" because it is too vague, but we very much aware of the fact that if the lists are not supplied by the political parties, the returning officer will necessarily have to appoint someone since the political parties will have failed to meet the requirements within the prescribed time limits. Then we can no longer expect the returning officer to respond to the will of the parties since they will not have acted according to one of the clauses of the Elections Act.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Once again, this ties into some of the other earlier debate. While I respect the idea of ensuring the balance that Mr. Bergeron has brought forward, I think these things would have been better to adopt in light of earlier amendments that were refused by the government on open competition for these positions. Unfortunately, I'll have to abstain.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I must clarify something because it is the second time that Mr. Anders intervenes this way. I first want to clarify immediately that all the amendments of the Bloc Québécois were aimed at ensuring that the returning officers, the assistant returning officers and the second assistant returning officers are appointed through open competition. We never proposed that the deputy returning officers and the clerks be appointed through open competition. I insist on making this clear so that the question stops cropping up uselessly in the debates.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, NDP): This is actually a fairly good amendment, but with it would have to come another phrase, something to the effect that “unless otherwise asked by the parties to find candidates elsewhere”. The example I'll use is that in Saskatchewan we had returning officers providing lists from our party, and they had not chosen half from our list. There was never any reason given, because you as a candidate don't find these things out until election day, and by then it's too late.

So perhaps if there were some condition on the returning officer that they shall accept the lists from the parties, but if the parties can't come up with the lists they're advised by the party to find candidates elsewhere, then that would be okay. There should be some phrase in there to distinguish that from just “as far as possible”. “As far as possible” is very vague, and it's not binding on the returning officer.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: If Mr. Solomon could perhaps come up with the language, I think the government would be prepared to consider it. I would ask that we set the clause down.

(Clause 39 allowed to stand)

(Clause 40 agreed to)

(On clause 44—Register of Electors)

The Chair: There are two amendments, one in the name of the BQ, the other in the name of the NDP.

• 1625

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Before moving on to clause 44, can someone remind me why we deferred clause 40?

[English]

The Chair: It's tough for me to remember why we stood it down. There may have been an indication from the floor here that an amendment might have been coming, but none has come.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: OK, thank you.

[English]

The Chair: We'll ask Mr. Bergeron to put amendment BQ-24.1, and that amendment is in group B. It's not in the big brick.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, you will recall that previously, at the very beginning of the review of this Bill, at clause 2 to be more specific, we proposed an amendment to include in the list of electors the age, sex and phone number when the latter was not confidential. After discussing it amongst ourselves, we agreed to remove age and sex but insisted on keeping the phone number when it was not confidential in order to respect the fact that some people have a greater regard for confidentiality.

Amendment BQ-24.1 is a change to the amendment to clause 2 that we wanted to bring previously and that was deferred. We therefore submit amendment BQ-24.1 for your consideration. I do not know if the government officials have received a response from the Information and Privacy Commissioner regarding non-confidential phone numbers. If that is the case, without assumptions regarding your decision, Mr. Chairman, we could deal with the amendment to clause 44 and the amendment to clause 2 immediately, since they are very similar.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, Mr. Knutson, first.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Officials have indicated to me that they have indeed contacted the privacy commissioner today. The privacy commissioner indicates his opposition to this, and the government will stand by that advice and oppose the amendment.

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Can we know the nature of the opposition of the Privacy Commissioner? It is hard for to me to see its relevance given the fact that those telephone numbers are not in any case private and confidential information.

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Mondou, would you give some precision to the privacy commissioner's response.

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: In fact, we have to wonder if it is necessary to have that information. This test had already been evaluated by the Commissioner when bill C-63 was adopted. The Commissioner had ruled saying that he was very happy that the telephone numbers were not included because, in his opinion, it was not necessary. He made the same test and arrived at the same conclusion under the circumstances. Therefore we have to ask why this information is added to the lists.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Is the Privacy Commissioner called upon to debate the why or to debate the relevance under the protection of personal information when he renders a judgment? Obviously we are in another type of debate, but I am a little surprised that he made comments on the value of the information on an list of electors. It is not for him to judge that, in my opinion. He only has to judge the relevance in terms of the protection of personal information.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: I would like to point out that even if this information is accessible, it is still personal information. Even though we can have access to telephone numbers through other means, nevertheless, under the law, it is personal information. The Commissioner's evaluation must therefore deal with whether it is desirable to include such information in a public document or not.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I've never heard of a telephone number in a public system being ruled as private. It's totally ludicrous. Frankly, I would have thought it would have been useful even to the Elections Canada people to have a telephone number if they needed to call someone for clarification of something.

I can't believe the privacy commissioner would rule on something that you can find in any telephone directory. You can go on the Internet and do Canada-411 and find anybody's listed telephone number in the whole country.

• 1630

It just seems completely, utterly ludicrous, and to say there's no use for it is also ludicrous, because Elections Canada can use it to verify or ask questions about the voters and it's certainly very useful to us as candidates.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I think the last point is the key one, that the privacy commissioner's raising the issue, is this important for an election? He's not concerned with whether we need the phone numbers so that we can call and canvass people and get them out to vote. He's saying you don't need it. So if you don't have a reason for it, the implication is that it should be left off. If Elections Canada needed it, they could tell us they needed it, but to date they haven't told us they need it or have any use for it.

I'd like to have one too. It saves me x number of thousands of dollars to buy a computer software program that matches up the list with computer numbers. That doesn't mean I expect Elections Canada, when they do their voters list, to ask people their telephone numbers any more than I would ask them for other information that might be helpful to me as a politician.

The Chair: Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: There are two issues I want to raise here.

One, I may be getting totally confused, but it seemed to me we had decided that the register of electors would not contain sex or date of birth for the same privacy reasons. So I'm confused about why that's in here.

The second point, in terms of the register of electors—and I don't know if this was pointed out to Mr. Phillips when he gave this advice—is that the register of electors is for the purpose of, among other things, members of Parliament in between elections, parties in between elections, and candidates certainly during elections contacting the voters, because the democratic process absolutely requires that voters be given information. Was he aware that this in fact is the purpose of the list as laid out in the bill?

The Chair: Mr. Peirce.

Mr. Michael Peirce: With respect to the reference to sex and date of birth here, this is in the register of electors as opposed to the list of electors. This information isn't disclosed with the list, it's there simply for cross-referencing purposes and is accorded even a higher status of privacy than the other information.

Mr. Gar Knutson: And for this other point, is he aware that—

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Yes, he is. The reason is that people can have access to phone numbers otherwise, and he thinks it's not a necessary impairment. I don't want to quote him, because he can appear in front of this committee and has offered to appear in front of this committee.

If I can add one point, there is the possibility also that even if it's a non-confidential number, when you do your cross-referencing it's possible that you disclose a confidential number by mistake. So that's putting also the validity or the integrity of the register in jeopardy, even if it is supposed to be a public one. It's difficult to keep up to date with that. We have consulted Elections Canada as well on that, and they have a lot of concern with it in terms of how to administer it. They are here, so if you want to ask them questions, I think they will be pleased to answer.

The Chair: Mr. Anders, then Ms. Bakopanos.

Mr. Rob Anders: I am having trouble, Mr. Chairman, understanding how taking the list that would appear in a public phone book and cross-referencing that with the Elections Canada list—and I understand that what Mr. Peirce has added here is that it's not a list of electors but a list strictly for cross-referencing for the purposes of determining whether or not somebody is an elector when they appear at the polls—how that in some way would, Ms. Mondou just said, disclose information that they otherwise...I don't understand how that would somehow betray confidentiality. I don't understand how you would somehow, by that process, come by numbers that you wouldn't otherwise have in the public phone book. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Mr. Chairman, I know there are many in this committee who have expressed that they don't foresee any problems with people erroneously appearing at polls on election day, but I know that happens. I know it goes on. I've seen it with my own eyes. So if there are problems—and I know there are problems—that exist, why would we not want to somehow take care of those irregularities by giving the returning officers as much information as possible to determine the validity of somebody's ability to vote and whether or not they are the person they say they are?

Ms. Mondou, I pose the question again. How, by taking the numbers from the public phone book and running those up against the list of electors, are you going to somehow come up with numbers that you wouldn't otherwise? I don't understand that. You just made that statement and I'm failing to understand how you're going to be able to come up with these confidential numbers magically. How does that happen?

• 1635

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: That was just an example. For example, I can decide that I don't want my phone number in the Bell Canada book, and for some other reason, on my driver's licence, when I complete the form, I have my phone number. This information is downloaded on the register, as you know, and unless the chief electoral official makes some kind of verification to make sure that, yes, it's in the public phone book and it's really a phone number that should be public, there is a chance that a number that should not have been disclosed is disclosed.

Mr. Rob Anders: This is an important question. If the number from the driver's licence is not going to be on this list for cross-referencing, how, by taking the numbers from the public phone book, are you magically going to transpose the numbers from a driver's licence onto a list of electors when that driver's licence number is not going to appear on the list of electors in the first place?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: They don't take phone numbers from the phone book. That's not one of the sources of their data bank.

Mr. Rob Anders: That's what the nature of Mr. Bergeron's amendment is about here. That's the way I understand it.

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron's amendment would allow the register of electors to include telephone numbers. Presumably when the elector registered, they would be asked for the phone number and it would be included in the register. We haven't got to the issue of the list of electors yet; we're only dealing with the register. But if you wanted the phone number in the list of electors, then you'd have to probably get it into the register of electors.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, that would be their choice, then. People would be freely volunteering that information. As I understand it now, assuming that you're taking the information from a public phone book and transposing it to this list, you're creating this list based on their involuntarily giving you the information. So what's the problem?

The Chair: So far, there's no problem. But we have to deal with the list issue.

Now I have three parties who want to intervene here.

Ms. Bakopanos, then Ms. Parrish and Mr. Solomon.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos (Ahuntsic, Lib.): I would feel more comfortable, Mr. Chairman, if the privacy commissioner would in fact detail his reasoning, because I have to agree that I have a few concerns about some of the information that was provided. It's not to doubt the officials' word or anything, but may I suggest that we stand this down and that tomorrow perhaps we could deal with it when we have a little bit more clarity.

My second question is to the officials from Elections Canada. We have not heard from them, and do they have any more information to bring light to this debate?

The Chair: If officials from Elections Canada want to provide some information to us, that would be fine. It would definitely be helpful to Ms. Bakopanos and probably the rest of us.

Mr. Tom McMahon (Acting Director, Legal Services, Elections Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Tom McMahon and I'm acting director of legal services for Elections Canada.

What I have with me is an explanation from the Elections Canada point of view, but I also have brought for consideration a couple of pages photocopied from the privacy commissioner's report of 1995-96 and 1996-97, where he talked specifically about telephone numbers.

[Translation]

As I understand it, the Privacy Commissioner is opposed to the idea. He doesn't believe that disclosure of a person's telephone number should be a prerequisite to voting or that this information should be added to the register of electors. As you suggested, we might be better off waiting until the Privacy Commissioner has formally stated his position, instead of putting words in his mouth. I simply wanted to explain the Elections Canada point of view to you.

[English]

The impact of adding telephone numbers to the national register of electors would be quite significant. Ideally, the telephone numbers, if they were going to be added to the register, would have been part of the original design and we would have captured it during the final enumeration in 1997.

The telephone number is not carried on any of the data files that we currently use to update the register. It is not on the Revenue Canada computer file or on driver's licence files. New data sources would have to be acquired to collect and update telephone numbers. Our research has shown that data matching with telephone files is difficult due to the lack of dates of birth and address quality.

There are roughly twice as many electors as there are telephone numbers. Usually only one telephone number and name is listed in a directory for a residence versus roughly two electors per each residence.

• 1640

Significant portions of the software we have used to update the register would have to be rewritten to store, update, and output the telephone numbers. Similarly, changes would be needed to the software used to revise the register during electoral events, and we are currently finalizing the development of this software. The cost of these software changes and the changes needed to forms, procedures, and documentation would be several million dollars.

The Chair: Thank you for that.

I don't want this to become an hour-long discussion of the merits of this particular amendment, but I do have interventions from Ms. Parrish and Mr. Solomon.

Go ahead.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: You've said it very well. I remember sitting on this committee when we first came up with the concept of creating a standard list of electors. We were looking for things that identify qualified voters. We weren't looking for things to make our lives easier as politicians; we were looking at key identifying things. Do they reside in the riding? We needed the address. Are they 18 years of age or older? We needed a way of finding that.

We have to behave like legislators and not like politicians. Sure, it would be easy for all of us to get a list with phone numbers on it and make our lives easier, but I don't think that was the purpose of it in the first place, because I sat on that committee.

You talked about costs. Phone numbers for a third of the population in my riding would be out of date every six months. Bell Telephone can't keep up; we can't keep up. If they give you a list that says “To the best of our knowledge, these are the phone numbers attached to these voters”, and if you start phoning people in high-rise buildings who have moved, then you'll start screaming, “The list isn't up to date. You haven't given us the right numbers. Somebody is cheating. Somebody is fooling around with the list.”

Also, a lot of people, so that they don't have to pay for unlisted numbers, have their phone under their maiden name or their mother's maiden name or their grandmother's name. If you start trying to get the phone numbers based on applications they've given you in other circumstances, which is where we get new citizens, where we get kids turning 18, you are taking a serious chance of revealing information you weren't supposed to reveal.

So let's go back to the purpose of this. The purpose of it is to identify qualified electors in that riding, and that's all you need. You need their address, you need their name, and you need to be pretty sure they're 18 years of age or older. That's what it was intended for. The cost would be prohibitive, and the possibility of mistakes would enter into it.

Last, I am sick and tired of being harassed by fundraisers, associations, and door-to-door salesmen who phone me at home, and I don't want to fall into the category of politicians being reduced to door-to-door salesmen by phone. So we should go back to what it was intended to do.

A voice: You don't have to use the list.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Parrish.

Mr. Solomon.

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

I have two or three amendments that actually add occupation as well as the phone number. I just want to refer members to clause 110, where it says a registered party, a member of Parliament, or a candidate “may use the lists for communicating with his or her electors”. That's under “Use of Lists of Electors”. That's the point of gathering these lists: for the use of MPs, parties, and candidates in elections.

So I would support the inclusion of occupation, which is used in some provinces—Saskatchewan, for example—with better identification to communicate with constituents than occupation. I know it's not in this amendment, but I'm just giving the argument for my amendment when it comes due, unless you stand it. I'm also supporting the Bloc's amendment, which is actually a little better written than mine, because it does exclude confidential numbers, which I do support. It was just an oversight on my part.

As a committee, we have to decide who these lists are for. If they're for solicitors for non-government agencies or solicitors for fundraising organizations, we've already decided that's illegal and it's not going to be allowed. But in terms of our use, it's very important, if we want to communicate with our electors, to know who we're talking to in terms of occupation, and certainly how to connect with them through the telephone. So I would support the Bloc amendment on that basis.

The Chair: Thank you. I'll take your statement as a representation as well on the next amendment, which is in your name.

Monsieur Bergeron and then Mr. Anders.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I am most embarrassed by the evolution of the situation because at the request of members of this committee, who claimed to want to protect private life, I withdrew the amendment about sex and date of birth.

• 1645

Ms. Parrish has asked twice, not once but twice, for the inclusion of the date of birth because, she said, we absolutely have to know if people are 18 years of age in order to identify those who qualify as voters and therefore ensure that they can exercise their right to vote. Not only did she ask twice instead of once, but despite the fact that that I removed the sex and date of birth amendments, my amendment seems to be going down to defeat once again if I understand my government colleagues correctly.

I wonder if, given Ms. Parrish's intervention, I should not again table the idea of the date of birth in the amendment in order to respond to one of her concerns, that of verifying the age of people who come to vote in order to ensure that they are qualified as voters.

I do not know if I can re-introduce this idea that was in the amendment previously, Mr. Chairman. I am asking for your advice and counsel on this matter.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, in terms of the composition of the register of electors, the sex and date of birth are already provided for in the existing clause. So you don't have to change anything in your amendment to accomplish that goal.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, but as I said...

[English]

The Chair: The date of birth is already in the register.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, I know, Mr. Chairman, but as I said earlier, this amendment is closely related to the amendment that was proposed to clause 2 and to which we will have to come back.

[English]

The Chair: We'll get to subclause 45(2) later. We all agree that if the list coming out of subclause 45(2) is to have data, that data must be in the register of electors in the first place.

Anyway, I'll recognize Mr. Anders, then Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Rob Anders: I'd just like to say that I support Mr. Solomon's idea to add “occupation” to the list. I've seen the lists that are used in Saskatchewan for the purposes of elections. I think they're superior to the ones used by Elections Canada.

Primarily, this list is for election officers. Our job as legislators is to prevent voting fraud. That is why I want to see this list as comprehensive as possible.

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.): Quite frankly, I have people during an election, and so does everyone else, contacting the constituents. That communication is important. Therefore, it seems to me that if we're serious about this list being used for members of Parliament, it's a matter of who pays the costs. The main argument I've heard from Elections Canada is that it is an expensive item. It'll cost several million dollars. That may ring bells in people's minds.

During an election campaign it is also an arduous task to put together everything. As was already mentioned, we sometime have several different names in a household. Therefore, you may have two or three telephones in a residence at the same address, which makes it more difficult to deal with in many cases.

There may be arguments about privacy, but I haven't heard what in my mind reasonably gives me concern about privacy at this point, if that information is available through other sources. So it seems to me it's a cost item. In that case, if that list is to be used by members of Parliament, it seems to me that putting it together and having it there ahead of time would be a very positive tool for election campaigns and communication.

The Chair: I'm going to let Mr. McMahon elaborate a little bit.

Mr. Tom McMahon: In addition to the difficulties in rewriting software and finding the data, another concern is that every new piece of personal information you add to the list is likely to have the effect of having electors choose to opt off the list. So I invite you to consider that possibility. We want to have the most complete, best list we can give you.

• 1650

The Chair: The chair wants one quick answer for a question. Is a telephone number associated with a person's name? By definition in the Privacy Act, is it an item of personal information?

Mr. Tom McMahon: The answer is yes. I'm on secondment from the Department of Justice, the information on privacy section. Yes, it is a piece of personal information within the definition of personal information under the Privacy Act.

The Chair: An expert. All right. Thank you very much.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I raise a point of order, Mr. Chairman. In light of the information that you have yourself just given a few moments ago regarding the list of electors and the Register of Electors, I think there is an very important difference. Since amendment BQ-24.1 is aimed at changes to clause 44, which deals with the Register of Electors, I withdraw amendment BQ-24.1. I hope that we will simply study the proposed amendment BQ-24.

[English]

An hon. member: Hear, hear!

(Amendment withdrawn)

The Chair: Thank you for withdrawing BQ-24.1. We've had an excellent discussion on the issues. I'm sure that will serve all members.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I withdrew amendment BQ-24.1, but I would like you to submit amendment BQ-24 to the attention of members of this committee. The discussion we just had takes on all its relevance in the framework of amendment BQ-24. It is not useless wording on our part a few seconds ago. It is important to make that clear.

[English]

The Chair: I also have to put Mr. Solomon's amendment NDP-5. I'm going to ask us to take up amendment NDP-5, and then we'll come back to Mr. Bergeron's amendment BQ-24.

Mr. Solomon, you've already introduced in the previous discussion part of the rationale behind your amendment NDP-5, which is included in group B, by the way, on page 3. So if you could complete the introduction, we could deal with that.

Mr. John Solomon: I'm not sure if it's possible, but I would like to see an addition after “telephone number” of “where not confidential”. I think it was a good suggestion by the Bloc. That would be included in this proposal, if possible, Mr. Chair.

To very briefly summarize, the Saskatchewan experience has been very efficient. It's efficient in the sense that elected officials can access occupations of electors in order to communicate in a efficient way information pertaining to that particular occupation. For example, if you have a health care issue, you call up your nurses and health care professionals and health care workers and you can communicate with them. And that's what clause 110 does say.

