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]

Thursday, March 1, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order, colleagues. I see a quorum.

We have with us today Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, and a number of officials from his office. In fact we have a long list. I'm pleased to see a good turnout. I know, colleagues, we have a lot of questions we want to ask.

The primary focus of today's meeting is the supplementary estimates, which have just been introduced into the House. We also have estimates that were introduced into the House earlier in the week.

Mr. Kingsley had made an offer to address one or two topics specifically, and I would certainly invite him to do that in his opening remarks.

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I don't know how long you wanted to speak to us, Mr. Kingsley. Did you have a particular length of opening statement that you thought might suit us today?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Chief Electoral Officer of Canada): My statement will be approximately eight or nine minutes, but our agreement was that Rennie Molnar, whom I'll be introducing in a minute, would make a presentation on the functioning of the register during the election—

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: —give you the statistics and the background, and that will take maybe 18 minutes. But there's a presentation you'll be able to follow, make annotations on, and then you can pursue questions with us.

The Chair: That's fine. So Mr. Molnar's presentation will follow immediately upon yours.

Let's begin. And again, welcome, Mr. Kingsley.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to meet the members of the committee and to solicit your observations, your points of view, and your recommendations.

This is my first meeting with a committee since the opening of the 37th Parliament, but it's the fourth time I have had a first meeting after an election or a referendum. I just thought I'd remind you of that.

Five of my colleagues from Elections Canada are here with me today. Patricia Hassard, Assistant Chief Electoral Officer; Janice Vézina, director of election financing; Rennie Molnar, director, registry and geography; Luc Dumont, director—no longer acting director—of operations, who joined Elections Canada on September 25 last year; and Diane Davidson, avantageusement connue de la plupart d'entre vous, director of legal services and registrar of political parties—she joined Elections Canada on October 10, two weeks before the launch of the elections.

I should like, if I may digress a moment, Mr. Chairman, to pay tribute today to a fellow officer of Parliament, Denis Desautels.

[Translation]

Mr. Desautels is completing a 10-year mandate this year as Auditor General of Canada. He has made an exceptional contribution. I am particularly grateful to him for the praise he bestowed on Elections Canada in his latest report, tabled yesterday or the day before.

[English]

I would like to begin by talking about Elections Canada's supplementary estimates, the initial and main reason we were invited—not the main estimates. Then, even though I am presenting my report on the administration of the 37th general election in two weeks, I will also make a few observations about the election.

We will then be happy to answer your questions and entertain a dialogue. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to present the main elements of the supplementary estimates that my office has presented for the fiscal year 2000-2001. The members of the committee know that Elections Canada operates with two distinct funding authorities, the administrative vote and the statutory authority. The administrative vote, or Vote 20, in the books, includes only the salaries of a core group of full-time employees. That's all.

A supplementary amount of $1.7 million is required under the administrative vote. This is due essentially to the conversion of term positions into indeterminate positions. This change was approved by the Treasury Board, which recognized that we need 210 indeterminate positions, rather than the 54 that are on the books. This conversion had no effect on the amounts involved in terms of expenditures by my office, only on their allocation between the two funding authorities.

The conversion of these already existing and staffed positions into indeterminate positions will increase our ability to retain experienced employees and recruit the specialized personnel needed for our activities. This will also allow us to continue offering quality service to Canadians, as they have a right to expect, both in the preparation and conduct of electoral events and in the other activities of the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer.

Just as a reminder, the statutory authority covers all of our expenses not covered by the administrative vote. This is where, for example, we find the costs for the preparation and the conduct of by-elections and general elections, and even referendums.

A sum of $170 million is required for the statutory authority, broken down as follows.

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A total of $168.4 million is needed for expenditures forecast in the fiscal year 2000-2001 for the preparation and conduct of the November 2000 election. This amount includes the work related to the implementation of the new Elections Act. It also includes a provision of $24.5 million to reimburse the election expenses of eligible political parties and candidates.

It will, however, be several months before the exact amounts of the reimbursements are known once we have received all the financial reports. We cannot, therefore, at this point produce a final assessment of the costs of the general election. I can confirm, however, as I indicated during a previous appearance before this committee, that we estimate the total cost at $200 million.

The by-elections in St. John's West in May 2000 and Kings—Hants and Okanagan—Coquihalla in September 2000 required $1.6 million for all of them.

[Translation]

Before I answer your questions on these budget issues, and until we meet again after I present my statutory report in mid- March, please allow me to make a few observations about the 37th general election.

This was the first general election held under the new Canada Elections Act, with its new rules on third-party advertising, in particular, and also the first election to make full use of the National Register of Electors, which was no doubt the greatest change. For that reason, and particularly given the absence of a door-to-door enumeration, the 37th general election presented very specific characteristics when compared with the other electoral events that I have administered during the 11 years that I have had the honour as acting as Chief Electoral Officer.

This can truly be said to have been a new kind of election. It required a fundamental change in the behaviour of all participants—electors, parties, candidates, returning officers and even Elections Canada headquarters staff. All had to learn new approaches, new reflexes, new ways of doing things, all of which had major repercussions.

It was an enormous challenge. Although some four out of five electors were correctly registered at the proper address and did not have to do anything special, there were a number of difficulties for many participants, and the scrutiny these problems received was justified.

For our part, we are consulting a large number of participants in the electoral system, as part of our post-election evaluation. We have already met with the Advisory Committee of Registered Political Parties at its 12th meeting on February 9th. So that input is very recent.

