HAFF Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

• 1106

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. I see a quorum for purposes of taking evidence. We are pleased to have with us today, from Elections Canada, Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley, and we have at least three others and a whole lot of displays of mapping. I'm going to let Mr. Kingsley introduce his colleagues.

Our subject here is at the request of Mr. Kingsley: we are reviewing the current Elections Canada proposals for election maps and poll mapping. This issue arises out of previous studies and a report of this committee—a procedure involving this committee where perceived weaknesses in previous mapping formats were brought to the attention of Elections Canada. We're all trying to improve the process.

Having said that, Mr. Bergeron must have a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): Mr. Chairman, I don't want to seem like a kill-joy. Although I'm always very pleased and honoured to welcome Mr. Kingsley to the committee and always happy to answer his requests and those of the committee where the Elections Act is concerned, I'd just like to know when exactly we decided to hold this meeting on the subject this morning.

[English]

The Chair: Are we going to be on the record forever here?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: They want to discuss things in secret.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, your chair is just getting up to date on the events of the last week and a half when I was not in town—and away on parliamentary business, of course.

This issue is one that had been raised by the committee previously. Approximately two or three weeks ago, Mr. Kingsley advised that he and Elections Canada were ready with material that he wished to have the committee look at or that he at least would present for comment. The vice-chair, Madam Catterall, in consultation with the clerk, selected today as an appropriate day when Mr. Kingsley could return. The decision was made approximately ten days to two weeks ago.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The decision was made by the Vice-Chair acting alone, without any consultation.

[English]

The Chair: As was her obligation at the time in my absence—that is correct.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Then she can make decisions all on her own, without consulting anyone.

This new way of proceeding is news to me. Fine then. We're seeing a lot of new approaches these days.

[English]

The Chair: Seeing no further points of order, I will go to Mr. Kingsley.

You may begin by introducing your colleagues.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Elections Canada): Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I'm very happy to meet with you on the subject of electoral geography. My comments will take about three and a half to four minutes, no more.

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I would like to introduce Mr. Rennie Molnar, who's the director of the register and the geography directorate. He has previously appeared with me before this committee, as you may remember. Also with me are Mr. Maurice Bastarache, who is the associate director of electoral geography, and Mr. Christian Yeon, who is the geography project coordinator at Elections Canada.

As you all know, following the 1997 general election, the quality of electoral maps was raised as a significant concern by this committee, with reason. Today I would like to explain what we have done to address this concern, present prototypes of the maps we will be producing—or would intend to produce—for the next general election, and obtain your input before finalizing what they look like.

In 1999 we conducted a map product survey with returning officers and with political parties through the members of the advisory committee of registered political parties—which you may remember I struck as a result of your intervention. The response rate was excellent. Eighty percent of returning officers and 90% of the political parties responded. “Ninety percent of the political parties” really effectively means that only one party did not respond, because there are 10 registered parties at the committee. The survey identified the following four items as most important to users.

Number one, currency: the users want up-to-date information on road names and features, municipal names and boundaries, and electoral administrative boundaries. To address this concern, the chief statistician and I signed a memorandum of understanding to merge our geographic databases. As a result, we now possess the most detailed and current national road network in Canada. This merged database, known as the national geographic database, is used both by Statistics Canada and Elections Canada for operational purposes, with considerable cost savings to the Canadian public.

The survey told us that users wanted greater detail and easier-to-read maps. That was the second feature. To address this issue, we have increased the number of maps we produce for greater detail and legibility. We also have a new product: municipality and locality maps. These will be evident to you when you look at them as soon as I'm through with my remarks, should this be your way of proceeding.

[Translation]

Number three: users also wanted some additional features. Lots and concessions in Ontario and townships and ranges in the Prairie provinces will be included in the new maps. They also wanted address ranges, elector counts and buildings and these features will be built into our maps in the longer term. However, that's looking to the longer term. Our objective at this time is to be ready to produce maps like these in approximately one month's time, so that they can be ready for September 1.

Number four: the survey indicated that map users were interested in the availability of digital data. We have a digital file of the 301 federal electoral district boundaries currently available. In early April, that is in a few weeks' time, we will introduce a digital version of the polling division boundaries files.

As a result of the survey, we produced prototype maps and presented them to a group of returning officers from across the country who were brought to Ottawa to help us with the design of our new maps. The prototype maps were also presented to the political parties in early March where they were met with great enthusiasm.

I'd now like to present the prototype maps for your consideration. You will see that we have a number of different map designs depending on the type of riding. We have brought three different designs with us.

We will also point out some of the additional features we have added to the maps to improve their quality. I would very much appreciate receiving your views on these products.

Before we move to the maps, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for allowing me the time to address you. Following our viewing of the maps, my colleagues and I would be pleased to respond to the questions you may have.