For members' information, these lists can also be used for soliciting contributions, Ms. Parrish, and recruiting party members. Now, that's fairly political. So we have to look at this sort of an amendment with respect to occupation as one that would be positive.

I recall some of the discussions surrounding the last review of the Canada Elections Act that Ms. Parrish made reference to. At that time there was some suggestion that an occupation should be added—I think I made the suggestion and recommendation—and it was not accepted at that time.

I believe it would make our job more efficient, and whether 301 MPs use all the resources available to us to track down numbers and occupations, or whether the Chief Electoral Office is given that responsibility, my view is that the CEO should be given that responsibility to assist us in becoming more efficient members of Parliament and political parties and candidates.

The Chair: Mr. Harvey, then Ms. Parrish.

• 1655

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): I would like to make a brief comment, Mr. Chairman. We should analyze very closely the efforts made by our colleagues to get as much information as possible, and to do so very objectively. You know that we are faced with a serious public participation problem in terms of federal election campaigns.

I am not a highly placed strategist, Mr. Chairman, but I know that the more our information is precise, the more we can maximize our advertising choices in terms of the very well identified groups and of specific criteria. It is obvious that the more complete the information under the act, the more we aid in the work of the various parties, and we may thus increase the participation rate during the next federal election campaigns. Thank you.

[English]

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I want to go back again to the original reason for the electoral list. We used to have enumerations, and what we decided to do was tell the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, that he could construct a permanent list that he could update using various sources. This was to eliminate millions of dollars of expense and a hurried enumeration every election.

This is turning into Big Brother watching you. I have very serious concerns, but not about members of Parliament. What it says here is that you may use these lists. You can use them to communicate with your constituents, but that wasn't the purpose for it. The purpose for it—

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. John Solomon: —

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I don't care what it says there, I'm telling you what I recall.

They're allowing you to use it, but sometimes you have yogic flyers running in an election. If you want 301 yogic flyers selling their very particular form of jingoism to all the people on those lists... What do you want on there? Do you want to pick out the working-class people as opposed to the professionals, so that you can hit the professionals for fundraising and ignore the working-class people?

When you give all this information... Ontario wanted to do that, but even Mr. Harris didn't get away with it. He floated the balloon and people screamed and yelled. They don't want Big Brother having tonnes of information that is indiscriminately given to somebody. Just because you happen to belong to a political party does not give you the right to have all this information on me. I don't want you to know my occupation, and I don't want you to make decisions on what you're going to send me based on my occupation.

An hon. member: I agree.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I think this is disgusting, it's degrading, and I have very serious concerns about the purpose of all this.

The Chair: Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I appreciate that you're giving us some leeway on this, because I think it's a discussion that would otherwise carry through different clauses. I think it's important to settle some fundamentals here.

I'm opposed to what Mr. Solomon is saying. It is very nice to have as much information as possible about a person with whom you're communicating. You can target your communication to things that you know they're interested in, but we could extend that from occupation to religion, to marital status, to how many children they have, to age, to length of residence, to country of birth. It just seems to me that the concerns about privacy, especially with the electronic transmission capabilities that exist right now, far outweigh the importance of our being able to communicate a political message in a more targeted way.

I'm just not in favour of these amendments, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Mr. White.

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

I actually agree very much with Ms. Parrish about the dangers of government ending up with something that is a very valuable database, either inadvertently or deliberately. However, I would just make the comment that if you think you're going to escape the door-to-door salesmen because it's not on this list, there are plenty of commercial companies out there that know all the occupations, and you can buy that list and do it anyway. But I actually agree very much with your concern that we end up with an electors list that is actually some sort of marketing tool, and I'm not sure that's appropriate.

The Chair: I want to point out—and the staff here have helped me reach this conclusion—that if we adopt this amendment, that's fine. If we defeat this amendment, it will have effectively disposed of issues including telephone number, sex, and date of birth. It would then be pointless to introduce amendment BQ-24.

• 1700

Anyway, I'll give the last word to Mr. Solomon from Saskatchewan, the civilized and peaceable kingdom.

Mr. John Solomon: Thanks, Mr. Chair.

First of all, if anybody wants to find an occupation and you don't live in Saskatchewan, I don't know if anyone's heard of the Henderson Directory, but it outlines the occupations of every Canadian voluntarily, and that's fine. Secondly, all of my lists have this information on them. I'm just trying to share some of the expertise that we have picked up across the province of Saskatchewan with other provinces. You can choose not to accept that, and that's your choice.

I suspect, then, that I will be looking forward to amendments to clause 110 from Ms. Parrish and the deputy government whip, prohibiting members of Parliament from using these lists. If they're not going to support this amendment, Mr. Chair, then I'm assuming they don't support clause 110, which clearly outlines the only three purposes of these lists. That means they're obviously not in agreement with that and will not use their lists personally in their political lives either, but I doubt very much that they could keep that promise if they made it. I'm looking forward to their amendments on that, because I really believe that an occupation is a very helpful thing. Telephone numbers, when not confidential, would also be very helpful as well.

Thank you for your comments.

The Chair: Thank you.

I will now put the question on amendment NDP-5.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: On a point of clarification, if an amendment is put forward and it mentions several things that another amendment that is put forward mentions, you've told us that the ruling shall be that the other things within different amendments will all automatically be eliminated. Is that what I'm hearing?

A voice: Not necessarily.

The Chair: That's reading too much into what I said, but we'll get to that in a moment, after I put the question on amendment NDP-5.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: If I vote in favour of or oppose this motion—

The Chair: You won't be bound by it in further votes.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: There won't be a limitation on the floor?

The Chair: No, the only question is purely procedural. In any case, the committee—

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: You won't need to discuss or vote on BQ-24. That's what it means.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I just read what the chair—

The Chair: I'm going to put the question on NDP-5.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: That takes us to the indication from Mr. Bergeron that he wanted to put amendment BQ-24. That is in the big brick, the large package, on page 42. Colleagues, we've had discussion on the issues, so I could probably put the question without fooling anybody.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'd like a recorded division.

The Chair: This will be a recorded division, Madam Clerk.

• 1705

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 44 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 45—Members and registered parties)

The Chair: We go to clause 45. There's an amendment from the Bloc, BQ-25.1. You'll find it in group B.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, we are proposing an amendment to clause 45 that deals with the list of electors. We do not believe that it is necessary in this case to include the date of birth and the sex, and it is for this reason that we have proposed amendment BQ-25.1. This list of electors, like the phone book, would have the given names, surnames and phone numbers of the voters. It is an amendment that is consistent with the one we just adopted, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Are we on BQ-25 or BQ-25.1?

The Chair: We're on BQ-25.1.

[Translation]

A voice: I propose that we withdraw sex...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: ... from the list of electors. Therefore, the returning officer can check the age, but we do not have that information. In terms of confidentiality, it is more appropriate.

[English]

The Chair: Essentially, Monsieur Bergeron, what does this add?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The telephone number, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: This adds the telephone number to the information contained in the list of electors.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: If it is not confidential, of course.

[English]

The Chair: If it's not confidential. Okay.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: For all the reasons stated earlier, the government is still opposed to having telephone numbers on voters lists. The implication of this may be that people are going to have to be re-enumerated.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas—Charlottenburgh, Lib.): One more time.

Mr. Gar Knutson: And I would suspect that's going to cost a pile of money. I wonder if this doesn't—

Mr. John Solomon: Well, wouldn't you like to see—

Mr. Gar Knutson: With all deference to my friend from Saskatchewan, in the last Ontario election, it was a huge mess when they tried to amalgamate the voters list with telephone numbers, particularly in rural areas, where matching up an R.R. 3 number, with all the Smiths who live there, isn't that straightforward. They may be more advanced in Saskatchewan.

I want to suggest that because of the expense, if it does require a re-enumeration, this in fact may be outside the scope of our ability to make an amendment, because of the limitations of the royal proclamation.

The Chair: On a technical matter, is it your view or the view of counsel that that issue would also encumber the amendment we've just made to subclause 44(2)? I'm sorry to reach back, but if...

Mr. Michael Peirce: Yes, the issue would be the same.

The Chair: If it were an issue, it would also be an issue for subclause 44(2)?

Mr. Michael Peirce: That's correct.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: I'd like to point out, Mr. Chairman, that the Bloc here have been very open in terms of taking out reference to gender or date of birth.

I'd like to state a concern. The government is bringing forward, or Mr. Knutson is bringing forward, the idea that there's a huge cost of millions of dollars associated with this. We use Access in my office, and it's a very flexible database system. We don't face any massive costs as a result of adding extra fields. As a matter of fact, if you have such an inflexible database, you might think about not using that fixed a template. Anyhow, certainly I know that Access and Paradox and other relational databases don't have this type of problem in terms of adding fields.

• 1710

In terms of the cost, Mr. White and I were discussing this issue. You can obtain these lists for either nothing or minimal charges. We're talking about $5 or $10 for getting comprehensive phone books for the whole country on CD-ROM. Especially if you break a list down into 301 given ridings, to be able to take a comprehensive CD-ROM like that and cross-reference it, I just can't see the huge cost involved in that, unless the government has some massive inefficiency involved with its database system that other databases don't have to deal with.

The Chair: Well, if there are costs, we should check.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: With all due respect, I can use a phone book as well as anybody can, and I don't know how you figure out which of the three R. Smiths at Rural Route 3 at West Lorne in Elgin County match up with the Robert, Richard, and Rosie Smiths who are on the voters list.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: But the address—

Mr. Gar Knutson: The point is that for Elections Canada to get this information and for me to be able to rely on it, they're going to have to re-enumerate. Simply relying on the technology to do it was tried in the last Ontario election by campaigns, and it was a mess.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'm going to go to Ms. Bakopanos, but first I'm going to ask counsel if there's any significance to the mandatory nature of the clause. It says the list “shall” set out those items and a phone number. Of course many people don't have phone numbers, or we're not sure whether they have phone numbers. I'd just ask counsel to think about whether that might or might not be an impediment.

I'll go to Ms. Bakopanos.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Mr. Chairman, you asked part of what I wanted to ask.

The second part was, is there some way the impact of the amendment we just adopted can be delayed, perhaps for future lists? In other words, if we can't do it now, for the reasons that were raised earlier—which I understand, and I'm glad it was brought up a little bit later—is there some way that would have an impact on future lists that will be compiled by the Chief Electoral Officer? In other words, can we delay implementation of this clause until such time as some of the problems you have raised, both you and Elections Canada...? It's been done in other pieces of legislation. It's done in justice in the Criminal Code and so forth. Is there some way?

The Chair: Ms. Bakopanos, did you leave that as a question for Mr. Peirce?

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Yes. I don't know if he can answer it today, but it's a question.

The Chair: We'll try him.

Mr. Michael Peirce: The answer to that would be, first and foremost, the Chief Electoral Officer should be asked to prepare a study on it. The Chief Electoral Officer reports to this committee and would be able to provide you at that time with information as to how he could go about it and what the costs would be, in greater detail. The committee could then, at that time, determine whether it wanted to proceed with it.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: So we can suspend application of the amendment until such time as the electoral officer comes back to the committee?

Mr. Michael Peirce: No, I didn't quite say that.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Well, that's what I'm asking.

Mr. Michael Peirce: What I suggested was that it could be put to the CEO to study it. That would be independent of the idea of suspending this. To suspend this, you would have to write in language that this comes into force only at such time.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: I know. That's why I'm asking.

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's technically possible, yes.

The Chair: Ms. Mondou.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: May I just add a specification? All the agreements with the provinces and with federal bodies too do not include the phone numbers, so all these agreements the CEO has will have to be renegotiated, because he cannot give the phone number without the consent of the person who provided this information.

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I imagine that it is relevant to tell members of this committee that the Chief Electoral Officer will have to renegotiate agreements with the different provinces. When the federal Parliament decided to create a permanent list of electors, it was understood that there would have to be negotiations with a certain number of authorities, including the provincial ones.

• 1715

I do not believe the legislator, at that time, intended that we create a permanent list with that configuration and that said configuration would be eternal.

The legislator can choose, over time, given changing mores and technology, to change this permanent list of electors. If changes wanted by the legislator imply new negotiations with the provinces, then so be it, there will be new negotiations with the provinces. That must not be taken into consideration in our current decision, since I assume it was not taken into consideration in the decisions that were taken by the previous legislator when he decided to create a permanent list of electors.

I thank the young man from Elections Canada for his presentation. However, I do not believe that we have to understand from this presentation that because such and such a datum was included after the creation of the permanent list of electors a few years ago we are stuck with that data and that configuration of the list of electors ad vitam aeternam.

There can be new considerations taken into account by the federal legislator that bring about changes to the list of electors. I am of those who think that if we want to pressure this committee by saying that we will have to do a new census and so on, those are false arguments because there are already means—we know, because we all do it in our ridings—to integrate existing phone books with the current list of electors. This does not require an agreement or negotiations with anyone. You simply have to attach the software of phone books and create the necessary links.

Mr. André Harvey: We can always delay the elections also.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I would like it we did not unduly use arguments to pressure members of this committee by under-estimating everyone's intelligence.

[English]

The Chair: Is there further discussion?

I only have a comment. If this were to be adopted, something tells me—and I'll ask counsel to comment—that if the wording does not indicate that the telephone number shall be set out only if the telephone number is available, what if there isn't a telephone number? If there isn't a telephone number for an elector, what is the obligation of the Chief Electoral Officer in creating the list?

There must be a scenario here where if there isn't a number, the CEO can prepare the list and simply record where telephone numbers were unavailable. Otherwise the CEO will not be able to provide a list in compliance with the statute, because this says the CEO “shall” set out the name, the address, and the phone number. It says “shall”; it's mandatory. Do you have a comment on that?

Mr. Michael Peirce: Yes, I would say two things. First, you're right to identify that this is the first possibility we have where you could have inconsistent information for different electors. The intention was to have consistency throughout registering. That's why it says “shall” include this information throughout.

Having said that, it's likely that “shall” would be taken within the context of what is possible. So if it's not possible to include telephone numbers for certain electors, it simply would not be possible, and the law would accommodate that.

The Chair: And if the chief election officer for Alberta, for example, sends along data to which there is no phone number attached, does that handicap Canada's Chief Electoral Officer? Or does Canada's Chief Electoral Officer have to go and find the phone numbers?

Mr. Michael Peirce: Yes, he would still have to get the phone number from another source, then.

The Chair: All right, thank you.

Ms. Catterall, then Mr. Anders.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I presume that when we're signing agreements with the provinces about joint use of lists, those agreements would provide for each jurisdiction to collect the same information. So if Alberta didn't collect phone numbers, it would be irrelevant to us unless we had an agreement, in which case the agreement would specify that they shall collect the phone numbers, I presume. So isn't this a non-issue, a non-problem?

• 1720

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Yes, and my comment was just in terms of your question about timing. I was not saying that a negotiation cannot take place. You were asking about timing, and I just mentioned what has to be done in terms of timing.

To answer your question...I think you are asking whether or not you can renegotiate these agreements to include the include the phone number. Is that what you are asking?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I would presume that any agreements we have specify that the lists we exchange contain the same information. Do they not?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Not necessarily, because some are the driver's licences, some may not have some of the data, for example, and some may have more data.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: No. I'm saying that when we exchange lists with the province, when we agree to the joint use of the register of electors, I would presume that the agreement with the province specifies, so it becomes irrelevant. Obviously if Alberta is part of a joint arrangement they would collect the same information.

Mr. Michael Peirce: There is no duty on a province to go out and develop information, so if it's not information that they have available, there is no duty on them to go out and get it, to provide it.

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, you posed a question: what about those who don't have phone numbers?

I know this is going to be somewhat rare, but what about those who don't have given names or surnames? I mean that in terms of those who change their names to that of one person; usually they are entertainers or something to that effect, but people do those types of things.

They're rare circumstances, but do they cause anomalies in the voters list? Yes. Do they have to deal with it? Yes. Admittedly, there probably aren't that many people without phone numbers either. Would that possibly create an anomaly? Well, yes, but it still makes for a better list to go ahead and screen against those people who abuse the voters list and may be misrepresenting themselves in terms of who they are when they show up to election officers and at the polls.

The Chair: There being no further discussion, I'll put the question on the amendment. We're dealing with BQ-25.1 as moved by Mr. Bergeron.

All those in favour of that amendment, please indicate with your hands. Those opposed? The amendment is adopted.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Can I hear what the vote was, Mr. Chair?

The Chair: It was seven to six. We can record it if you like.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Marlene, you asked us not to do this.

The Chair: It was seven hands to six hands.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: That's what—

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I'd like a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: All right.

Madam Clerk.

The Clerk of the Committee: Ms. Bakopanos.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: I abstain because I do not have—

The Chair: Mr. Bonin—

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: It was not clearly stated for me what the impediments were to actual implementation of this at this time or at a future date, so I want to make sure my vote is registered in that fashion. I abstain.

Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, shouldn't we ask for a recorded vote before the vote starts?

A voice: Hear, hear!

The Chair: That would be a good idea, but having completed the vote with hands, if somebody asks for a recorded vote—

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. Raymond Bonin: —

The Chair: I did declare the result.

Mr. Bernard Fournier (Procedural Clerk): You can have a recorded vote after a hand vote. There's no doubt about that.

The Chair: Yes. Anyway, a recorded vote has been requested. I'm advised it is in order. Madam Clerk will go though the list.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 6 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

• 1725

The Chair: Now we move to amendment NDP-6. That is in the group B amendments.

Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: Mr. Chair, I won't belabour the committee with respect to my arguments—but if you wish me to, I can. This is about the lists the members of Parliament will actually get, which they could use for the purposes I outlined in my earlier remarks. I would ask for a recorded vote on this one, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Any further discussion?

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 4)

(Clause 45 as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 3)

(On clause 46—Sources of information)

The Chair: We have three amendments introduced: NDP-7, NDP-8, and NDP-9.

Mr. Gar Knutson: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, was there a vote on clause 44?

The Chair: Clause 44 was amended and carried.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Thank you. Sorry.

The Chair: It's okay.

Now we're moving to clause 46.

Mr. Solomon, you'll be introducing NDP-7, which is in group B on page 6.

Mr. John Solomon: This is in relation to the amendment we put forward earlier to lower the voting age. That was defeated, so we'll withdraw this one.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Solomon.

Now we'll deal with NDP-8, which is on page 8 of group B.

Mr. John Solomon: This, Mr. Chair, is in relation, again, to providing occupation and phone number to the voters lists, and I would request a recorded vote on this one.

The Chair: Do you want to introduce the substance of it?

Mr. John Solomon: This is amendment NDP-8, which is about adding the occupation and telephone number of electors, to be included in the register. This is very important, because it gives you, as a member of Parliament, the tools through which you can more efficiently communicate with your constituents.

The Chair: Thank you.

Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Mr. John Solomon: I asked for a recorded vote.

The Chair: Mr. Solomon wants a recorded vote on amendment NDP-8.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, a point of order.

• 1730

Although my intervention is not directly related to Mr. Solomon's amendment, I would like to know which amendments we have adopted for clauses 44 and 45, and if the wording of subsection 46(1)b) will be consistent.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Yes.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you. Now we'll put the question on amendment NDP-8.

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 3)

The Chair: Mr. Solomon, you're moving another amendment, NDP-9, which is on page 9 of group B.

Mr. John Solomon: Mr. Chair, we propose adding subclause 46(3). Because of the high movements of individuals and electors in apartment buildings, we are asking the returning officer to enumerate these buildings, particularly in high-density areas. It would be a very important thing to do to keep the voters lists as current as possible. They would be enumerated at the call of the election.

Subclause 46(4) of my proposal would be deleted. I withdraw it at this point because, again, it affects the decision with respect to the voting age, which was defeated earlier in clause 3. I'm sorry, no, that would not be... I withdraw my withdrawal. Both subclauses are pertinent to having the returning officer, where he or she considers it appropriate, instruct revising agents to do the enumeration. It's very straightforward stuff. But we don't want to incur any extra costs in the election by having to enumerate buildings in which people have moved a lot. I'm just anticipating some other comments that might come forward.

The Chair: All right. Well, in anticipation of other interventions, Mr. White has one.

Mr. Ted White: Yes. I'd like to ask Mr. Peirce or Ms. Mondou a question.

The Chief Electoral Officer already has the discretion to do this, but I'd like to ask them if there's any harm in including these suggestions for further clarity. I'd like your comment on that. For further clarity, is there or is there not harm done by including that? It just seems like a good idea to be certain of that.

Mr. Michael Peirce: The answer to the first question is yes. The power to do this already exists, and it is currently done administratively. In answer to the second question, the first concern that would be raised is that of providing a regulation-making power within the bill. That does not currently exist in the act except in regard to the narrow concept of a tariff; it doesn't exist otherwise. The determination was made not to include a regulation-making power in the act because of the need for flexibility in the short timeframe necessary, among other reasons.

Mr. Ted White: So are you saying that subclause 46(3) there would be satisfactory if subclause 46(4) weren't there?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Just to express some concern that Elections Canada has with regard to that, they are afraid that, by saying this specifically, it can restrain or somehow narrow their power to do something else in other areas, not in a residential area, say, but in other kinds of circumstances. I think your second question was whether or not it narrows this somehow. I think it does in a way, in that it identifies one specific circumstance but not all the situations.

The Chair: Mr. Harvey, then Mr. Knutson, and then Ms. Parrish.

Mr. Harvey.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, I pass on my intervention because that was exactly the clarification I was looking for. The returning officers can in fact force the revising agents to do so.

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Knutson.

• 1735

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: On the issue of whether this does any harm, I'm advised by the officials from Elections Canada. Their worry would be that since the returning officers already do this—and they do it much more broadly than just in high-density buildings—if you specifically indicate high-density buildings, Parliament would be saying it wants it only in high-density buildings or predominantly in high-density buildings.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: That would be as a priority.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes, as a priority. This isn't curing a particular problem, since the election officials already do this. The government's position would be to vote against NDP-9.

The Chair: Ms. Parrish, and Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I've never been accused of this, but I'm just wondering if I'm the only politically sensitive person around here.

It's exactly what Gar just said. If you put this right in a piece of legislation, what you're saying to people who live in the high-rise buildings in my area is that they're flighty, they move a lot, and we have to pay particular attention to those guys. What's going to happen is that where the returning officer now has the discretion to do it in new neighbourhoods, in houses just built, where there are young people moving in, she will have to take all her energy, address this first, and then go to the area that really needs doing.

I'm very concerned that putting it in implies something. The ability to do this is already there. For heaven's sake, we shouldn't be writing things that are going to make people offended as soon as they read them.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: It's virtually the same thing in my area. There are high-density buildings that are retirement condominiums essentially. It would be a foolish waste of time to go in to do a census in them during an election. On the other hand, in totally new areas, low-income areas, and rental areas that are not high-density, high-rise apartment buildings are in fact more likely to have seen a large turnover.

I just think this creates more problems that it solves.

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: My question would be to Mr. Knutson.

You said they already do this in areas besides high-density buildings. In my riding, I know high-density buildings are probably the largest concern for this. We do have a couple of areas on the edge of the riding that would qualify in terms of the new neighbourhoods. I see new neighbourhoods and high-density buildings, but you said it's already done more broadly. Is it any broader than that?

Mr. Gar Knutson: In my riding, it's done in trailer parks. We have a lot of them in Elgin County.

The Chair: That would wrap up... Did you have a question, Mr. Solomon? Go ahead.

Mr. John Solomon: My question relates to what triggers returning officers to undertake revisions. Can a candidate or political party request it, or do they just do it arbitrarily?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: I believe they consult with the parties, but they file with Elections Canada.

Mr. John Solomon: So they consult with the parties. Is that with the candidates in the constituencies or with the national party?

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's in the constituency.

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

The Chair: ...on the record, okay? That was Ms. Bruyère via pony express. Let's call the question on this particular amendment.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 46 agreed to)

Mr. Gar Knutson: On a point of order, since the meals are here, I would suggest that we take a ten-minute break.

The Chair: Your chair would like to advise that we're not ready quite in the way Mr. Knutson has suggested. We will be shortly, and we certainly will take a break.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Knutson's eyes are in the right place.

(On clause 47—Duty of returning officer)

The Chair: Right now I'm going to continue with clause 47, because it's next on the list.

Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: Mr. Chair, I have to go to do a late show, so I'd like to ask if we could just stand my amendments if they come up during the course of my absence. I shall return at about 6.45 p.m.

The Chair: Is that agreed?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

• 1740

The Chair: Okay, Mr. Solomon, we'll stand any amendments moved by you until you get back from the House.

Moving to clause 47, amendment G-2 is moved by Mr. Knutson. It's in the brick, on page 44.

Mr. Knutson, could you introduce this for us?

Mr. Gar Knutson: This is related to an amendment that we're going to deal with later. It's designed to protect information regarding addresses for people who need that information protected, such as battered women living in a hostel, safe house, or shelter.

The Chair: So this amendment provides for some confidentiality for persons at risk.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the proposed amendment explained to me. I can re-read it and re-read it, but, as worded, I fail to see how it can have the effect that Mr. Knutson claims it will have.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: Can I ask the officials to take this? They could do it far more intelligently than even I could.

The Chair: I was going to do the same.

Mr. Peirce or Ms. Mondou.

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: When a returning officer receives information, such as an address, he is obligated to transmit it to the Chief Electoral Officer so that the latter can update the register. This amendment aims at providing an exception: if the returning officer receives the postal address of a voter, he is not obligated to transmit it to the Chief Electoral Officer and therefore it will not be added to the register of voters.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Ms. Mondou, I reread the proposed amendment, which is worded as follows:

under this Act, other than information in relation to an elector with respect to whom an application has been granted under subsection 233(1.1).

What, technically or more specifically, does that mean?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: If you look a little further, you will find that the sub-amendment is aimed at the clause that authorizes someone who is in a...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, I understood that. When you say "other than information in relation to an elector with respect to whom an application has been granted",("sauf ceux concernant l'électeur"), "ceux" means the information. This amendment is very badly worded. How can the application be granted?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: A person who is in danger must present an application to the returning officer to not have to give his or her true address, but the previous address instead.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Agreed, but my question was about the wording. Normally, one responds to a request or grants a right or a status, but not an application. One presents an application, but an application is not granted. It is for that reason that there seems to be a problem in the wording, which makes it not completely comprehensible. In French, to say “an elector with respect to whom an application has been granted” (“l'électeur auquel est accordée la demande”) does not make sense. I'm sorry about that, unless there is a French other than the one I speak.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: You are going to make our French writer very unhappy, but we could perhaps write “has been granted” (“a été acceptée”) if you prefer.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That would not change anything. One can respond to an application, put one cannot grant it.

Mr. Michael Peirce: What would you say to the word accepted (“acceptée”)?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, “concernant l'électeur auquel la demande prévue au paragraphe 233(1.1) a été acceptée”. Why not?

Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, I believe that it is appropriate to say has been granted (“a été acceptée”) because it is a confidentiality privilege that an elector has obtained. The returning officer must not go against this privilege that has been granted. It is for that reason that we should indicate, in this amendment by the government, not “is granted” (“est accordée”), but “has been granted” (“a été accordée”). This privilege is upheld by the returning officer, if I understand correctly. I won't duel over this, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. White and Mr. Anders wish to intervene.

• 1745

Mr. Ted White: I'm having difficulty following what's happening here. I gather from the general sense of it that the returning officer would normally update the register of electors during the election period, with the information gathered. The exception would be an application for registration or special ballot under a special ballot provision, but the reference here in this amendment is to subclause 233(1.1), and there is no (1.1).

An hon. member: That's true.

Mr. Michael Peirce: On page 89, you'll see it in another government amendment, G-9.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: The difficulty is that we're dealing with the consequential amendment before dealing with the principal amendment, so it's difficult to make sense of everything.

Mr. Ted White: Oh, I see. Now I understand. I couldn't follow what on earth was going on there.

An hon. member: Where the hell is this?

A voice: Page 89.

The Chair: That makes it a lot easier, then.

Mr. Anders, has that solved your problem as well?

Mr. Rob Anders: No, it hasn't.

Mr. Knutson was talking about how this would apply to battered women. I believe that was the example he used. Just referring to clause 233, obviously it can be applied to a much broader context than that of battered women. I'm wondering in what other context it would apply.

The other thing I'd like to point out is that even though there was much heated debate and government member opposition to it, particularly by Ms. Parrish, clause 233 includes the elector's date of birth. I know we've heard government members saying that's a no-no, yet their own legislation clearly has it stipulated there for that case.

Mr. Knutson, how does clause 233 apply beyond the issue of battered women? As Mr. Bergeron said, I think the wording of it seems to be termed loosely enough that it applies to a much broader category. Who does that apply to?

Mr. Gar Knutson: It applies to any person who is under reasonable apprehension of bodily harm, such as someone in the witness protection program. It doesn't necessarily mean just battered women.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Knutson, you mentioned bodily harm, but the actual clause 233 doesn't even contain a reference to that.

The Chair: I think you'll find it in the amendment to clause 233. It's called subclause 233(1.1), and it's on page 89.

Mr. Rob Anders: Oh, there it is. I'm sorry.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Yes, Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Should we not, in order to work more logically, adopt amendment G-9 first so that we can then adopt a closely related amendment, i.e. amendment G-2?

[English]

The Chair: That is sometimes a chicken-and-egg question, but I'm advised there is no need to do that. If we see the amendment as viable, we can proceed to adopt it now and—

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It is because it is not viable without the amendment.

[English]

The Chair: It is viable if you read in the amended clause 233.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We are talking about subsection 233(1.1), but the (1.1) does not exist.

[English]

The Chair: The amendment exists in the amendments filed here today. We are capable of reading the amendment, as you are, on page 89 of the brick.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Of course I have read it, but it was not adopted. How can we adopt this amendment if we did not adopt the previous one?

[English]

The Chair: I am told it is procedurally in order to adopt this amendment while envisaging the amendment to clause 233. The only issue is whether it is in order or not, and I will rule it is in order. There may be a certain turn of logic that you may legitimately question, and I do understand the point you've raised. However, we can proceed to adopt this amendment.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I believe we are wasting time now. I will not go to war to convince you that it seems more logical to me to adopt G-9 before G-2. If you insist on adopting G- 2 now, you will have some comprehension problems, as there seem to be some now. I simply believe that we are wasting time.

[English]

The Chair: Well, we are wasting quite a bit of time.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: I have a question for Mr. Knutson with regard to paragraph 233(1)(b). The government previously took a position opposed to including dates of birth in the list of electors.

• 1750

The Chair: Sorry, this may not be in order. What are you referring to?

Mr. Rob Anders: Paragraph 233(1)(b).

The Chair: No, we're not there yet.

Mr. Rob Anders: No, but hold on here. This is making reference to clause 233. As a result, I have a question with regard to that, because it directly applies.

The Chair: Okay, you can question that when we get to clause 233.

Mr. Rob Anders: No, Mr. Chairman, this makes clear reference to clause 233. How can we not consider clause 233 when we're relating to clause 47, which directly refers to that?

The Chair: This would be true of any clause that refers to another clause in a bill.

Mr. Rob Anders: Good, then I'd like to pose my question.

The Chair: If you have a question, put it, but it's at risk of being collateral to the issue in this particular clause.

Mr. Rob Anders: The question is to Mr. Knutson.

The government previously took a position against including the date of birth with regard to the list of electors, yet clause 233 clearly stipulates it. I'm wondering how it is that the government can take a position against including the date of birth in the regular list of electors but can somehow make an exemption and want to have it included in clause 233.

The Chair: Mr. Anders, just for the record, dates of birth are included as data in the register of electors. There was never any question about that. That's very clearly shown in subclause 44(2), if you wish to review it. The date of birth is included among the data that the government collects, so I hope that helps you with the question.

I'm going to put this amendment right now.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Mr. Chair, on a point of order, we agree, though, that we'll review the French just to make sure it's consistent with the G-9 amendment when we deal with it.

The Chair: What do you mean by wanting to review it?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Let's leave it open to editorial correction. Mr. Bergeron had a question about whether or not it's really a good French expression and said there's another way of putting it that might be better.

The Chair: All right, are we going to carry this clause without prejudice to dealing with the potential language involved in the French version? Is that how I'm to see it?

Mr. Rob Anders: Sure.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Yes, Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I submit to your attention a point of order since you have experts near you. If we adopted this amendment, but we did not adopt amendment G-9, what would happen?

A voice: It would become obsolete.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, I'm advised that procedurally we would either correct our ways here or we would leave it for correction in the House at report stage. We are fully capable of coming back to it to make a correction that was required on the face of it.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I repeat, Mr. Chairman, for everyone's benefit, that we should have proceeded in a logical manner. But since we have decided to follow this procedure, let's go.

[English]

The Chair: I do compliment you on your logic.

An hon. member: It is logical.

The Chair: Anyway, in the face of that irrefutable logic, I'm still going to put the question on amendment G-2.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 47 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 48—New electors)

The Chair: We're still a little bit early, Mr. Knutson, so we'll keep working here for another clause. We'll do clause 48, and there's an amendment, G-3. Mr. Knutson, would you introduce this amendment, which is in the big brick, on page 46.

[Translation]

The French version is on page 47 and the English version on page 46.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: This takes out the words “along with a signed certification that the elector has Canadian citizenship.” and replaces them with “along with a signed certification that he or she is qualified as an elector under section 3.”

• 1755

Not every citizen is qualified to vote. I know Mr. Anders may ask me if there are others, but people in jail come to mind.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: People under 18 years of age.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Knutson. Your chair recognizes this as a very sensible and logical amendment.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I would add a very obvious one. If you're eight years old and a Canadian citizen, you're not eligible to vote.

The Chair: Okay, aside from the obvious, is there any other discussion of this amendment? I'll call the question, then.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 48 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 49—Listing requests)

The Chair: We are now into clause 49. There are two amendments shown. There's one NDP motion. We have to stand that, so we might as well stand the whole clause. Is that agreed?

(Clause 49 allowed to stand)

(On clause 52—Deletion of names)

The Chair: On clause 52 there are two amendments shown, both Bloc Québécois, and they are located in the big brick on page 49, shown as BQ-27. In group B there's another amendment, BQ-27.1, on page 10.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: On my copy, amendment BQ-27.1 refers to clause 53, not clause 52.

The Chair: Mr. White, you're correct. We'll just clarify that here. In the meantime, we'll work on BQ-27. We'll sort out the other item for you.

Mr. Bergeron, could you introduce amendment BQ-27?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, are we talking about BQ-27.1?

Mr. André Harvey: We are talking about BQ-27.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The current act says that the CEO can remove a deceased person from the Register of Electors or someone who is not an elector. The amendment is aimed at ensuring that the Chief Electoral Officer must remove deceased people and those who are not electors in due form from the Register of Electors. I am absolutely convinced that this will allow better management of the Register of Electors.

A voice: Excellent.

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I agree with the amendment. I haven't heard from the parliamentary secretary yet, but I certainly think it does apply to paragraphs (a), (b), and (c). I'm not sure it should apply to (d). There may be circumstances in which the Chief Electoral Officer, for very good reasons, decides that this person should not be deleted.

I feel we should accept this amendment with respect to paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d), but then that creates the need to create two subclauses to specify that the CEO may delete from the register anyone who fails to comply with the request, etc.

So I wonder if we might want to take some time to come up with the revised wording that would cover both. I don't think anybody disagrees that dead people should be deleted from the list.

The Chair: I thought the purpose of this amendment was to deal with the never-ending conflict between using “may” and “shall” in legislation.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Well, it is, except that as it's written, it applies to “shall delete” in cases where it should, but it also unfortunately applies to cases where perhaps it should not apply, where the “may” would be more proper with respect to subclause (d).

The Chair: All right. Is there comment from counsel on this issue of using “may” or “shall”, or from Mr. Knutson?

Mr. Gar Knutson: The officials agree with Madam Catterall. There is a very significant difference between “may” and “shall”. The words mean totally different things. The word “may” was put in for paragraph (d), but I think there may be a way to satisfy Mr. Bergeron and redraft, perhaps split clause 52 into two subclauses, so that it's automatic that if you're dead, you're off; but it's not so automatic if information has been requested and you haven't complied yet. So perhaps we can redraft this with...or I suggest we set the clause down.

• 1800

The Chair: Given that there's a suggestion that we stand the clause down, Mr. Bergeron, can we simply do that without dealing any more with it? We have to come back to it, in any event.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Okay.

(Clause 52 allowed to stand)

(On clause 53—Restrictions)

The Chair: We have stood down clause 52 and we'll move to clause 53. I would point out that amendment BQ-27.1 should have been shown under clause 53, and that is in fact what it is for.

So I would then ask Mr. Bergeron to introduce amendment BQ-27.1. That's on page 10 of the group B package.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is simply to remove the word “federal” from clause 53. Given that there are agreements between the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada and the chief electoral officers of the provinces, it could happen that the information in the Register of Electors, under the agreements reached, could be used at the provincial level. That is why I would remove the word "federal". In so doing, in accordance with the agreements between the federal CEO and those of the provinces, this information could be used for electoral or referendum purposes in the provinces if applicable.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. I'm going to go to Mr. Knutson or counsel to explain the exemption or restriction element of this clause.

Mr. Michael Peirce: The purpose is precisely to create the situation where an elector can specify that it be used only for a federal election or referendum, and not be shared for provincial purposes. That's the exact purpose behind the clause, to have “federal” in there. As it is already, the information can only be used for an electoral purpose, provincial or federal—provincial only if there is an agreement. So it is specifically to allow an elector to opt out of having their information shared with a province for a provincial election or referendum.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I don't know why somebody would want to be on just the federal voters list but not the provincial voters list, but this is the mechanism by which they can do that. I don't know why anyone would care, but—

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's to protect the sharing of information. I don't want my information shared with—

Mr. Gar Knutson: Mike Harris.

The Chair: Is there any other discussion on this? Mr. White and then Mr. Anders.

Mr. Ted White: I have a question for counsel as well on this particular clause.

It bothered me when I read it in Bill C-83. It implies that the Chief Electoral Officer can share the information not only with provinces but with anybody of his choosing. Is there somewhere in the bill that really restricts the Chief Electoral Officer from sharing information? This doesn't make it clear. This clause implies only that a person—

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's in clause 55.

Mr. Ted White: Can you be specific on that?

Ms Isabelle Mondou: It says “any body responsible under provincial law for establishing a list of electors”.

Mr. Ted White: Okay.

The Chair: Okay, Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: I think I understand Mr. Bergeron's concern here. I assume, for his consideration, that he would like to see the Province of Quebec have access to the register of electors, and I don't see any problem with that. It's their tax dollars that are helping to pay for it. There's no reason the province shouldn't be entitled to it.

The Chair: I pre-empted Mr. White a little bit, so we'll go back to Mr. White.

• 1805

Mr. Ted White: I'm sorry, but I don't believe my question was answered here.

I can see the reference, now that I've read that clause again, that the Chief Electoral Officer can require that the provinces don't use the information for anything other than establishing a provincial list, but what I want to know is where is the restriction on the Chief Electoral Officer if he decides he wants to sell the list to Visa so they can do a big mail-out to people who might get Visa cards? Where is the restriction on the Chief Electoral Officer to use this list only for electoral purposes?

The Chair: This is something that only Mr. White and Ms. Parrish would think of.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I would too.