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[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Are there any questions from colleagues at this time in relation to the electoral mapping product that's here? Perhaps colleagues would like to take a few minutes to look at these products, and then we would come back and deal with any questions that come up.

In my first look at the product I was quite impressed, Mr. Kingsley, with the detail on some of these maps. That will clearly be of great help to people involved in the election campaign.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: As I was saying to Mr. Bergeron before the meeting, by the way, these maps were utilized by the armed forces to do their readiness planning in case anything happened with the year 2000 bug. We've been advised that their interest has been so stimulated that they're going to request that they become part of our system for sending them updates and so on. We're very...flattered is the word I want to use.

The Chair: They could vote and drop bombs at the same time.

An hon. member: Any riding in particular?

The Chair: Can we stand this down, then, for three or four minutes while colleagues look at the maps? We'll resume shortly.

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The Chair: Okay, all you map readers, all you prospectors, explorers, all you latent adventurers, incipient explorers, I'm going to call the meeting back to order.

We have had an opportunity to look at this glamour product of mapping. Now I'm going to open the floor to questions from members, if they have any, of Mr. Kingsley or his colleagues on this mapping initiative.

I see Mr. Kilger.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas—Charlottenburgh, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I have the opportunity to be the first, but I'm sure everyone else will follow with very favourable comments and very positive comments on the work that has been accomplished with the improvements that have been made to these maps.

My only question would be to Mr. Kingsley. When can members of Parliament hope to access even one set as a sample of these wonderful maps?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Mr. Chairman, unless there are comments by other members with respect to the contents, based on what we have here now, the software to produce the maps this way will be finalized at the end of April and tested. If you wish, I would undertake to produce one set of the large map of the ridings through a special run for all 301 ridings with that new software. We would try to produce that for you before the end of June. All right?

The Chair: Yes. I think members would appreciate that very much.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: We'll send it in a special thing so that we don't fold them or bend them or staple them or whatever.

The Chair: Yes. Tubal messaging.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Make sure you put on the item that it comes from you. Otherwise some of us might have great hesitation in opening it.

The Chair: Okay.

I will recognize Mr. Bergeron and then Mr. Harvey.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, like my colleague Mr. Kilger, I too would like to congratulate the Chief Electoral Officer's team for doing a magnificent job. I would have liked to have more time, but we will certainly have a little more later to continue examining the work that has been done. We're probably going to need many more details. Those who complained last time around of not having very detailed maps can see that now the maps will address all of the needs of all political parties when the next election rolls around.

As the Chair was calling to committee to order, I was in the process of putting a question to Mr. Bastarache. I trust you will be able to provide an answer that will enlighten everyone. I was looking at successive closeups using the zoom feature and I noticed that it wasn't easy to find the smallest sample on the previous map and so forth, in order to keep track of things. Will instructions of some kind be provided so that we can get through this more quickly, either some scale at the top of the page or some other feature?

Mr. Maurice Bastarache (Associate Director of Electoral Geography, Elections Canada): Yes, we plan to devise an index system that will allow you to go over all of these maps quickly and easily.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Harvey.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to check something with the Chief Electoral Officer. I hope you haven't done away with the riding of Chicoutimi.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: The riding of Chicoutimi will live on forever.

Mr. André Harvey: That's nice to hear. When the House leaders and whips meet this afternoon, I intend to find out about private member's bills seeking changes to the names of certain ridings. If I understand correctly, it shouldn't be a problem making some final changes to the names of several ridings to that everything can be up and running by the fall, in time for the next election campaign. Is that right?

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Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I will certainly try to see to it that in future, it would no longer be necessary to change riding names once they have been selected. I beg you not to make any changes involving more than 50 characters, including spaces, hyphens and double hyphens, because changes of this nature cost half a million dollars. As far as I'm concerned, if you do it for one riding, you're doing it for 301 electoral districts. The software does not allow for more than 50 characters in all. However, if you are planning a name change, I suggest you do it as soon as possible. You're asking me to produce maps for everyone. In this as in other things, we have to buckle down and do the work. If there was some way of getting this done quickly, I would be very grateful.

Mr. André Harvey: It wouldn't take long. All I'm asking is that the word "fjord" be added to the name of the riding of Chicoutimi to reflect its geography. You know how beautiful the area is.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I've read the bill, thank you.

Mr. André Harvey: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Just as a follow-up, Mr. Kingsley, it might be useful to record, if you haven't already, this 50-character limit. This is the first time I have been made aware of it, and there may be other members in the House who are not aware of the 50-character limit.

It's a practical limit, and it's always possible, if the House weren't aware of this, a riding name could be changed and you would have yourself a bill of a half-million dollars or whatever it was. You really wouldn't be in a position to come back to the House and say, sorry, I don't have the money for this. In fact, any bill that would change the name of a riding might be characterized as a money bill, a big money bill.