Mr. Ted White: As I mentioned, I noticed this in Bill C-83, and somehow I missed it when the reprint was done. I had meant to bring it up, so I'm glad it's happened now.

Mr. Michael Peirce: Paragraph 56(e) restricts it for all people, including the CEO.

Mr. Ted White: Yes, okay.

The Chair: Okay, that was a good question and a good answer. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none—

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I have a consequent question given to me by Mr. Peirce. Could this mean that the provincial legislatures could adopt corresponding provisions that would allow an elector to ask the provincial CEO to not communicate information to the federal CEO? What is the value of cooperation between the federal and provincial CEOs if information can be blocked on one side or the other?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: It's an exception. This clause is obviously an exception to the rule and it is only for people who choose to use it. It is certainly not the general rule. Elections Canada may have some statistics on the number of people who choose to use this clause.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Well, it's a good thing that there is a sovereignist party in the House of Commons because otherwise I assume a very large number of Quebeckers would make that request.

[Editor's note: Inaudible]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: —

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Perfect.

[English]

The Chair: Was there some indication of how often, if at all, the clause has been used?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: We will come back with an answer.

The Chair: Sure, that's fine. Do members want an answer to that, or can we just leave it? We don't need the answer. No?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I would like that information for own enlightenment. It could be interesting.

[English]

The Chair: Your wish is our command.

So please do your best to get an answer.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 53 agreed to on division)

The Chair: Clause 56 and 57 have amendments offered by Mr. Solomon. We will pass over those and stand down those two clauses. Clause 58 has already been carried.

(Clauses 56 and 57 allowed to stand)

(Clause 59 agreed to)

(On clause 66—Manner of nomination)

The Chair: There is one amendment offered by Mr. Bergeron. The amendment BQ-28 is in the big brick on page 50. I would ask Mr. Bergeron to introduce BQ-28 in relation to clause 66 of the bill.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that a candidate cannot use a nickname during an election. This amendment may seem trivial, but the members of this committee will remember a very eloquent and very amusing presentation by the chief whip of the Reform Party. He had told us that one of his opponents, during an election, was on the ballot as Satan.

• 1810

I believe that using surnames shows little respect for the voters, especially since we ask voters to identify themselves clearly when they exercise their right to vote. I believe that, even more so, people who solicit the votes of electors on election day should not use a nickname. They must have the courage to stand under their real name.

This amendment is therefore designed to eliminate the possibility of candidates using a surname.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. White, and then we'll go to Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chair, this amendment is not a good one for two reasons.

First of all, if there was a person in the community calling themselves Satan on a regular basis, it would be contrary to the interests of the voters to force that person to put their true name on the ballot when they should really be known as Satan, because that's how everyone knows them.

The second reason it's a bad amendment is that my name is Edward Alexander White, but I ran for office as Ted White because it's my nickname, and everybody has known me as that for my entire life. In my community, if I had been forced to use my real name, a Liberal might have been elected, for goodness' sake.

So it's a bad amendment, Stéphane, sorry.

The Chair: A Liberal, God forbid.

Mr. Knutson, a good Liberal.

Voices: Oh, oh!

An hon. member: Let's vote for the amendment, then.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The government actually is sympathetic to what Mr. Bergeron is proposing. However, we're not happy with his language. We think there is a place to prevent the use of nicknames when the sole purpose of the person showing up and saying they want the nickname on the ballot is to create confusion. That apparently happens from time to time.

We don't want to prevent the legitimate use of such nicknames as Ted White or Jimmy Carter. However, we do want to put a provision in where somebody might say, “Well, my nickname is Gar”, but I've never been known as Gar in the community, and that might create some confusion.

So we want to put our thinking caps on and see if we can come up with some language that would satisfy Mr. Bergeron and make for a better act. So I would ask that the clause be stood down.

The Chair: Is that okay, Mr. Bergeron?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a word about that. We have to understand the spirit of this proposed amendment. I do not think that we can caricature it by saying: "I changed my name from William Alexander to Ted because that is how I am known." It is one thing to have a name like that, which has been known for a long time, and it is another to have a nickname like Bigfoot, for example. It might be one's nickname, but that creates a problem somewhere.

The corollary of this, Mr. Chairman, is that if we accept that candidates use nicknames, we also have to accept that electors can register on the list of electors using nicknames. That is why we have to limit that possibility, but do so while respecting the kind of situation alluded to by Mr. White. I agree that we should defer the amendment to rephrase it in a manner acceptable to everyone.

I would like to ask a question because we have faced a similar situation before. When we defer proposed amendments at the government's request, do you take on the job of working on the text or do we have to do it

[Editor's note: Inaudible]

A voice: —

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Good. We have already deferred a few and we never know if you are dealing with it or if we have to do it.

[English]

The Chair: In that case, our learned counsel will be attempting to work on something.

Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Mr. Chairman, I have some problems with the suggestion as well.

It seems to me that most people in our ethnic communities have very different names from the names they are known by in the communities in which they live. I could go through a myriad of Italian names. They have proper names, the names on their birth certificate, and yet the common name in the community might be very different—for instance, Francenzo is Frank. And they don't necessarily relate.

• 1815

Secondly, there may be other names that people have gone by all their lives. Somebody could be Jim Smith and yet go by the name Jay.

These are issues you're going to have to deal with when you get into this clause. There is absolutely no question in my mind that it's going to be very complicated to try to draw an amendment to cover all of the variables in that case.

The Chair: Thank you.

I think we're going to try to refine the wording a little bit.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I do agree with you.

The Chair: So is that the intent, to stand this down until we can refine the wording to try to make it a little bit more restrictive?

Some hon. members: Yes.

The Chair: Mr. Chrétien.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien (Frontenac—Mégantic, BQ): I think we should examine my colleague Bergeron's suggestion very closely.

I would like to tell you a little anecdote from my riding. You know my name; it is very similar to the Prime Minister's. In a senior citizens' residence where I had spent almost two hours, I was asked my name at the end. I had given it to them seven or eight times during the two hours I had spent there, but the old people did not remember my name.

To my great surprise, on election night I won in that polling station. Later, when I met the defeated Liberal candidate, he told me the people in the residence firmly believed that they had voted for the Prime Minister when they voted for me.

If the law allowed me to, I could take off the G and my name would then be Jean Chrétien. I could sow confusion, especially among older people who tend to vote Liberal, as you well know. I think we should stick to the names. The candidates of the Rhinoceros Party have all kinds of nicknames that they could use on the ballots instead of their names.

I believe you understand all that and you should do something.

Mr. Michael Peirce: We are talking about an amendment that only forbids the use of a name that creates confusion between a party and a candidate. For example, a candidate in British-Columbia could use the nickname "Bloc Québécois". There are such cases.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It's not only that. I want us to understand this well, Mr. Chairman. If Mr. White calls himself Ted White, he must have a certain number of official documents that confirm that his name is Ted White. If there is a man whose name is Francenzo and who is called Frank, there are probably a certain number of documents that will attest that the man is called Frank.

If we were completely free to register under any name, I could become a candidate in a riding and use a name identical to that of a candidate from the opposing party. For example, I could become a candidate in Raymond Bonin's riding and say that I am called Raymond Bonin because that is my nickname. We could end up with anything. We have to stick to names that are believable and verifiable. Similarly, if we accept nicknames for candidates, we also have to accept them for the list of electors.

To my knowledge, there is currently no provision that allows the use of any nickname for registering on the list of electors. If one wants to be registered on the list of electors, one must use one's real name.

[English]

The Chair: I'm going to let Ms. Mondou have the last word before we break here.

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Subsection 66(3) already says:

(3) A prospective candidate who uses a nickname described in paragraph (2)(b) in his or her nomination paper shall, if the returning officer requests, provide the returning officer with documents that are determined by the Chief Electoral Officer to be evidence of the common public knowledge and acceptance of the nickname.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Can someone claim to be known under the name Bloc Québécois or Satan?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: In the case of Satan, it was his legal name. He had changed it legally: it was Sa Tan. We couldn't do anything in that case.

[English]

The Chair: On that note, members, we'll stop for a break.

• 1820

• 1850

The Chair: I'll unsuspend, and we'll now continue with our clause-by-clause consideration where we left off.

We left off not carrying clause 66 yet, and we had stood down an amendment of the BQ, that's BQ-28. Can I assume we have not addressed, over our short break, the wording issues raised in that amendment?

Okay, we will stand down clause 66, if I understand the consensus, and come back to it later.

(Clause 66 allowed to stand)

(On clause 67—Witness files nomination paper)

Clause 67 has an amendment from Mr. White, who's just about to link up with us here. That amendment, W-11, is contained on page 51 of the big brick.

Mr. White, can you introduce this amendment?

Mr. Ted White: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

During the witness hearings for the committee we heard from quite a number of small parties and individuals who were mostly in very small campaigns. They indicated that the $1,000 deposit was a major hurdle for them to overcome. It detracted from their campaign because of course, if they had to put $1,000 deposit with the Chief Electoral Officer in a small campaign that maybe only had $5,000 to spend, there's a whole fifth of their campaign money gone. We have to remember too that this whole $1,000 is refundable now regardless of the percentage that's achieved, so it's not like it's giving up the $1,000; it comes back to them.

I just thought that in the spirit of encouraging or facilitating access to the system we should drop it to something a little bit more reasonable. I anticipate that there will be comments about frivolous candidates, and we have to guard against that, but even in the Vancouver municipal elections, for example, there were a large number of candidates, some with ridiculous names. It didn't stop the correct mayor from being re-elected. In places like New Zealand, which has mixed member proportional, Sweden, and so on, you can get 30 or more parties on the ballot and it doesn't stop voters from deciding which candidate should be elected.

So I would encourage everyone at the table to have a little compassion for the small parties and the small players in this whole exercise and agree to make $1,000 into $200.

The Chair: Ms. Parrish, please.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: In actual fact, Mr. White, I was on the very same committee that did the very same review after the 1993 election. It was rather unanimous in that election that people wanted it raised to $1,000.

The rationale then was that we had a lot of very strange candidates who also had to have time on the stage for all-candidates meetings and really wore down the public. We were losing people at our all-candidates meetings. There was the phenomenon of the yogic flyers—you know, it was just a big advertising campaign for some psychedelic thing they were doing. So we wanted to make it at least expensive for them to do it.

I think also, with a serious candidate, if you can't get 10 people to help you out with $100 each, then you're not going to get a lot of votes.

So this was very purposefully raised after the 1993 election, and I would consider it should stay there.

The Chair: Monsieur Chrétien.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I would like to ask the representatives of the Chief electoral Officer a question. When they increased the amount to $1,000, what was the percentage decrease in the number of candidates?

[English]

Mr. Michael Peirce: Perhaps my colleague from Elections Canada could respond.

The Chair: Ms. Diane Bruyère from Elections Canada will attempt to respond to you.

Ms. Diane Bruyère (Assistant Director of Operations, Electoral Coordinator, Elections Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you know, the deposit for candidates was raised for the 1993 general election. Previous to that, in the 1988 election, we had 1,575 candidates. In 1993 we had 2,155 candidates and in 1997 we had 1,672 candidates. So it actually went up substantially after the deposit was raised to $1,000.

• 1855

The $200 that used to be required for deposit—I double-checked this morning—had been in there since 1981. So if we took 1981 dollars in 1993 dollars, I think the $1,000 came to about the same amount.

The Chair: Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: So there was no decrease in the number of candidates.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: No. On the contrary, there was an increase of almost 600 candidates.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I don't see why we would lower the amount to $200.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chairman, there are two things.

First of all, with all due respect to Ms. Parrish, I think it's up to the voters to decide whether a candidate is frivolous or has anything to offer, and I don't think we're being very fair to someone who has limited resources if we decide arbitrarily they don't have anything to offer because they don't have 10 friends with $100. I think that's most unfortunate. We should let people try to run, and if they have good ideas, they'll get elected.

As far as the statistics go for the number of candidates who have run in subsequent elections since the deposit was raised, I don't think you can take a statistic like that in isolation without recognizing that there are more parties in the House now. What does it mean anyway? I mean, who cares whether there are more candidates running or not? The issue is whether people with limited resources have access to the system, and at present they don't.

The Chair: Okay, there being no further discussion, I'll put the amendment W-11.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 67 agreed to on division)

(On clause 82—Definition of candidate)

The Chair: There is an amendment to clause 82, moved by Mr. Harvey—PC-3, located at 52 in the big brick. Mr. Harvey, will you introduce that?

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, regarding amendment PC-3, I must underline that we have checked the Elections Act again and we found that it had enough guarantees about the electoral period. We therefore withdraw this amendment.

(The amendment is withdrawn)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Harvey.

(Clause 82 agreed to)

(On clause 85—Auditor—Eligibility)

The Chair: There is an amendment to clause 85 moved by Mr. Harvey, PC-4. It's contained on page 53 in the big brick. Will you introduce that, Mr. Harvey?

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to raise this issue.

I propose that Bill C-2 be amended by adding, after line 25 on page 39, the following new clause. The provision to be corrected is the one that begins with "a registered agent"

85.1 for greater clarity but subject to sections 84 and 85, a person may be appointed as official agent or auditor for a candidate notwithstanding that the person is a member of a partnership that has been appointed as an auditor, in accordance with this Act, for:

a) a candidate in an electoral district other than the electoral district of the candidate for whom the appointment is being made; or

b) a registered party.

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is to specify that people can be auditors or official agents even if they are members of a national company that acts as the auditor for a party at the national level.

For example, if a chartered accountant in my riding accepts to be my official agent and he works for the company Samson Bélair which has a national mandate, that does not make my accountant ineligible to be my official agent in my riding.

That is the purpose of the amendment. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, I understand. Mr. Knutson, then Mr. Chrétien.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The government is prepared to support this.

The Chair: Okay, there may well be more than sufficient support to adopt this amendment.

Do you still wish to speak to this, Mr. Chrétien?

• 1900

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Yes, of course. I would like to ask André to clarify something. Would this accountant from Samson Bélair be both your official agent and your auditor?

Mr. André Harvey: No. It means that the two positions can be held by people working for a national company with a national mandate for any given party.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: OK.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The officials advise me that for proper drafting we should remove the words “for greater certainty”, but because it's not in the bill right now, this won't change it in any substantive way. It should just start at the word “subject”.

The Chair: What we have here is that Mr. Knutson is proposing to Mr. Harvey that the amendment be modified by deleting the first four words following the new clause 85.1, which read “for greater certainty but”, and that the letter S in “subject” be capitalized. This is in the English version.

Mr. Harvey has accepted that his amendment be modified as I have described. Modification to the French version would be made accordingly.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 85 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 93—Sending of information)

The Chair: On clause 93, there is an amendment proposed by Mr. Bergeron, BQ 29-1. I think I've seen this before, haven't I?

Would you introduce amendment BQ 29-1, Mr. Bergeron?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Which group is this?

The Chair: This is in the group B amendments, page 13 of the small package.

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I want to ask our experts if it is correct to assume that clause 93 will be amended to agree with what was adopted previously.

Mr. Michael Peirce: I discovered that I had made a mistake in saying that we could interpret the word "shall" in the sense of "flexible".

[English]

If someone does not have a telephone number, they will not be able to be in the register of electors if telephone number is included as one of the criteria. I was mistaken in my earlier advice.

The Chair: Okay, colleagues.

Mr. Peirce was addressing this clause, but he's raised an issue that is relevant to a previous amendment we made. It relates to the use of the English word “may” and the English word “shall”. So we'll leave the broader question to a little bit later, but let's just deal with this amendment now.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I repeat my question, Mr. Chairman. Is it logical to think that the amendments that we have adopted previously will be reflected in clause 93?

• 1905

[English]

The Chair: I think the answer is that if we don't modify this clause, it will not be modified simply as a consequence of adopting the earlier clause.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your intervention, but without prejudice and with all due respect for you, I would still like an answer from the officials. If it is agreed that the Register of Electors and the list of electors will include telephone numbers, I find it difficult to understand why the preliminary list would not include the telephone numbers.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, then let's get an answer from Mr. Peirce or Ms. Mondou.

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: It may be good to do it separately. As you can see, the preliminary lists do not include the names and addresses of the electors, whereas the register itself includes more information: the sex, the date, etc. We could put only some information from the register in the preliminary lists. So, it might be worthwhile to...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I do not want to presume regarding the number of the clause, but I believe it was 45. In clause 44, we talked about the Register of Electors and in clause 45 we talked about the list of electors. We included the telephone number in the list of electors. Here we are talking about the preliminary list of electors. Should information in the list of electors not be included in the preliminary list of electors?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Yes, absolutely. In the example you gave, only the printout of the register was sent to the candidates every 15th of October. That is not a preliminary list, put a printout of the register that is sent. Here we are talking about what is produced once the elections have started. We could have different information.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I have no additional comments other that to encourage my colleagues to be consistent and to adopt this amendment, perhaps by adding specifics that would, legally speaking, avoid the sort of pitfall into which Mr. Peirce now tells us that we had fallen although everything seemed fine a while ago.

I must say, in this regard, Mr. Chairman, that I do not understand why the verb "shall" creates a problem. If there is no telephone number, that does not mean that a voter cannot be put on the list of electors. The information is automatically put on the list when it exists. Perhaps we should simply add "where not confidential". We could simply say, and tell me if you think that this could be acceptable—I hope we are not getting onto a dummy road—"includes the given name, surname and phone number when the latter is available".

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: In fact, the question was more like this: if the elector does not want to give his or her phone number, can he or she still be put on the register? If the objective is that he or she can still be registered, we could give the choice of having the telephone number recorded or not.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: How could we phrase a provision to meet this objection?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: We only have to say that it is optional.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: How can we say that it is optional?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: We can indicate in the wording that the telephone number is optional: "if the elector chooses" or something similar.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: But aren't we committing ourselves to something more serious? Will that mean that we will have to submit that information to the approval of the elector each time there is an election?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: That is already so in any case. All the information in the register has been recorded with the elector's consent. So we need his or her consent.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: With the consent of the elector?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Yes, for any information. For example, on you tax forms, there is a little box where you indicate if you agree.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, we are asked that and we agree that the information in the tax report be transmitted to the Chief Electoral Officer. It does not say: “Do you want your sex, date of birth and phone number, etc., to be transmitted to the Chief Electoral Officer”.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: You are right.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It simply says: “Do you want the information in your tax return to be transmitted to the Chief Electoral Officer”.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: You are right.

• 1910

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, if you permit, I submit, somewhat like what was done at the start, that given this information...

Mr. Chairman, I think that you concern was the following: if a person does not have a telephone number, can that person be recorded on the list of electors despite that. From what I understand from the responses of the departmental experts, that person will still be recorded on the register.

We raised another issue, that of knowing what we will do when that person does not want his or her phone number to appear on the register. I think that we already solved that one among ourselves by saying that confidential numbers are confidential but those that are not confidential are in the public domain in any case.

I believe we must stay with the existing wording, which is:

"contain only the names; sex, dates of birth, telephone numbers, where not confidential, and addresses of" the electors.

I submit, Mr. Chairman, that what we have previously adopted does not go against your objection, i.e. that an elector who does not have a telephone number is not recorded on the list of electors. From what I understood of Ms. Mondou's explanation, if an elector does not have a phone number, he or she will nevertheless be registered on the list of electors; he or she will not have a phone number besides the name because there simply isn't one.

That meets with your objection. So I believe that we should stick with the existing wording, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: I'm willing to recognize another intervention, not because we want one, but because we have one.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, I thought you always wanted my interventions and thoughts.

The Chair: Keep it coming.

Mr. Rob Anders: All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question is on the same issue Mr. Bergeron has brought up. I'm sorry, Mr. Peirce, but I'm suspect of “law on the spot” here. You say if somebody doesn't have a phone number, then they're not going to appear on this list. How is it, then, that people who are homeless can vote, and yet addresses are supposed to be part of the list? And how is it that people who have single names by their own choice—and I just come up with some American examples, such as Cher, Prince, and Madonna, but I'm sure we have Canadian examples as well—can be on election lists as well? Yet you say if you don't have a phone number, that's it; forget it; you're not on a list.

Mr. Michael Peirce: I don't easily say that, believe me. First of all, those people in those situations can vote—a homeless person, for example—because you don't have to be on the list to vote. The fact that they may not be in the register of electors does not prevent them voting.

Second of all, I came to the conclusion that I was wrong in consultation with officials from Elections Canada, who are in part tasked with interpreting this very provision and putting the names on the list, on the register or not on the register.

The Chair: So this was actually not “law on the spot”. There was a pretty significant consultation that led to Mr. Peirce's—

Mr. Rob Anders: I'm going to put forward something based on what Mr. Peirce has said, then. If there is a concern by those here on the committee that we would somehow be violating the privacy of those who choose to have their phone numbers unlisted, if we don't have their phone number given to us, then the way I understand it right now, Mr. Peirce, their name just wouldn't appear, but they could still vote and still come up and register themselves to vote at the time of election.

So Mr. Bergeron's suggestion here still washes. It's just a question of whether you wish to quibble about whether these people should be on a list or not. So in effect, by saying Mr. Bergeron's motion can't go forward, you're the one, in some respects, who's betraying the privacy of these people.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: How could you?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: We rely on Mr. Peirce here for advice on the bill and its technical aspects. On a policy basis, I'm sure there's no betrayal of anything.

Ms. Parrish has something to say, and then Mr. Pickard would also like to intervene.

Ms. Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I'd like an explanation. If this amendment is called right now and defeated, since the earlier one passed, what happens?

An hon. member: Good question. It has to be sorted out—

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I'd like to call the question.

The Chair: All right. I did indicate that I would hear from Mr. Pickard, so we'll go to Mr. Pickard and then we'll call the question.

• 1915

Mr. Jerry Pickard: With the information you're bringing forward now with regard to telephone numbers, I may have viewed something very differently earlier, and there is a problem, because I directly asked that.

I realize our people are there to interpret. Is there any way laws can change at this point of rewriting the bill? Can you put a clause in the bill that negates the statement you just made about if the telephone numbers aren't there?

A voice: Yes, of course.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Is that not really what should be done, if the will of the committee is to include telephone numbers but not exclude people from the list? Should we not be looking at that with reason, rather than making a quick vote to say one over the other is the way to go? It would make sense to me to do the adjustments that are required.

Mr. Michael Peirce: The answer to your question is yes, it would be possible. Certainly there would be some concern about having different information for different electors on the register, but other than that, I have no place in indicating to you how you should deal with the issue.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, on a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I am no longer sure I fully understand what is going on. The information we were given by Mr. Peirce leads us to believe that as the provision is worded, if an elector does not have a telephone number, he or she will not be on the list of electors.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, I recognized you on a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It is a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: You seem to be discussing the subject matter and not a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I am trying to understand. You are going to ask me to vote in three seconds and I don't know what I am voting on. I'm sorry. Allow me to ask a question to find out exactly what we are voting on.

[English]

The Chair: Well, this is—

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Ms. Mondou, for her part, seems...

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, this is precisely the issue we're dealing with: whether or not we're going to pass an amendment. This is not a point of order. I did not recognize Mr. Knutson, because you intervened on a point of order. If there's a point of order, I'll deal with it, but you don't deal with a point of order by putting a question to the witness.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, it is a point of order, Mr. Chairman, because to a same question asked...

[English]

The Chair: Please put your point of order. I'd be happy to deal with it.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the witnesses before us have answered two completely different things to the same question. That is the point. I would like to know how we can interpret that as a committee. According to my interpretation, and I don't know if other colleagues share my interpretation, we have two completely different answers to the same question. If you can solve that, good for you. I can't.

[English]

The Chair: Then we'll try to clear that up for you, Mr. Bergeron. I will recognize Mr. Knutson, then I will get the issue cleared up as to what we're voting on, and then we'll put it.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: My understanding is we're on BQ-29.1. The government is still opposed, based on the advice we got from the privacy commissioner and based on the advice we're getting from Elections Canada. I want it on the record that the government would encourage people to vote against this.

An hon. member: Call the question.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Are you calling this a matter of confidence?

Mr. Gar Knutson: Not at all, not at all.

The Chair: I'm joking of course.

Mr. Bergeron, we are definitely voting on your amendment, BQ-29.1, as moved.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Oui.

The Chair: I think Mr. Peirce has done his best to answer any questions that have been put to him on this, so I think we can put the question now.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Non.

The Chair: You don't want it put?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, we want it put to a vote.

[English]

The Chair: Do you wish to withdraw it?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: If I cannot speak to the witness, can you answer my question? What did our two witnesses answer to the following question: will adopting this provision result in the fact that an elector who does not have a telephone number will not be recorded on the list of electors? To this question, Mr. Peirce answered that the elector would not be on the list of electors whereas Ms. Mondou answered that the elector would be on the list of electors. What did you understand, Mr. Chairman, and how are you in a position to help me? Explain it to me, because I do not understand.

[English]

The Chair: That's fair enough, Monsieur Bergeron.

So to the extent that there was any ambiguity or misunderstanding, could we have a clarification from Ms. Mondou or Mr. Peirce?

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: It is certainly my fault. No, the person could not be recorded on the register because there is a shall. That means that if all the information is not there, in principle, the person cannot be on the register. I say in principle because my understanding is that it has happened that Elections Canada, in the case of date of births, accepts for one reason or another to register someone even if the date of birth is not available. But usually, one cannot be recorded in the register.

• 1920

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Could we not agree to do what Mr. Pickard suggested, which is translate in legal terminology the intent of the committee, which was, of course, to not exclude anyone?

Mr. André Harvey: I am sure that cannot be an absolute exclusion.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Well no, Mr. Chairman. Everyone around the table agrees that it cannot be an exclusion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: All right. We've had an opportunity to draft an amendment, put it here, describe it, and now we can vote on it. If it flies, it flies; if it doesn't, it doesn't. So I'm going to put the question.

Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: I would agree with Mr. Bergeron. I don't feel that the answer is clear.

I believe we could redraft this bill to include all people, whether there are telephone numbers or not. What I'm hearing here, though, is that unless a major change occurs, the vote here in favour of maintaining telephone numbers will exclude a group of voters. No person at this table wants that to happen. So let's get it clear before we go ahead and vote.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson, do you want to address that question?

Mr. Gar Knutson: In terms of drafting an amendment, Mr. Peirce and Madame Mondou don't work for the committee; they work for the government. The government will have its own opinion on the amendment that was passed earlier, and if I had to guess—and I'm just guessing, because I haven't been able to consult with the minister—he would take out the amendment at report stage. If somebody wants to draft an amendment and present it tomorrow to clean up the language, in consultation with the legal counsel who works for the committee, I wouldn't object to the clause being reopened—but it requires unanimous consent under the rules—so that the committee's will could be satisfied. I don't have the authority to volunteer Mr. Peirce or Madame Mondou for that purpose.

The Chair: Okay. What I'm detecting, then, is that we should proceed to take the vote on this, but without prejudice to someone proposing an amendment later. Would that be in order? All right.

Mr. White. This has to be very quick.

Mr. Ted White: It will be very brief. I just want to make one suggestion to anyone who's thinking of making an amendment to this. Why not say “contain only the names, telephone numbers where available and not confidential, and addresses”, and so on? Just add the words “where available”, and it's fixed.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you for the suggestion. This is clearly something that would come back to us tomorrow, if someone wished to come back with something like that, having consulted around the table, I hope.

So I will put the question on amendment BQ 29.1.

(Amendment agreed to)

The Chair: Mr. Bergeron, there is a second amendment, numbered BQ-30, on page 55 of the big brick. Would you introduce that, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the proposed amendment BQ-30 is aimed at sorting the preliminary list only in the order of the municipal addresses.

• 1925

Unless it is demonstrated to me that it is not possible in certain ridings to sort according to the municipal addresses, I would like us to stick to that order, otherwise there would be an open door to a sort that could be a bit more arbitrary. Since I don't know what kind of a sort it could be, I would prefer that we stick to a sort according to municipal addresses.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. Are there any interventions?

Mr. Knutson and then Mr. White.

Mr. Gar Knutson: My own experience with the list when it wasn't by civic address was when it was a new neighbourhood. The addresses hadn't been assigned, and they were listed alphabetically with their box number.

The Chair: Okay. Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I don't have many rural addresses in my riding, but there are quite a few that don't have any civic address. The obvious way you list them then is in alphabetical order. So I don't think the amendment is appropriate.

The Chair: Yes, what happens when you have a home with—

Mr. Ted White: With everybody on R.R. 3.

The Chair: Yes, or you have a large home with some bizarre room numbering system.

In any event, it would then delete the words “if that is not appropriate, alphabetical order”.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the officers of Elections Canada could perhaps enlighten us on that. If it was clearly explained to me that there are situations in which the sorting cannot be done by municipal addresses, I would be quite receptive to withdrawing my amendment.

[English]

The Chair: Before Ms. Bruyère from Elections Canada answers, Mr. Harvey wants to say something.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bergeron's amendment seems a bit too restrictive to me. It would be a constraint that would risk slowing down or even halting operations. The Chief Electoral Officer should have the possibility of doing it in alphabetical order or in any other order if the one prescribed in the law regarding municipal addresses cannot be fully respected. Despite all of Mr. Bergeron's good will, I believe that it is inoperative.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That's not what I want to know.

Mr. André Harvey: Otherwise, we would have to come back to Parliament to allow the Chief Electoral Officer to apply the provisions of the Elections Act.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, thank you. I want to point out that Mr. Bergeron is considering withdrawing the amendment.

Ms. Bruyère, could you reply to Mr. Bergeron's suggestion?

[Translation]

Ms. Diane Bruyère: In Canada, there are still polling divisions where the list must still be drawn up in alphabetical order. That is the case, for example, for a village where the address for all the electors is R.R. 1 and where street addresses cannot be differentiated. The list then has to be drawn up in alphabetical order. The same situation can occur in a new residential development where the addresses have not yet been given, or in an institution where there is no separate number for the different rooms. That is why we had adopted that wording when the Act was last amended. I believe this provision is still necessary.

[English]

The Chair: Does that satisfy you, Mr. Bergeron?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I withdraw my amendment, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, thank you very much.

(Amendment withdrawn)

The Chair: Mr. Solomon, do you still want to make an intervention, given that it has been withdrawn?

Mr. John Solomon: To answer, you asked a question of the electoral officer's representative. We have villages and towns in my district that have house numbers and street names, yet they're in alphabetical order. Can we instruct the returning officer in our riding to put in no circumstances the names in seriatim, and directly relate it to the addresses, as opposed to just alphabetical? How does that work?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: It might be because there was some confusion during the last election because of the recent amendments to the legislation. But in fact their instructions say they will follow geographical order everywhere unless there is one address within the whole polling division where that's not possible. Then they revert to alphabetical.

Mr. John Solomon: Thank you.

• 1930

(Clause 93 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 94—Distribution of lists)

The Chair: There is an amendment from Mr. Solomon. It is NDP-13. It's on page 14 of group B.

Mr. Solomon, can you introduce that, please.

Mr. John Solomon: This amendment provides candidates with up to four additional printed copies of voters lists if they so request. This is consistent with Mr. Boudria's agreement that we include this option for the preliminary voters lists. This would be directly related to that. This is actually for the preliminary lists but would include the revised lists as well.

The background, Mr. Chair, is that we used to get 10 written copies, and then it was reduced to one. Some candidates and parties require more than one copy for security reasons, if for nothing else. I know photocopiers exist, but I think the original lists should be in greater number if the candidates so require. It still reduces the cost.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The government supports this.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: There is another amendment. It is in package C, the third package, the one we haven't touched yet. So let's christen package C. It's on page 1 of package C. It's a government amendment. Actually, it looks suspiciously like the same amendment. It is the same amendment as was proposed by Mr. Solomon.

Thank you, Mr. Solomon. Thank you, Mr. Knutson.

The amendment—whatever number it is—on page 1 of the C group is withdrawn.

(Clause 94 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 101—Relevant elector information)

The Chair: There are two amendments in the name of Mr. Bergeron. The amendments are numbered BQ-31 and BQ-32. They are in the brick at page 56. I would ask Mr. Bergeron to introduce his first amendment.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment is to ensure that a person who wants to be registered on the list of electors must go in person to the revisal office in order to limit possible abuses in the registration on the list. I know that the answer will be that it used to be possible with the census to register other people on the list, but there was always the possibility of an audit since the list was published, and so on. Since that is no longer the case, we must avoid abuses, and it is for that reason that we are asking that an elector who wants to be on the list of electors during the revision period be required to do so in person.

[English]

The Chair: Are there interventions? Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I wonder if I might ask the Elections Canada representative if there are problems with this amendment in terms of people turning up to register in person. I think it's a good idea. Is there something we're not seeing here in terms of its workability?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: It might be useful just to go through a bit of the revision process. Right now revising agents are the people who register electors or who receive applications for registration either in person or by mail. It has made the system much more accessible to people who are not able to physically go to the returning office. We have to remember that we no longer have offices throughout the riding where revising agents sit.

• 1935

If this amendment were to be adopted, it would mean that you could only register during the revision period if you did it in person. In other words, if you went to the returning office to register yourself, you could not register your spouse, your daughter, or your son. Those three people would have to personally come before the returning officer to register. We have to remember that some electoral districts are very huge. So we'd have to go back to pre-1996 and put revisal offices throughout the ridings again in order to be able to accommodate this.

Mr. Ted White: In terms of what you've just said, a person has to turn up in person to vote, so they could put themselves on the list at that time if they had to, if they couldn't make it at some other time.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Yes, you could register on polling day. The drawback, of course, is that having very heavy registration on polling day will not only slow down the process for all the other electors who have already registered but will also eventually create problems. How can you determine how many ballot papers to print and give to your deputy returning officer if everybody is registering on polling day? It'll create all kinds of logistical problems in the long run.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson, then Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Gar Knutson: We had a tradition, when we did the enumeration election after election, where you could knock on a door and people could enumerate the whole household, and if their neighbours were away, they could enumerate their neighbours and give information on them. This is, I think, a reflection of that tradition. If you have a brand new neighbourhood, what used to be called enumeration is now called revising the voters list. I think there's that traditional way of being able to put more than one name on the list. I don't know that it resulted in fraud. I think for the reasons stated by the officials we should support this—not the amendment, we should support the legislation as it stands.

The Chair: Common sense and the peaceable kingdom. Thank you.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I would like to intervene for Mr. Knutson's benefit because he clearly did not listen to my presentation of the amendment. It is true that during the normal census process a person residing at an address could register all the people living under the same roof on the list of electors. At that time, there was, however, the later publication of the list of electors and it was always possible for neighbours, or even people living at that address, to check whether or not the people who had been recorded as being next door were in fact real people. That step no longer exists. There is no more publication or distribution on such a wide scale of the lists of electors and such checking is no longer possible. Therefore, the possibility of abuse is there. This provision is aimed at avoiding abuses.

A representative of the Chief Electoral Officer told us a few seconds ago that this provision was aimed at ensuring that people who could not come in person, for a whole host of reasons—reduced mobility and so on—could effectively register on the list of electors. Mr. White responded that these people could always register on the day of the election. We were lead to believe that there could be a crowd that would show up on election day. If this provision was put in for exceptional cases where people were not mobile, it would be wrong to expect a crowd on voting day at each polling station for on-site registration.

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to clarify something. Earlier I said that we should not underestimate the intelligence of members of this committee. I want to underline, for everyone's benefit and especially that of Ms. Mondou, that when I made that comment, I was in no way aiming at the very relevant response she made to the question I had asked.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you for putting that on the record, Mr. Bergeron. We all feel better about that.

Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Mr. Chairman, I think our officials have brought up a very pertinent point. I would be greatly concerned if we had a large number of people or even a minimum number of people that slowed down the voters coming to the polls on election day. What in fact could happen if that were to occur and you got a backup of ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes? How many voters might just turn around and walk away?

• 1940

In our society, people are not really patient. They don't stand in lines very long. Quite frankly, I think we would do more damage than good if we didn't allow that free flow as well as possible, and minimize that problem happening at the polls.

The Chair: Okay, we've had discussion. I'll put the question on amendment BQ-31.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: The next amendment is BQ-32, dealing with the same clause. It's in the brick at page 57.

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment seems very reasonable to me. Its purpose is simply to ensure that if the name of someone on the list of electors is removed—it goes without saying that this is not about people who have died—, the person will be notified and will be able to make representation to the returning officer. This will ensure a certain transparency to the process and avoid the accidental removal of people from the list of electors. To all extents and purposes, this provision aims precisely at avoiding that people be removed as a result of error.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: In the legislation as written, it's a discretionary thing as to whether the electoral officials remove somebody from the list. I'm sure they would only do it if they had good reason to. It's not something they... The person may have disappeared, so to say you have to wait until you hear back from them could make it very awkward. You're carrying a name on a list when you're not confident that that person is really eligible to vote. You may not be able to find them.

The Chair: All right. If there are no further interventions, I'll put the question on amendment BQ-32.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 101 agreed to on division)

(On clause 102—Notice of confirmation of registration)

The Chair: I will then go to clause 102. There is an amendment proposed by Monsieur Bergeron, BQ-33. You'll find it on page 58 of the big brick.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I propose to withdraw this amendment since the government is obviously not receptive to the idea of adopting an amendment that would ensure that someone cannot be removed without that person at least being notified.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Bergeron. Amendment BQ-33 is withdrawn.

I can then put the question on clause 102.

(Clause 102 agreed to on division)

(On clause 103—Objection by elector)

The Chair: We'll go to clause to 103. There is an amendment from Mr. Bergeron, BQ-34. You'll find it on page 59 of the big brick.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment prolongs the period during which one can oppose the registration of an elector. The purpose is obviously greater transparency and more democratization of the system.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. White.

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

I have a question for Elections Canada on this particular issue. Say a person comes into a polling station or to the revision officer and says “So-and-so isn't qualified to be on the voters list.” According to subclause 103(3):

The returning officer shall, on the day on which he or she receives an affidavit of objection or on the following day, send to the person objected to, at his or her address given on the list of electors...

and so on.

• 1945

I'm just curious. How is that notification sent? Is it by courier, so that there's a guarantee the person gets it right away? Is it by mail, which could get lost and not turn up for six months? That's fairly critical in terms of the timing being proposed by this amendment. If it's six days before a polling day, it doesn't leave very much time to straighten out any problems. Could you tell me how often this sort of thing happens and how you would notify the person who's being objected to?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Let me start off by saying this objection process is not very widely used. You might be looking at maybe twenty or thirty on a national basis in any given election.

The way the elector is notified is either by messenger, so it's hand-delivered, or by courier service, so we have proof of delivery that somebody has signed for it at the other end.

The reason the dates are as they are in the act as it is now and in Bill C-2 is simply a chronological thing. In order for the objection to be dealt with before the advance polls are held, it has to be presented officially before day eleven, which is the last day they should hear the objection. That is simply because if someone on the list is being objected to and the objection has not been officially heard, the elector could go to the advance poll and vote. The objection would be heard afterwards. If there were a decision to remove that elector from the list, it would be too late. They would have already voted.

So when the deadlines were developed, it was with that in mind. We have to receive them by day fourteen and we have to deal with them by day eleven, so that on day eleven, when we produce the list for the advance poll, the decision has been made to either keep the name on the list or take it off.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you for that clarification.

The Chair: Thank you. That was a good discussion.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In light of the information given by Elections Canada, I withdraw the amendment.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bergeron. Amendment BQ-34 is withdrawn.