So if there was some way that could be recorded, either in the office of the clerk or with House leaders or something, it would probably be helpful.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I can write a letter if you wish, but I also gave this same testimony to the Senate committee when they heard me on the previous name changes. It's easy for me to record that wherever.

The Chair: Okay. We'd appreciate anything you could do to make us all aware of that and also practical deadlines on riding name changes as we move towards the end of a five-year mandate. There's a practical issue here as well.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: It was yesterday.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: No, it's okay.

The Chair: These practical difficulties do exist, and it would help members who might not take those issues into consideration. Thank you for bringing both those issues to our attention.

I do have a question.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, I want to be certain that I understood you correctly. Will there be additional costs if the change involves fewer than 50 characters? Are we talking about a technical amendment?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Any change involves costs of some kind, Mr. Chairman, because we already have printed lists of electoral districts. Given that we must be prepared at all times for an election call, we always have camera-ready copies on hand. The current name of the electoral district appears on these copies. When any changes are made to riding names, we need to make some related changes and obviously, there are costs involved, although these are not exorbitant. It's not just a matter of agreeing to make the changes. The cost is not as great as it would be if I had to rewrite software for a riding with a name containing more than 50 characters. Basically, that's the message I'm trying to convey to you this morning.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you for the clarification.

Mr. Kilger.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Mr. Chairman, I have just another quick question for Mr. Kingsley.

Would there be any impediments to any regions of the country or any provinces by way of any agreements we have? I'm not aware of any pending provincial election right now where we would have to be aware that in a certain province we could not make changes, for instance. Because of the numbers, I guess, Ontario is the only one where we have an agreement where, if the riding name changes, we have some restrictions.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: As a matter of fact, there is no agreement.

Mr. Bob Kilger: There isn't?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There is, however, an Ontario law that says Ontario ridings are the same as the federal ridings. That's all it says. There is no agreement between parliaments and there is no agreement between chief electoral officers about these things. I cannot prevent the federal Parliament from doing things with respect to ridings in terms of names. Whatever happens also happens automatically in Ontario.

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Mr. Bob Kilger: So there are no impediments anywhere in the country right now.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Not that I'm aware of.

Mr. Bob Kilger: So if we offer this at the House leaders' meeting this afternoon, my colleagues and I, if it comes up, then we can open it, but I can assure you it would be closed very quickly. Even this afternoon maybe we won't reach a consensus to go ahead, but if we did, it would have to be done, I suppose, in a matter of weeks.

The Chair: I have a question, Mr. Kingsley. These maps are of very high quality, with a lot of detail. It is possible that they might be commercially attractive or marketable. It may be that they're so good, Canadians may start asking for copies, asking to purchase.

My question is, does Elections Canada have a plan or the ability to sell commercially if there's a demand or a request for it? Have you the legal ability to reproduce these and sell them? If you can do it, do you have any type of contingency plan to do it on a commercially viable basis?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: We have an agreement with Statistics Canada with respect to the base information contained in the maps. They have facilities, to my understanding, with respect to marketing, and we're quite happy not to duplicate that effort. So if anyone were to ask us, we would send them there.

Now, if someone wanted the information on the maps in terms of electoral information, that is something only we at Elections Canada have. Statistics Canada does not require it or want it. In that case, there are pricing policies that exist with respect to the products.

As a general rule, though, for political parties and candidates in terms of meeting their requirements for mapping there is no charge. When there are additional copies, or copies asked for by other people, there is the possibility of our asking for money. I will tell you, however, that if I get a researcher from a university asking me for maps or something, my tendency is not to charge. When I see, for example, it's for a blatant commercial purpose, then obviously we would want in on it for the Canadian taxpayer.

The Chair: Thank you.

Finally, these maps are in black and white and grey, shall I say, and someone at some point will say, gee, this map would be a lot more legible if some colour was added. Could you indicate to us any cost impediments that might be there just in case someone is creative enough to suggest the addition of colour?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: When I give the order to produce the maps, because we have digitized information now we don't have to produce until a certain point. We try to guesstimate this for as close to the election as possible. When I give the order for black and white, that's $900,000. If I were to give the order for black and white with a colour overview, that's $1.2 million. If I were to say we should make it all colour, that's $3.6 million.

So you wind up paying four times for the same map if you want a colour map. We can do it.

The Chair: You've made your point effectively, and I thank you for putting that on the record as well.

If there are no further questions, on behalf of my colleagues I want to thank you, Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Molnar, Mr. Bastarache, Mr. Yeon, and the team at Elections Canada that puts the maps together.

Thank you for coming today.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Thank you very much.

[Translation]

We enjoyed the experience very much. Thank you.

[English]

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chair: Colleagues, Mr. Kingsley and others may want a bit of time to remove the mapping material before we go in camera. We'll pause for a few minutes and then come back in camera.

[Editor's Note: Proceedings continue in camera]