I'll then put the clause.

(Clause 103 agreed to)

(On clause 104—Examination by returning officer)

The Chair: I'll go to clause 104. There are three amendments, one from Monsieur Bergeron and two from the government. The BQ amendment shows first. Shall we proceed with that first? I'm willing to move to any of the others. Okay, we'll deal with BQ-35 first. You'll find BQ-35 on page 60 of the brick.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, somewhat in the same vein as the question Mr. White asked a few seconds ago, when there is opposition to a list—we were told a while ago of about twenty cases—we propose that a revising agent go directly to get information on the relevance of the opposition request so that we can avoid frivolous and unfounded oppositions. There is a need to substantiate opposition requests that are expressed.

Similarly, Mr. Chairman—again to answer Mr. White's question—we want to ensure that we can orally tell someone that he or she is the target of an opposition request and therefore present that person with the elements on which the returning officer is basing his or her decision.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I want to point out a technical problem in the English part. You're using the word “shall” in the introductory sentence, and then you use the word “may”. So there's a contradiction within the amendment.

It's the government's view that the language in the bill as written is satisfactory.

The Chair: Mr. White.

• 1950

Mr. Ted White: I'm pleased to say there's another problem in the English version of this particular one. In (b), where it says “may examine the elector who made the objection on oath”, it should actually be, “may examine the elector on oath who made the objection”. That's consistent with the government amendment coming up on the next page.

So there is an error there also in the English text.

The Chair: I think the intent of the amendment is clear, but the technical difficulties with the language have been pointed out.

Ms. Mondou.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: There's perhaps one more. Revising agents work in pairs, so I guess we should change “a revising agent” to “revising agents”.

The Chair: Okay. There are some rough edges here.

Without further interventions, I'm going to put the question on amendment BQ-35.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: We will move on to amendment G-4. There are two amendments proposed by the government.

Mr. Knutson, will you introduce G-4.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I would categorize... Mr. Bergeron is manifestly not listening to what I'm saying.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I am doing exactly like you, Mr. Knutson. I was listening very carefully to what you were saying. I am able to do two things at the same time: chew gum and walk. That does not seem to be true for everyone.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: It wasn't manifest that he was listening to me.

I would categorize G-4 as a housekeeping amendment to clean up the English. We're moving to add the words “on oath”, for examination on oath rather than a reference to the person who made the objection on oath.

The Chair: Okay, that's clear.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Thank you.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: So there it is. You've had the explanation. I see no other interventions. It looks pretty straightforward. I'm going to put the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: Ms. Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Can I ask a question? Does that now mean that someone who comes in and files an objection doesn't have to swear on oath that they're telling the truth? They could be frivolous and not under oath?

The Chair: Can we put that to our officials? Does the person making the objection do it with or without an oath?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: It's not on oath; the person is filing an affidavit.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you.

The Chair: Let us go on to amendment G-5.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: We introduced the words “on a balance of probabilities” to provide some precision to the word “proving”. In law, proving can mean proving beyond a reasonable doubt, as it does under criminal law, or a balance of probabilities, likely just 51%. It's just another housekeeping amendment to clarify what the word “proving” means. It makes it more precise.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I'd like a little more clarification on that particular issue. What exactly was wrong with “proving, to the satisfaction of the returning officer”?

I realize it's not quite as precise, but it's plainer language that people can understand. For instance, it tells me I have to prove it to the satisfaction of the returning officer that this person is on the list incorrectly. Here we have now “proving, on a balance of probabilities”. What is that, exactly? I don't think that's the type of language the average person can understand, and I'd like you to explain why it really needs to be changed.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Well, you probably have to prove, on the balance of probabilities, to the satisfaction of the returning officer too, so...

Mr. Michael Peirce: The language “to the satisfaction of the returning officer” isn't necessarily clear in law. What is satisfying to me in terms of proof may not satisfy somebody else less vigilant or more vigilant, whereas “balance of probabilities” is a clear and known legal standard.

• 1955

Mr. Ted White: It might be a clear and known legal standard to a lawyer, but I would say a returning officer, who is a political appointee, is more likely to want to have it proved to his satisfaction than on the balance of probabilities, and would ask you what exactly is the balance of probabilities. I would suggest that it varies from returning officer to returning officer.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: But if you read clause 104 as a whole, you still have to prove to the satisfaction of the returning officer, because that's the person who's making the decision. They're standing in the place of a judge.

Removing “to the satisfaction of the returning officer” doesn't delete that responsibility for making a decision, because that's what clause 104 does.

Furthermore, putting in “on the balance of probabilities” just gives direction to the returning officer of the standard of proof that's required.

The Chair: Ms. Parrish.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: As a non-lawyer, if I had very high standards and you put that expression in there, it would say to me, all right, lady, calm down; it's on the balance of probabilities. Forget your own standards.

If you had to prove it to me, and I claimed to have extremely high standards on decisions, then you wouldn't make it, but if you said to me, an average person, it's on the balance of probabilities, then I would say, okay, my standards are too high; on the balance of probabilities, this is probably correct.

So I think you're giving direction to your returning officers to be reasonable and average. But that's a non-lawyer's opinion.

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I need you to explain to me what is meant in French by "la prépondérance des probabilités".

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: It is the accepted term that we find in the Criminal Code to translate the expression "the balance of probabilities".

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Okay, its a translation of the English but in everyday French what does it mean?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: According to the preponderance...

[English]

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's 50% plus one?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

[Translation]

A voice: Fifty per cent plus one.

[English]

An hon. member: Bring out the Constitution.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Stéphane, you're misbehaving.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Do you agree, Jerry? I didn't say anything.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: The clause gives lawyers an extra jaw. When it goes to court, they can point out what the balance of probability is in their case.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman—

The Chair: I'm going to Mr. Richardson now, but I'll come back to you.

Mr. John Richardson (Perth—Middlesex, Lib.): I'm not going to make a point on the balance of possibilities, but under the training program, if someone brings that up, it'll be clarified very quickly to the people in place. I don't think we should make a big issue of that. That'll be picked up right away in the training program.

An hon. member: Well done.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I'd just like to say once more for the record that I think we're dealing with average people on the street here. It's not a court of law at all. When they come in, they want to know their rights under the Elections Act, and when they call their MP to find out about it, they're caught up in this legalese. It's just not sensible. They can understand “to the satisfaction of” the electoral officer.

So I don't think it's a good amendment. It's an unnecessary complication.

The Chair: I'm going to resist the temptation to comment.

The amendment has been put and it's been discussed. I'll now ask for a show of hands.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I would point out to you that I still do not have an answer to my question.

[English]

The Chair: I did indicate that I'd come back to you.

Do the questionees know what the question was?

[Translation]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: I thought that you were laughing at me a little. The answer is that there are more chances that it is true than there are that it is not. That's the simplified formula.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: So it's 50 per cent plus one?

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: What is meant when we say that there are more chances that it is true than there are that it is not? If I understand correctly what that means, it is that the returning officer gives more credence to the presentation made by the person who...

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: In light of all the proof submitted to him.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. I'm going to put the question on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 104 as amended agreed to on division)

• 2000

(On clause 105—Revised list of electors)

The Chair: There's a government amendment G-6. You'll find it in the brick at page 64, and 65 en français.

Mr. Knutson, would you please introduce it.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Because this makes reference to the Canada Gazette, I'm going to rely on my officials to explain what the significance of the Canada Gazette is. But this is consequential to another amendment.

Madame Mondou will do the job for us.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Is it in French or in English?

Mr. Gar Knutson: Either one.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: This amendment is in fact consequential to the proposal that the minister inform the committee, when he appears for the second time, that the list will be revised. The revised list will be used to adjust the limit of candidates.

At the present time, the lists that are used to determine the limit of candidates are the preliminary lists, and this amendment will allow the limit to be revised using the revised lists, which are prepared a bit later in the process and therefore are more accurate in terms of number.

The Chair: Ms. Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Is this revised only upward, or revised because—

Mr. Gar Knutson: Only upward.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Okay, because you make plans and you spend money according to—

The Chair: My recollection is that it was the intention of the government only to revise it upward, not to bushwhack unfortunate candidates who have had, for some reason, their numbers decrease.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: The reference to the Canada Gazette—is that a normal process, or is it a new process?

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Just what exists for the preliminary lists, so it's published in the Canada Gazette, and we're just adapting it for this one.

The Chair: I'll put the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 105 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 107—Form of lists)

The Chair: There's an amendment moved by the Bloc, BQ-36. You'll find it on page 66 of the brick.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, in light of the information given to us a while ago by Elections Canada, I withdraw this amendment.

Some members: Bravo!

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron. Amendment BQ-36 is withdrawn.

(Clause 107 agreed to)

(On clause 109—Final list of electors)

The Chair: There's an amendment from Mr. Bergeron, BQ-37. It's on page 67 of the brick.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I believe that we adopted an amendment earlier by the New Democratic Party in order to allow candidates to receive, upon request, four copies of the lists of electors. In light of the amendment presented by the New Democratic Party, then adopted by this committee, is clause 109 amended accordingly?

Mr. Michael Peirce: Tomorrow we are presenting a new amendment similar to the one proposed by the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: OK. We will therefore come back to that.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: We hope the same rule will apply to all lists, i.e. a paper copy, an electronic copy and up to four copies upon request. The wording of this amendment is a little different and we propose formulating a rule that would be exactly the same for the preliminary list, the revised lists and the official lists.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the amendment, subject of course to the government's actually tabling an amendment to that effect.

• 2005

[English]

The Chair: That amendment is withdrawn on the basis described. Therefore I can put the clause.

Shall clause 109 carry?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

(Clause 109 agreed to)

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: If you carry the clause, we need unanimous consent to revisit it. I would also like to flag subclause (4), which says they can charge a fee of 25¢. It's my understanding of the intent that these four copies provided on request would be provided at no charge. So we need to clean up that language as well.

Therefore I would suggest we do not carry this clause.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson, you're correct. We'd better back up a little bit. So do we have an agreement that clause 109 is not carried and that we have some work to do on it?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: All right, so we'll be coming back to it.

(Clause 109 allowed to stand)

(On clause 110—Registered parties)

The Chair: Clause 110 has a government amendment, it's G-7, it's on page 68 of the brick.

[Translation]

The French version is on page 69.

[English]

Mr. Knutson, will you introduce it?

Mr. Gar Knutson: I will. Just give me a minute to catch my breath.

As Mr. Solomon pointed out earlier, the bill has a provision that allows members of registered parties to use the voters list to solicit contributions for the use of a registered party and for recruiting party members. This amendment makes this clause consistent with the clause we discussed earlier, which Mr. Solomon raised.

The Chair: That's the explanation.

I had Mr. White, then Mr. Chrétien.

Mr. Ted White: I have two questions for clarification here.

Firstly, is it the interpretation of Elections Canada and legal advisers that this clause means members of registered parties can use these lists between elections, also for communicating with electors and for soliciting contributions and getting party members?

My second question is, what about independent candidates? Does this mean an independent candidate cannot use the list to solicit contributions or to get members for his or her riding association, that he or she can use it to communicate with electors but not to solicit contributions? If so, why would we take that unfair position?

The Chair: It sounds like it's a question for Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The reason we restrict it to members of a registered party is so that not just anyone can demand a list. The person who can ask for a list has to be a person who can use the list for soliciting contributions, it can't be just anybody. You can't have, I don't know—

Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.): Wal-Mart.

Mr. Gar Knutson: You can't have a representative of Wal-Mart who's—

Mr. Ted White: With all due respect, this is between elections I'm referring to, so it's to the member who's been elected—we'll use Mr. Nunziata as an example. He's an elected member of the House, he has copies of the voters list. But what this says is, sure, he can use it to communicate, but he's not allowed to raise contributions using the list, whereas I am because I'm in a registered party.

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: No, you're not able to under this formulation, because it says only members of registered parties soliciting contributions for the use of the registered party and recruiting party members. So even for yourself, you cannot solicit contributions or recruit members. It doesn't apply to you; it's only for your party. So you are on the same footing, I can say.

Mr. Ted White: If I'm soliciting contributions, it's beneficial to me even if it's written out in the name of the Reform Party of Canada. So I think there's an inequity introduced here that's not appropriate.

• 2010

The Chair: Ms. Parrish.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Mr. Chairman...

[English]

The Chair: I'm sorry. Mr. Chrétien was on the list.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: For a party to be recognized as a registered party, it has to have a certain number of candidates. I don't know who among you could confirm the number for me. For example, if one started a party in Prince Edward Island that had only four candidates, it could not be recognized as a registered party because of insufficient numbers. Of course it would not have the right to issue receipts for tax purposes, it would not even have the right, based on the lists, to go and recruit members or solicit funds. I believe that is a little undemocratic. Who can answer me?

[English]

Ms. Isabelle Mondou: Obviously this is not a technical question, but I can just point out in terms of clause 110 that the only parties that receive lists now are the registered parties.

The Chair: We would not be relying on either Mr. Peirce or Ms. Mondou for policy answers. But Mr. Knutson would be happy to deal with those questions. On technical issues you certainly may address questions to him.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Before hearing his answer, I would like to know how many candidates from a party must be presented in a general election before it is recognized.

Some members: Fifty.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: OK. Can we hear your version, Mr. Knutson?

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: I have to apologize. As the question was being asked of the officials, I was researching Mr. White's question about Mr. Nunziata. So perhaps I could respond to that and then revisit the question from my honourable friend.

My understanding—and I stand to be corrected by the officials—is that clause 45 makes allowance for independent members of Parliament in that they get a copy of the list as opposed to somebody who just walks in off the street from Wal-Mart. So clause 45 would cover Mr. Nunziata.

Mr. Ted White: Except they do not have the ability to use it to raise contributions.

Mr. Michael Peirce: This is because members can't receive contributions.

The Chair: We're having a great discussion around here and there's lots of good stuff we want for the record. But in order to get it on the record, we're going to have to get the microphones on. So the best way to do that is to get recognized by the chair instead of having a four-way. I'm not criticizing. I just want to get this stuff on the record.

So the point of departure here was Mr. Knutson. Have you finished what you wanted to say, Mr. Knutson?

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'm not sure if John Nunziata can't solicit funds for his campaign. I know he can't issue tax receipts.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Gar Knutson: But I don't think the intent is to disqualify an independent member of Parliament.

The Chair: Would you like to address that question or move on from it? There may be an answer available if you were to put it to officials.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'd be happy to have the officials help me out on this.

The Chair: I think the question is whether an independent member of Parliament would be able, with the list that he or she had, to solicit contributions or recruit party members.

Mr. Ted White: I have a point of clarification, Mr. Chair, please, so that we get the question straight.

The Chair: I just put a question, Mr. White. And I'm not so sure it's not a straight question. But if you wish to ask another one later, you may. All right?

Mr. Ted White: Okay.

The Chair: Mr. Peirce.

Mr. Michael Peirce: Members cannot raise contributions during the period in which they're members. Only registered parties can.

However, once the election is called and the independent member becomes a candidate, the independent member can use the list under subclause 110(3). So they're on an equal footing once the election's called.

The Chair: Thank you, then.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I didn't realize that under subclause 110(3)—because I had read that—every candidate is in the same position in terms of being able to use the list during a campaign.

What still distresses me, though, despite the distinction that is being made here between parties and members, is that it's beneficial to me to use the list to solicit contributions between elections. Even though they may be made out to the Reform Party of Canada, a percentage comes back to my riding association that benefits my campaign and me personally. I think there's something critically unfair here to independents, because although they can use it during the campaign period, we then discriminate them against them between elections. I think it's wrong.

• 2015

I will be calling for a recorded vote on this one, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Okay, thank you. We'll go to Ms. Parrish and then Mr. Chrétien.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: I'm assuming better brains than mine have come up with this, because it's a government amendment.

I must say I feel sorry for the people at Elections Canada, because what is going to happen now is they'll have to tell people out there, “We're building a list, guys, we're going to put your phone numbers on it, and we're going to tell all the political parties.” I understand that I, as a representative of the Liberal Party in Mississauga Centre, can now access these listings and hound them for money for four solid years.

Now officials at Elections Canada have my deepest sympathy, because I think they're going to get a lot of people who say, “Wait a minute here, this isn't the United States of America.” I don't know who came up with this, but I'm not impressed with it, just as I'm not impressed with the telephone numbers.

This is an election list to be used to identify electors, to save money so we don't have to do enumerations. Who thought up hounding these people for money? I cannot understand it. I think I may have to leave the room when this vote is taken.

The Chair: I think it was Mr. Solomon's fault.

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: —

The Chair: In any event, I'll go to Mr. Chrétien.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I would like to come back to the government's Parliamentary Secretary and ask him a hypothetical but realistic question. Suppose a separatist party were created in British Columbia.. Since that province has only 32 or 35 ridings, the magic number of 50 could not be reached and the party could not be recognized or registered. That party would therefore not be allowed to solicit funds and recruit members based on the lists. I find that somewhat anti-democratic. What do you think?

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: My opinion is somewhat irrelevant. I may agree with you, in fact. I don't know if this has ever been tested in the courts in terms of the charter, but presumably the government wouldn't have signed off on it if they hadn't thought it was charter-proof. We have reasons for a 50-person threshold. We have reasons for giving special rules to parties, as opposed to independents, so that not just anyone can declare themselves as being a candidate two years from now and therefore collect money and issue 75% tax receipts. I think we could agree that we're not going to give that to an independent person—that they can say two years before an election, “Send me your money, and here's a 75% tax receipt on the first $100”—and hopefully $200 once we pass this legislation.

That's a distinction between an individual and a political party. This is another example of a distinction between an individual and a political party. We're giving special rights and responsibilities to people who come together to form groups and have them registered as political parties. That's my opinion.

The Chair: We've had discussion. There are no further interventions—

Mr. Ted White: I did request a recorded vote on this one.

The Chair: I will then put the amendment G-7. All those in favour of the amendment please show with hands—

Mr. Ted White: I requested a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Okay, Madam Clerk, a recorded vote on this amendment.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

• 2020

(Clause 110 agreed to on division)

(On clause 111—Prohibitions in relation to lists of electors)

The Chair: There is an amendment in the name of Mr. Bergeron. It is numbered BQ-37.1, and you will find it on page 70 in the big brick.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment has the same objective, which still seems legitimate to me as we speak, in other words that we ensure that eventually, always respecting the agreements between the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada the chief electoral officers of the provinces, the information communicated by the federal Chief Electoral Officer could be used in provincial elections or referenda where it is possible to do so.

But since this amendment was previously defeated, I withdraw it, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bergeron. BQ-37.1 is withdrawn.

(Clause 111 agreed to on division)

(On clause 112—List of deputies to candidates)

The Chair: There is an amendment in the name of Mr. Bergeron, BQ-38. You'll find it on page 71 in the brick.

Mr. Gar Knutson: On a point of order, the government is supporting this.

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron is sitting down. We have the honour to inform Monsieur Bergeron that the government is supporting this amendment. For the record, Monsieur Bergeron, could you explain the amendment very succinctly.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I'd be happy to do that very quickly, Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of my colleague Raymond Bonin. This amendment would ensure that the addresses of deputy returning officers and polling clerks are supplied to candidates.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much. I will put the amendment, then. All those in favour of the amendment, please show hands.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, before you put this amendment to a vote, I would like to ask the CEO representatives a question. Does it happen that in certain ridings you have a lot of difficulty finding the required number of deputy returning officers and clerks, or that it is impossible to do so? If such is the case, what do you do?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Unfortunately, it happens more and more frequently that we have difficulty finding deputy returning officers and clerks for the day of the vote. In fact, the four by- elections just conclude demonstrated once again that it continues to be difficult.

The candidates have the right to appoint the deputy returning officer or the clerk and, moreover, the returning officer is instructed to go to the third, fourth, fifth or sixth candidate, or even to go to any other source he can find. During the last by- elections held last November 15th, we were even forced to use radio commercials in two of the four ridings because we did not have enough people. We even had to give the returning officer permission to go outside the riding for the necessary deputy returning officers or clerks.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We are less and less interested in democracy.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 112 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 120—Establishment of polling stations)

The Chair: There's an amendment, in the name of Mr. Bergeron. It is BQ-39, on page 72 of the brick.

Mr. Bergeron, would you like to describe this amendment?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is to give a maximum time limit to establish an additional polling station so that candidates can organize accordingly. I will say right away, for the members of this committee and especially for the members of the government, that the time limit of 11 days that we have set could be amended. If we can find a compromise after our discussions with the officials of Elections Canada, we will be very flexible. But flexible does not mean contortionist.

• 2025

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: It's been pointed out to me by the officials that the final revisions aren't done until day six, and therefore the government would request that where Mr. Bergeron refers to eleven days we insert the words “three days”.

The effect is that if you've done your revision and you have an extremely large poll, you're still in the same gymnasium, but you set up different lists. So when people walk through the door, instead of going into one line they can be split into two or three lines.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Gar Knutson: And that decision will be made three days before voting day, as opposed to eleven days.

The Chair: All right, so you are then indicating that you would like Mr. Bergeron's amendment to be changed—the number there to be changed from eleven to three.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I am.

The Chair: Okay, Mr. Bergeron, do you accept that as an amendment to your amendment?

M. Stéphane Bergeron: Oui.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: I'd just like some clarification perhaps, Mr. Knutson, as to why you feel it's necessary to have any set number of days there.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Well, Mr. Bergeron had put in eleven. Why?

Mr. Ted White: Why have any set number of days? The bill as it stands at the moment doesn't have any set number of days, so what's the rationale for it?

The Chair: I'm going to suggest we go to Ms. Bruyère, who is very familiar with the run-up to an election day. Can you describe the run-out of the days and why three days is good and eleven days is less good?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: What we call the splitting of the lists of electors, where there are too many people, happens after the revision period ends, as Mr. Knutson said, on day six. The only list that is produced after day six is the one that will be used on polling day itself, and that is published on day three, so that's where the reference to day three comes in.

However, the bill as it reads now means the same thing. Although there is not a specific date there, it will still be the official list of electors, which is the last one.

The Chair: Okay. Is that satisfactory?

Mr. Ted White: Yes. It's more or less the point I was getting at. I couldn't understand why bother changing eleven to three if the net effect is that you're so close to polling day anyway. Why put any number of days in there at all?

The Chair: All right. I want the record to show then that Mr. Bergeron has accepted a modification to his amendment BQ-39, changing the number eleven to the number three.

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In a spirit of cooperation, some people from Elections Canada talked to us about a period of six days. Would it be possible to reduce the number from 11 to 6?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: The division of the list of electors is done with a view to publishing the official list that will be used on voting day. This official list is published on day 3. It comes to the same thing, then, because between day 6 and day 3, we have to produce the official list, print it and distribute it to the candidates for day 3. It would not be possible to publish a list on day 6 because the amendments to the list made during the revision period would not have been included yet.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: On day 6, we know exactly what is going to happen and we could, and it is the term "could" that is used here, inform the candidates.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Yes, but we could not provide you with the official list.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That's it, but we could inform the candidates.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: We could probably inform the candidates on day 5, when we have compiled the numbers.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In that case, could we put day 5?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: If it is only to inform the candidates, it is possible. On the other hand, if it is to publish the list, there is a problem.

[English]

The Chair: Do I hear four?

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. Jerry Pickard: —possibility and anything they can do. They can let you know on day five, but it seems to me that if, for some unknown reason, it happened that day two came along and they got the lists out, somebody would be up in the air a mile, so what good does day three mean?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, it often happens that we receive the list the day before or the same day. At that time, we don't have time to react within a reasonable time limit. The idea of building in a time limit here is simply to guarantee comfortable manoeuvring room so that we can have exact knowledge of the list, or at least a good idea when there is still a reasonable amount of time left. Since we are told that it is possible to inform us a little, as soon as day 5, of what will happen, perhaps we can foresee a five-day time limit.

• 2030

[English]

The Chair: We're getting into a bargaining session here. The amendment refers to eleven days. Mr. Knutson, on behalf of the government, has indicated that three days would be their choice. Now, I need some crispness here, because I want to put the amendment.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Then I would move that Mr. Bergeron's amendment be amended by changing eleven to three days.

The Chair: I've already put that. I understood that he had agreed to it, but then he did want to review it. So, Mr. Bergeron, if you're content to let it go now with three days...

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Three is preferable to nothing. However, I had imagined that, in a spirit of cooperation between the parties, what Mr. Boudria announced to us with much pomp and circumstance and that Mr. Knutson has not stopped repeating, we were ready to go up to five. However, since this attitude does not seem to exist, we will accept three days because that is better than nothing.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. Well, that's good.

We have an amendment here, BQ-39. It has been modified to read three instead of eleven days. Mr. Bergeron is happy with that modification to his amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: For the committee's benefit, Mr. Chairman, could the Parliamentary Secretary explain more specifically what he just said because I am not sure that I understood fully?

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: You said something in French and I didn't... It was translated as “ya-di, ya-di”, and I just...

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Gar Knutson: I wanted to go back and find out what you had said, just to improve my French vocabulary.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Could someone tell him for his own benefit and enlightenment?

[English]

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Chair: I think that was a great exchange. I enjoyed it immensely. Now I will put the whole clause.

(Clause 120 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 128—Hours of voting)

The Chair: On clause 128, there is an amendment in the name of the NDP, NDP-14, Mr. Solomon. You'll find it in group B, page 15.

Mr. Solomon, will you introduce that?

Mr. John Solomon: Mr. Chair, this is an amendment that will bring the central time zone into a closing time for polls that is not after British Columbia, but in fact they'll be closing before British Columbia polls close. Just so members understand it, during daylight saving time the Chief Electoral Officer can change these times so that if we wish to close at 7.30 p.m., that can be the case, so we're closing at the same time as mountain time.

The Chair: On any basis you wish.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The government has indicated it's drafting an amendment to try to satisfy Mr. Solomon's attempt. Therefore I would request that this clause be put down for debate tomorrow.

The Chair: Is that agreed? We'll stand down clause 128 pending another amendment to try to accommodate the issue raised by Mr. Solomon. Is that agreed?

(Clause 128 allowed to stand)

(Clause 129 agreed to)

(Clause 130 agreed to)

(On clause 132—Consecutive hours for voting)

The Chair: Clause 132 has an amendment in the name of Mr. Bergeron. That amendment is BQ-40. It is on page 73 in the brick.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this proposed amendment is to grant employees four consecutive hours during voting hours to go and vote on voting day.

• 2035

I do not know how it is done under each provincial law, but the Quebec law allows four hours. I know that during the discussions there was a question about eventually giving employees four hours to go and vote. I therefore suggest that we amend the act which, I believe, currently allows three hours, and make it four hours.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I think Mr. Bergeron just gave us a reason to believe in a distinct society. It's different in Quebec. So be it. That's great.

I think three hours, if the polls close at 8 p.m., means you can finish work at 5 p.m. The government thinks giving everybody an hour, so they can leave at 4 p.m., would put an undue burden on employers.

Mr. John Solomon: Polls close at 7 p.m. in B.C.

Mr. Gar Knutson: So at 7 p.m.—they would be able to leave at 4 p.m. They could leave at 4 p.m., given the three-hour rule? I think for someone to need four hours to go and vote means they'd have to be working an awfully long way from their poll. I don't know how often that occurs.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It might happen.

Mr. Gar Knutson: You'd be giving an awful lot of people time off from work when they really don't need it, and therefore the government is opposed to this amendment.

The Chair: Mr. White, and then Mr. Solomon.

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

Now, assuming that three hours is not enough—there must have been complaints laid with somebody somewhere by voters who were upset that they didn't have enough time in the past. I wonder if Elections Canada can throw any light on the severity of the problem, if it even exists. Are there complaints laid that people don't get enough time with three hours?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: With the modifications made in 1996 to the act to create the staggered voting hours, and as a result reducing the four hours to three hours, we have not had any complaints in 1997 because there are very many different ways you can vote nowadays. You can either vote at the advance poll or you can vote by special ballot or you can vote in person on polling day. It was probably one of the only elections where we didn't get any complaints.

The Chair: Okay. Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: I was going to speak in favour of four hours. This is the norm in other provinces as well. I'm a bit concerned about the 7 p.m. time in British Columbia. I've been to British Columbia many times, and during rush hour in Vancouver sometimes it takes you a couple of hours to get where you're going. I think to be fair, you have to provide employees with at least a four-hour window. Some provinces won't use this at all, but some in effect will.

The Chair: Okay, seeing no other interventions, I'll put the amendment.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 132 agreed to on division)

(On clause 133—No penalty for absence from work to vote)

The Chair: On clause 133, there's an amendment of the Bloc Québécois, amendment BQ-41.1 on page 16 of group B.

This is your amendment, Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I you will allow me a comment on this proposed amendment, I find that Mr. Knutson has been a little petty vis-à-vis the motion which, it seems, was adopt with great enthusiasm by the government party especially, with relation to the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society. We now see the real and tangible effect of adopting this motion, in other words nothing.

I therefore move the question on this motion, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: And I ask for a roll call vote.

• 2040

[English]

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 2)

The Chair: I'll now put the clause. Shall clause 133 carry?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

An hon. member: On division.

The Chair: Clause 133 is carried on division. We now move to...

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Wasn't that clause 134?

Mr. Jerry Pickard: It was clause 133.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Have you voted on the right amendment?

A voice: We were doing amendment BQ-41.1.

Mr. Ted White: We were doing amendment BQ-41.1, and that's clause 134.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: We've done both of them.

Mr. Ted White: Clause 133 doesn't have reference to the four-hour time.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: We're all getting tired.

The Chair: All right, we're moving through the program.

Mr. John Solomon: I thought you were on amendment BQ-42. That's why I abstained.

The Chair: We have just disposed of amendment BQ 41.1. We negatived the amendment and then moved to adopt the clause.

Mr. John Solomon: I was assuming it was amendment BQ-42. I wasn't mixed up; I was misinformed.

The Chair: I'm not recognizing anybody yet.

Let me explain. There's a slight discrepancy between the listing of the amendments the chair is using and the section cited in Mr. Bergeron's amendment BQ-41.1. Now, the chair sees the typographical error is contained in the listing of amendments I have, and it's not in Mr. Bergeron's paperwork.

What we have just been dealing with was a proposed amendment to clause 134, not clause 133. We have now disposed of amendment BQ-41.1. It was negatived by a recorded division.

I asked if clause 133 should carry, and that was based on the typographical error. I was therefore in error. So now I'm going to ask if clause 134 shall carry.

(Clause 134 agreed to on division)

The Chair: There's a point of order here from Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: On a point of order, what then has happened to clause 133? Had we already dealt with that a few days ago, or do we still have to deal with that?

The Chair: I will get to that answer momentarily.

Mr. Ted White: Okay.

The Chair: In the meantime, we will proceed to clause 135.

(On clause 135—Who may be present at polling station)

The Chair: There is an amendment to clause 135, in the name of Monsieur Bergeron, amendment BQ-42 on page 75 in the big brick.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment aims simply at changing the word “deliver” to “present”, which is easily explained. It is to avoid paperwork in the electoral organizations. It often happens that the representatives frequently return to the same polling section. Think, for example of the list readers. That means that when they come back every hour to the same polling station, an authorization is required for each time they are present at that station. Similarly, an authorization must be delivered for each polling station where the list reader must be present.

• 2045

We therefore propose that this authorization be delivered to the deputy returning officer and that instead of delivering a new authorization he or she may reuse the same authorization in the same polling section in order to reduce the paper burden.

[English]

Why are they against that? They are against it because they are against it. That's it.

The Chair: I'm sorry, may I go to Mr. White, or are we waiting for an answer?

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We'll listen to Mr. White.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Ted White: I wonder if I could ask Elections Canada again. On the surface this appears to be quite a sensible amendment. You turn up and you show your credentials; you can go to another place and show your credentials. Do you see any logistical problems in that?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: This is a case where changing one word changes an awful lot of things.

The way it works now, in accordance with the legislation, you actually have to give your appointment form to the deputy returning officer. The deputy returning officer has to have the candidate's representative swear an oath under subsection 135(4), and that becomes an election document that has to be left in the envelope of material that comes back to Elections Canada.

The reason for that is, should there be a contestation of that election at some point, the judge would know who was present officially by having a document giving that name and would know that the person who was acting as an agent had indeed sworn an oath of secrecy and all the procedures had been followed according to the legislation as it exists now.

So if you turn it around and say they will only present, as opposed to deliver, you no longer have that document that can be used by a court of law later on. If the problem is that you need a lot of documents for a lot of polls because you're going from one poll to the other, you can in fact use one form, put all the poll numbers on it, photocopy them, and just bring them to each of the polls as you go. That's not a problem.

The Chair: Mr. White has a supplementary.

Mr. Ted White: I was going to ask a supplementary, but in light of the final sentence there, the question has been answered. Thank you.

The Chair: Okay, that's very good.

Thank you, Ms. Bruyère.

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I simply wanted to mention that in my riding we did not accept photocopies. That always represented a burden for the candidate. We wasted most of the day signing these documents. We knew that many refused to let certain people in as soon as they left the room. They had to present a second, a third or a fourth authorization. If you tell me that photocopies are acceptable, then I am very happy.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: It was perhaps a case of an overzealous electoral officer who confused federal and provincial jurisdictions.

The instructions are clear: photocopies are acceptable and the authorization must be presented only the first time one goes to a polling station. If one leaves and comes back, it is not necessary to present one every time.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That is very important.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: One is only sworn in once, the first time one arrives at the polling station, and one can come and go afterwards.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: That should be explained clearly because it seems to me that it is not interpreted that way by the returning officers. From what I have been told not long ago, during the by-elections, there were cases where an authorization was always required, which became very cumbersome from a paper burden point of view.

We should see to training the deputy returning officers, the clerks and the returning officers well so that once a person is sworn in, for example a list reader in a polling section, that person does not have to present a new authorization each time he or she returns to the polling station. If the directive is to be interpreted as we have been told here, I withdraw my amendment.

• 2050

Ms. Diane Bruyère: The directive is very clear.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Is someone in this room listening to Ms. Bruyère, who is tiring herself out explaining something very important, Mr. Chairman ?

[English]

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Nobody's listening at all.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: You were.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Very clearly, just as you were listening before.

The Chair: There are a lot of good boys and girls here. They're all listening and making notes.

Did you want to conclude, Ms. Bruyère?

[Translation]

Ms. Diane Bruyère: I believed that the directives were very clear, but it seems that is not the case. So we will have to review them to ensure, in training courses and everywhere, that they are explained more clearly than they are now.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I withdraw my amendment, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: All right. Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

(Amendment BQ-42 withdrawn)

(Clause 135 agreed to)

The Chair: I want to go back a bit. You'll recall the question about orphaned clause 133. It was one of a block of clauses that were stood down, and it was simply, between the typographical error...it said it was omitted.

Shall clause 133 carry?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, could you explain more fully what you just said because I am not sure I understood you completely?

[English]

The Chair: Because of a typographical error, we had just skipped over clause 133. Now I'm going to ask if we will carry clause 133. There are no amendments to clause 133.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I have BQ-41.

A voice: No, that was on clause 134.

The Chair: At that point, Ms. Catterall, we were dealing with clause 134.

(Clause 133 agreed to)

(On clause 138—Initalling ballots)

The Chair: On clause 138, there's an amendment in the name of Mr. Bergeron, number BQ-43. It is in the brick on page 76.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, again in the name of transparency, this amendment aims simply at ensuring that the deputy returning officer initial the ballot in front of the elector rather than in advance, as is done now. Currently, before the opening of the polling station, the deputy returning officers hurry to initial a certain number of ballots ahead of time. At that time, no one has any idea... If some ballots are rejected, they have still been initialled.

To avoid this kind of problem and to ensure greater transparency in the process, we propose that the deputy returning officer initial the ballot in front of the elector before giving it to him. Does Elections Canada have any objections?

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Bruyère.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Currently, the directive to deputy returning officers is that they must initial a booklet of ballots at a time in order to slow down the process as little as possible. Instead of waiting for a voter to show up, we ask them to initial a booklet of ballots, and, when it is finished, to prepare a new one and so on.

Doing it each time does not create any real problem. However, there is always the risk of forgetting one along the way when there are a lot of people. However, it can always be caught when the count is made. Changing this way of doing things would not be a big problem.

I notice, by the way, that the English and French versions are not completely analogous. Perhaps one should...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Could you tell us, Ms. Bruyère, what differences you see between the two versions that could be corrected quickly as required?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: The difference I see is that in the English version it says:

[English]

“initial the back of the ballot in the space indicated in Form 3 of Schedule 1”,

[Translation]

That is not in the French version. It says very clearly "paraphe de la même façon" in French. I'm sorry! It's further on. It's OK that way. I'm sorry.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Thank you.

• 2055

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Catterall, then Mr. White.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I don't know if we're worried about detailed anachronisms at this time of the day, but as far as I know, we haven't had lead pencils since I was a kid, and that's a long time ago. I don't know why it's in the Elections Act—“graphite”.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Thank you.

I have another question in terms of the field application of this amendment. Again, in the interests of not fixing something that ain't broke, is there any feedback from the field, either from deputy returning officers or from voters attending the polls, that there's a problem here that could be fixed by changing the process?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Actually, no. There is no problem with the current process, because if they do it one book at a time it doesn't slow down the voting process.

My colleague from Elections Canada has just reminded me, however, that maybe I should take back something I've already said.

There was a problem in one of the previous elections. It's not something that happens very often, but because of the fact that this particular DRO decided to initial one ballot at a time...there's always the danger that they can write their initials in a different way in order to identify someone's ballot. It's probably not something that would happen very often, but the potential is there.

Mr. Ted White: Good point.

A supplementary, please, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Mr. White for a supplementary, then Mr. Knutson.

Mr. White, please.

Mr. Ted White: In a supplementary question, I'd like to follow up on something that was said by Ms. Catterall on the lead pencil issue, in all seriousness: why a lead pencil? Why not any unerasable pen? Why not a ballpoint pen or something? Why does it have to be a lead pencil?

Ms. Diane Bruyère: It doesn't have to be a pencil. We provide pencils, but it can be any writing instrument that you wish.

Mr. Ted White: Oh, I see. So ink or black lead pencils...okay.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I think the Elections Canada officials said that if you did it one by one and you made a mistake you could fix it on the counting. I think that's what I heard. I don't agree. You can't be initialling ballots after the polls have closed and you're counting them. That's the whole point of having the initials there: to verify what's valid.

I agree with Mr. White. If it's not broken, let's not fix it. Let's support the language that's in the legislation currently and vote against the amendment.

The Chair: Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: But can we take out the words “lead pencil”? There is no such thing.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Just take out the word “lead”.

The Chair: All right. We're starting to barter again. I'm going to put the amendment as it stands. All those in favour of the amendment, please indicate.

(Amendment negatived)

The Chair: The amendment is negatived. I'll therefore put the clause. Shall clause 138 carry?

Mr. Gar Knutson: Excuse me. I'm wondering if we can't have an amendment just to delete the word “lead”, even though it's not in writing.

The Chair: Nobody has moved it.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Do you want it in writing?

Mr. Gar Knutson: No, I don't think this—

Ms. Marlene Catterall: An editorial change, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: In the existing clause?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Yes.

The Chair: Sure, we're doing clause-by-clause.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: If we do that, ink is left in, so—

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Yes.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Why do you have to describe a writing instrument? Just remove any reference to a writing instrument and, I think, to their initialling.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: It's to make sure, as I understand it, that every ballot is initialled in the same way so that there's no chance of identifying a ballot.

If you would like, Mr. Chair, as we are writing legislation for the next millennium, I would move that the word “lead” be deleted from line 13.

The Chair: All right. Your chair has to get some focus here, at least, so we can keep an orderly record.

Now, Ms. Catterall wants to move an amendment, and to have something in writing would be very helpful—on any kind of paper, with any kind of writing instrument.

I will go to Ms. Bruyère, who wanted to make a comment about this subject. Ms. Bruyère.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: I just wanted to mention that, as Ms. Catterall says, the purpose of this particular part of that clause is to ensure that the deputy returning officer uses the same instrument throughout the day so that they can't identify someone's vote by using a pencil as opposed to a pen for that particular elector. We need something that says “entirely in something or other” or “entirely with the same instrument” or something to that effect.

An hon. member: Let's come back to it.

The Chair: Could I have Mr. Knutson's view on whether we should go ahead and deal with it the way we are now or whether we should deal with it later?

• 2100

Mr. Gar Knutson: I was quite happy just to take out the word “lead”.

The Chair: All right.

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: ...to work with Madame Bruyère.

Mr. Gar Knutson: That's right. I had been distracted.

The Chair: All right. I have an amendment coming in. There is incoming traffic. Ms. Catterall has moved, in both official languages, that clause 138 be amended by deleting from line 13 on page 59—

Mr. John Solomon: This is actually grey, not black.

The Chair: Lead, L-E-A-D.

Mr. John Solomon: But you've got “black” in there, and this is not black; it's grey.

An hon. member: I don't see the point.

The Chair: This is line 13 on page 59. Now, could I just clarify with the clerk that this amendment is in order? The clerk confirms that this amendment would be in order. Ms. Catterall has moved it. Are there any comments from officials, Mr. Knutson, or anyone else?

Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: I think what we've been asked to do is to ensure in this piece of legislation, in particular this amendment, that there's some consistency with respect to the writing instrument. For us to delete the word “lead” and not to specify what we've been asked to specify is, I think, a little bit negligent—not totally, but a little bit. I would suggest that we stand this issue, Mr. Chair, and have the appropriate wording devised by the government, mainly because there's black, there's brown, there are different colours of pencils that could be used. We want to be clear on this. I think it's more appropriate to do it that way.

The Chair: All right. Mr. Solomon has suggested we stand down clause 138.

Mr. Gar Knutson: That's fine.

The Chair: All right, I'm in your hands. Are we standing down clause 138?

An hon. member: And the amendment?

The Chair: We are standing down clause 138 and all the stuff that goes with it, including the amendment of Ms. Catterall. All right. We'll come back to clause 138.

(Clause 138 allowed to stand)

The Chair: Now we go to clause 143. There are no amendments. Shall clause 143 carry?

Mr. Raymond Bonin: I have a point of order. Does the agenda say until part 9?

The Chair: If you'll just give me a moment, I'll tell you.

Could I suggest—there's no great logic to this, only an element of order—that we complete part 9 of the bill? That would take us to complete clause 167. Many of the amendments between here and there... At the bottom of the amendment list...five of them are without amendments. Is that okay? We'll complete part 9.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Before we actually complete, I'm going to pause and we're going to have to talk about tomorrow's meeting times, which is not a happy subject, but we have to do it.

Now we'll move to clause 143.

(Clause 143 agreed to)

(On clause 144—Proof of identity and residence)

The Chair: I can see we have an amendment. I'm sorry, Mr. Bonin, I wasn't aware of the part C amendments. But in any event, is this a—

An hon. member: It's on page 3 in package C.

The Chair: Whose amendment is it?

An hon. member: It's government's.

The Chair: It's a government amendment to clause 144—

An hon. member: It's the French version.

The Chair: We're amending the French version. Would Mr. Knutson or one of the officials speak to that?

Mr. Gar Knutson: It's a housekeeping amendment. Inadvertently, we'd left out the word “residence” on the French version.

The Chair: Okay, so the amendment is moved by Mr. Knutson.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

• 2105

(Clause 144 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 145—Refusal of elector)

The Chair: I'll go to clause 145. There's an amendment in the name of Mr. Bergeron. It is amendment number BQ-44. It's on page 77 of the brick.

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, as worded, clause 145 of Bill C-2 seem a bit problematical to us. The amendment eliminates subsection (2) of clause 145, which I will read to you:

(2) If an elector refuses to take an oath because he or she is not required to do so under this Act, the elector may appeal to the returning officer. If, after consultation with the deputy returning officer or the poll clerk of the polling station, the returning officer decides that the elector is not required to take the oath, and if the elector is entitled to vote in the polling division, the returning officer shall direct that the elector be again admitted to the polling station and be allowed to vote.

I must say that I do not understand what this means very well and rather than leaving something in the Bill that would be vague and very diffuse, I would prefer removing it. The elector refuses to take an oath and appeals to the returning officer. The returning officer consults the deputy returning officer or the clerk and, after this consultation, can decide whether he can allow the elector to vote. On what basis? Are there regulatory provisions that explain on what basis a returning officer can decide to let an elector vote even if he or she refuses to take an oath? If there is a rational and relevant explanation for this provision, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment. But otherwise I find myself in a complete artistic cloud.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Could we have a short, succinct response to that from Mr. Knutson or officials?

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. Gar Knutson: ...is in case the chief election official in charge of the poll makes a mistake, just for clarity.

The Chair: That seems like a good idea. Could officials give an example of a mistake that a returning officer or a DRO might make?

[Translation]

Ms. Diane Bruyère: We have to remember that deputy returning officers are people who are appointed for one day only and who, in some cases, have no experience. It could happen, for example, that a deputy returning officer who is a little too zealous asks an elector to take an oath for some reason and that the elector, knowing the law better that the deputy returning officer, refuses to take the oath because he or she believes there is no reason to do so.

The law provides that if one refuses to take an oath, one loses one's right to vote. Subsection 145(2) deals with the elector's right to appeal in case of an error on the part of a deputy returning officer. Otherwise, the elector automatically loses his or her right to vote.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, subsection 145(2) does not specify that it is in case of an error. Subsection 145(2) says that an elector who has not taken an oath can appeal to the returning officer and therefore can be allowed...

[English]

Mr. Jerry Pickard: It does. It says they're not required to do so. They are demanded to take an oath, but they're not required to. It does say that. There's a mistake there.

An hon. member: It's sloppy wording.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I agree with Marlene. It doesn't necessarily say that.

[English]

Mr. Michael Peirce: It's in the current act, subsection 123(2).

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Granted, Mr. Peirce, but it seems to me that our job is to improve the existing law. I do not know how we can resolve this issue.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, Mr. Bergeron. This clause has been described as an appeal mechanism for a decision of a DRO. Your amendment would remove this clause. You've had an opportunity to explain why it should be removed, and it's up to members now to decide.

So I'm going to put the amendment. I'll give you the last word.

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[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The real question, Mr. Chairman, is this: how can an elector refuse to take an oath when requested to do so by the deputy returning officer? We say that it is on the basis of an error. What error? Nothing is defined anywhere. There is a problem.

[English]

The Chair: I asked earlier for an example of an instance. Would you please give us an example of where a DRO could make a mistake in requiring an elector ill-advisedly to take an oath? Any example will do.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: Mr. Chairman, if we had an example in which a DRO got provincial and federal legislation mixed up because they recently worked at a provincial election and said an elector had to have six months' residence in the province in order to be able to vote, for example, they could say “You're not qualified to vote because you haven't lived here long enough.” In fact, that doesn't apply in our legislation.

The Chair: Okay, thank you for that example.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Mr. Chair, if I may, I don't think the problem is not understanding that a mistake can be made. The problem is that the subclause doesn't say, if an elector is refused a ballot because they refused to take an oath, which they are not required to take... They may appeal then.

Ms. Diane Bruyère: In subclause 145(2), it talks about the returning officer deciding the elector is not required to take the oath. If the elector is entitled to vote in the polling division, then he or she can be reintroduced.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: But there's nothing in the subclause that says a mistake has been made and the elector was refused a ballot.

Mr. Michael Peirce: That's in subclause 145(1), though.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: No, not in a way that connects it to this subclause. It's sloppy wording, that's all.

The Chair: As long as the clause does the job. I'm going to put the amendment.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, could the Parliamentary Secretary agree to defer this clause so that we can work on a wording that would translate more accurately the presentation made by Elections Canada?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: While I understand that the language isn't as crisp and clear, I think it does the job and I'm prepared to vote.

The Chair: Okay, I'll put the amendment.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 145 agreed to on division)

(Clauses 148 and 149 agreed to)

(On clause 155—Assistance by friend or relative)

The Chair: There is an amendment in the name of Monsieur Bergeron, BQ-45. We'll find it on page 78 of the brick.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw this amendment.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Monsieur Bergeron, is withdrawing BQ-45. I'll therefore put the clause.

(Clause 155 agreed to)

(On clause 161—Registration in person)

The Chair: On clause 161, there is an amendment in the name of Mr. Solomon. That amendment is numbered NDP-15.

• 2115

Mr. Gar Knutson: On a point of order, there's a government amendment coming on this, so I would ask that we stand the clause.

The Chair: Mr. Solomon, the government indicates it is preparing an amendment. It may or may not be related to yours.

(Clause 161 allowed to stand)

(On clause 166—Prohibition—emblems, etc., in polling station)

The Chair: There are two amendments in the name of Monsieur Bergeron—you're very busy, Monsieur Bergeron—and the two amendments are BQ-46 and BQ-47.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, this amendment may be a bit too broad, but its purpose is simply to limit the rules regarding the wearing of distinctive insignia. I do not believe that wearing a flag of Canada or of Quebec or of any province whatsoever gives a precise indication of the political orientation of the person who comes to vote or of the person in the polling station. As a result, this amendment would eliminate lines 23 to 29 on page 68, which seem to us a bit restrictive.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The way I read this, it just means you have to take your button off before you go in to vote. I think that makes sense. You're not loading a bunch of Liberals—in my case—with big, happy-face, “Vote for Gar” buttons on their clothing as they go in to vote.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: That's a fine idea.

Mr. Gar Knutson: It's a bad idea. It would ruin the decorum of the voting booth, and the government is opposed to the Bloc amendment.

The Chair: Is there any other intervention? Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: If I may be allowed, Mr. Chairman, I must say that I am spontaneously in agreement with what Mr. Knutson just said. However, paragraph b) seems a bit too restrictive to me. To forbid Canadian citizens to wear the Canadian flag or forbid citizens of any province to wear their provincial flag when that, in theory, has no political significance, seems a bit exaggerated to me.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: It may well be that a particular political party has almost borrowed the flag as a symbol, not only of the province but of their political party. I wouldn't want to point to any particular political party in any particular province, but it's a possibility that could happen. Therefore, if the flag represents a political party or a political view, then the flag would be off limits too. Therefore, the government still thinks we should vote against the Bloc amendment.

The Chair: Or a stylized version of the flag, yes.

I'll go to Mr. Anders, and then Ms. Catterall.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, part of what my question gets to the heart of is this idea of a stylized version of the flag. I ask this as a point of clarification or information. Would paragraph 166(1)(b) pertain to a shirt? For example, if a campaign worker was wearing a particular shirt on the day of the election when he went to cast a ballot, would it pertain to him in that he couldn't wear the shirt?

Mr. Gar Knutson: It might, if the shirt said “Vote for Gar”.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: What if a t-shirt said “I'm proud to be Canadian”?

The Chair: Okay, we'll continue with Mr. Anders if he's not finished.

Mr. Rob Anders: I think that actually could be a tad too restrictive, Mr. Chairman. I imagine Mr. Knutson was making veiled insinuations with regard to the Bloc and the fleur-de-lys.

Mr. Gar Knutson: No, I did not.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Knutson, you didn't state it directly, but I think that's what you were implicitly referring to.

The Chair: I thought he was referring to the Liberal Party, actually.

Mr. Rob Anders: To be fair, Mr. Chairman, some would refer to the Pearson pennant and the flag of 1965 as a blatant Liberal attempt to corner a symbol for the country.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Catterall.

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Ms. Marlene Catterall: I know the intention of this, and I don't know that you can ever have wording that's quite perfectly clear. It does refer to any “thing that indicates that the person supports or opposes any candidate or registered party”. Unfortunately, I ran into an incident in which somebody was wearing a dark red shirt as a scrutineer, and was told to go home and change their clothes.

An hon. member: I had the same thing happen.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I think that's wrong. It had no words on it, no messages, nothing. It was just an article of clothing. I don't know what kinds of instructions returning officers get on this sort of thing, but that is ridiculous.

An hon. member: They have to use judgment.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Well, they sometimes use very bad judgment.

The Chair: This is your amendment, so you get the last word.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to say, like Mr. Anders, that I felt that Mr. Knutson's oblique reference was to me. I want to point out, for everyone's benefit, that I find it particularly offensive that the Canadian or Quebec flag can be the political object of a particular political party or movement. I have never made any claims other than saying that the Canadian flag was the flag of all those who claim to be Canadian and that the Quebec flag is the flag of all Quebeckers.

[English]

The Chair: I'm going to put that particular amendment, BQ-46.

(Amendment negatived)

Monsieur Bergeron, there's another amendment, BQ-47.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I withdraw amendment BQ-47, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

(Clause 166 agreed to on division)

The Chair: Colleagues, that brings us to the end of part 9 of the bill.

An hon. member: Oh, joy. Oh, rapture.

The Chair: When we restart, we will commence by moving right up to clause 195.

Mr. Peter Adams: Mr. Chair, I have one quick question. It's a big concern to me. Is the word “revisal” English?

The Chair: Is this an adjective?

Mr. Peter Adams: Yes, “revisal office”.

The Chair: This is a good question. We had better have this checked. Have we already adopted the word in clauses?

Mr. Peter Adams: I'm afraid so, but it's been worrying me all evening. It would be a very good word to use in Scrabble, but I think it would be disqualified.

The Chair: Being the previous chair of this committee, Mr. Adams would have a good handle on such things. Perhaps we could check that in the great Oxford English Dictionary for tomorrow.

Now, we have to deal with the issue of—

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Excuse me, Mr. Chair, but if we're going to be back here at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, can we leave all of our material here?

The Clerk: No, unfortunately we can't.

The Chair: I'm sorry, it looks like we're going to have to clear the room.

Now, I have to deal with meeting times tomorrow. We are scheduled to meet in the morning, commencing at 10.15 a.m., subject to the ability of your chair to pry himself away from routine proceedings in the House. That will go until 1.30 p.m.

That's the easy part, but here's where the humanity, the human condition, comes in. We have not yet scheduled tomorrow afternoon, and we have taken note of the New Democratic Party's Christmas party on Wednesday evening. We don't sit in committee on Wednesday morning because it's caucus time. That leaves us Wednesday afternoon. We are coming up short on meeting time in terms of moving towards completion of the bill, so we have to address the issue of meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, in both the afternoon and the evening.

Mr. Knutson, did you wish to speak on this?

Mr. Gar Knutson: I would move that we meet tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening, and that we don't put a predetermined end on it, so that we make an honest effort to get finished tomorrow evening.

The Chair: Monsieur Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, no later than last Thursday the chief whip of the Liberal Party brought to your attention the fact that Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday evening created problems for all House officials who are for the most part members of this committee. We have the meeting of House leaders at 15:30 and most of us then have to go to the Board of Internal Economy meeting. That therefore creates a serious problem for most of us. I therefore respectfully submit that we not meet tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening.

• 2125

[English]

The Chair: Is it not possible that we can get substitution for those who have to attend the meeting of the Board of Internal Economy? There are at least two of us here, maybe three, who would normally attend that meeting. It's not a committee where you can make substitutions very easily.

Mr. Solomon.

Mr. John Solomon: I'm just going to support Mr. Bergeron's contention. Mr. Harvey, Mr. Bergeron, Mr. Kilger, and I are busy at 3.30 p.m. tomorrow, so I would suggest that we not meet tomorrow afternoon and that we reconvene at 7 tomorrow night.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, but we might continue after the vote. We don't know.

The Chair: We have two suggestions that we don't meet in the afternoon, one that we do, and two that say we meet tomorrow with an evening start time.

Mr. Knutson, Mr. White, then Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I would agree with the opposition's request that we don't meet in the afternoon, with a standby meeting in the evening without a predetermined ending time. We just make our best effort to get finished. If we get bogged down, with things being stood over until the next day, and it's clear, let's make... We were moving fairly quickly at one point this evening, and I think we can get this done in a matter of three or four hours.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: As Mr. Knutson said, from time to time we're moving quite quickly. I don't think we need to be uncivilised and work ourselves crazy with these long hours. It's unnecessary. We do have the rest of the week. I think we should just remember that we have other duties as well, and we should try to spread it out in a more civilized manner than these endless meetings at night. We're all tired now. How can we do a good job of legislation when we're getting to the exhaustion point?

The Chair: Mr. White has said we have the rest of the week. At this point we have only two relatively short meeting spots planned for the rest of the week.

Mr. Ted White: We have next week. We're still here.

The Chair: I didn't want us to—

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We have Thursday.

The Chair: —misunderstand your reference to the rest of the week. We only have two short meetings scheduled.

Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Mr. Chairman, I think all of us have obligations we're changing in order to come to committee. I know that tomorrow morning I have to start at eight o'clock. I have an industry meeting that I'm cancelling to be here, and I think all of us have that kind of situation. I'm not sure what your afternoon meeting is. Is it the Board of Internal Economy?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: It's a House leaders' meeting.

Mr. John Solomon: The Tories, Stéphane, and I will not be here. Now, you can have a meeting without us, but you'd have to stand our amendments.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Can we can reschedule or rework that? If that's impossible, I can understand it. To go at night without any limit, I'm not sure how much we achieve. We got to a point tonight where we were bogged down and going zero.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Yes, we're exhausted.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: Then we ran like hell through the last several amendments in order to finish off, because that was the target we set.

I'm not sure the best arrangement is to leave it open and say that's where we go. I fully endorse the fact that we need the hours to deal with the bill. I think we should probably set a work schedule for the rest of the week with a lot more hours worked in on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Chair: We're still searching for a consensus.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: If we're not going to meet tomorrow afternoon, I would suggest that we meet tomorrow evening from 7 until 11.

The Chair: We're looking at meeting tomorrow morning and tomorrow night. Tomorrow night is pencilled in as 7 to 11 and tomorrow morning as 10.15 to 1.30.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: If everybody gets really exhausted around 10 a.m., we're all adults here, and we'll say we're not making good decisions. But let's schedule it that way and realise that we're not all going to wait for somebody else to cry uncle first, because I don't know what the point of all that is.

The Chair: Okay. Mr. Bergeron.

• 2130

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I simply want to submit to the attention of members of this committee that it is highly probable that, after the vote, the Board of Internal Economy will continue its work and that, therefore, many members of the committee may not attend.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson: Why don't you ask the Board of Internal Economy to change their meeting?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: It's that we are starting to work on budget forecasts.

[English]

The Chair: We're doing some very important work for the House. I'm sure the House leaders would take note of that.

We're scheduled for tomorrow morning, tomorrow night, and Wednesday afternoon, and let us project Thursday morning.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: And in the afternoon, like last week.

The Chair: I just want to get us into Thursday. So certainly Thursday morning, and maybe we'll be finished by then.

I'm just going to ask the clerk to indicate how much time per amendment we've been taking. Did you have a calculation?

Mr. Bernard Fournier: Up to dinner, we were taking about eight minutes per amendment. Last week we were taking 10 minutes per amendment. Based on 10 minutes, you would have required more than 30 hours starting this afternoon. At eight minutes, you'll still require more than 20 hours. You've just put in about five.

The Chair: I thought that statistic would be helpful to us just to think about.

I will then adjourn until tomorrow morning at 10.15.