Our post-mortem reviews all the questions raised and will give us the perspectives of all the stakeholders in our electoral system. We have already received some of the results for this exercise but analysis of the data is not yet completed and will continue once we have heard your comments today.

The operation of the National Register of Electors touches us all directly and it is also one of the main subjects we are considering. The register met our expectations for the most part. We know that with experience, technological progress and the co-operation of our partners, we can aim for even better performance in the future.

As was agreed with the chairman, Mr. Lee, I will now turn the floor over to Rennie Molnar, Director, Register and Geography. He will talk about this important aspect of our mandate. After that, I will present my conclusion, and then we will be happy to answer your questions.

Rennie, please.

[English]

Mr. Rennie Molnar (Director, Register and Geography, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer): Thank you and good morning.

I'll begin by providing some brief background on the register and how it works. I will then focus on three issues identified, based on our analysis to date, those being the quality of the register, registering youth, and addresses. Next I'll walk through the revision process during the election comparing actual revision rates to projected rates, assessing how effective registration was, based on our analysis to date. Finally, I'll present some areas we have identified for potential improvements.

In 1992 the list was automated via the development of ECAPLE, software deployed in each of the 295 returning offices. In 1993 a change in the legislation allowed us to reuse the 1992 referendum list without enumeration. The list was revised instead of compiled in all of Canada except Quebec, where the referendum was run provincially.

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This was an important milestone, because it demonstrated that we could run an election successfully, using a one-year-old list combined with an enhanced revision process. This became our quality target for the register. In March 1995 the Chief Electoral Officer consulted his committee regarding Elections Canada's plans to study the feasibility of establishing a register. A detailed briefing was provided in April 1995.

In 1996 the research was completed and concluded that a register could be kept up to date with administrative sources. And in December 1996 Bill C-63 was passed to establish the register through one final enumeration. The enumeration was conducted in April 1997, except in Prince Edward Island and Alberta, where lists were used from recent provincial enumerations. And then in June 1997 the 36th general election was conducted using the enumeration list data, and the final list was used to form the register.

In 1998 software was implemented and the register was loaded with the final list from the 36th election. Updating began with administrative sources provided through agreements negotiated with some 26 federal and provincial and territorial agencies. Also in 1998, the register data was used by the City of Winnipeg for municipal elections, allowing them to avoid enumeration and save over $500,000. We're currently working with the city to prepare for the next election.

In 1999 data from the register was used in five by-elections and in two Ontario elections. The advisory committee to the national register of electors was also formed and had its first meeting in September 1999. This committee brings together representatives of provincial and territorial data suppliers, including vital statistics, driver's licence, along with provincial chief electoral officers who maintain registers.

Relevant issues are discussed, such as data security and youth registration. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is also represented, currently by the clerk of the City of Toronto, who requested we consider adding additional information to the register to make it more useful for municipalities. Representatives agree to brief their counterparts after each meeting. The committee met and was briefed on the election on February 16, 2001. Of course, this all leads up to the last year with three more by-elections and the 37th general election.

This next chart shows how the register works. The register is founded on a database of some 20 million electors with their names, addresses, dates of birth, and gender. About 20% of the information changes every year: 16% of electors move, 2% turn 18 and become new electors, 1% die, and 1% must be added because they're new Canadians. The register is updated quarterly from federal and provincial and territorial sources listed across the top of the chart, including Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, driver's licence and vital statistics files, and provinces with registers, currently British Columbia and Quebec.

For national sources, the Canada Elections Act requires us to get express consent prior to obtaining the data to update the register. And for the 1999 tax year, approximately 84% of tax filers provided their consent by ticking a box on the income tax form. We also write to potential electors who have recently turned 18 to confirm their citizenship and to obtain their consent before adding them to the register. And we get a small amount of updates from electors themselves.

Once the register is updated, we produce a snapshot or release of the register that is used to produce preliminary lists of electors in place of enumeration at the start of an election. The list is updated through an enhanced revision process during the election, and the final list is used to update the register after the election. A copy of the register is provided on October 15 each year to members of Parliament and political parties, as mandated in the act. Data from the release is also used to provide data for preliminary lists to partners in other jurisdictions, and the final lists from those elections are also used to update the register.

The next chart shows the register quality at various milestones from the 36th to the 37th general election. Quality is expressed as a percentage of electors on the list, shown in blue diamonds, and the percentage of those at the correct address, shown using red squares. Our target, as documented in the feasibility study, is to have 97% of electors on the list and 80% at the correct address. And these are shown as blue and red dashed lines.

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Because 5% of the electorate do not get registered, even under enumeration, the target is reduced to reflect that. So the objective is to get 97% of the 95% of electors who normally get registered.

Quality levels are calculated by comparing register updates made to the demographic changes derived from Statistics Canada data. For example, annual mobility rates are compared with the number of address changes made on the register during the same period.

In June 1998 the political party advisory committee was informed we had 98% of electors on the register and 83% at the correct address, slightly above our target. In March 1999 a briefing was held at Elections Canada. This committee was informed that we had 95% of electors on the register and 83% at the correct address. The political party advisory committee was updated again in June 2000.

Finally, in October 2000, in the statement of quality accompanying the annual list provided to parties and MPs, we indicated that 94% of electors were on the register and 83% at the correct address. The same information was provided in briefings of party caucuses and the staff of members of Parliament and senators.

Returning officers were provided with riding-specific indicators of quality, along with the expected revisions at the start of the election, and they were instructed to brief candidates.

Overall we remain above our target in terms of the number of electors at the correct address, but slightly below for electors on the register, primarily due to the number of 18-year-olds not registered.

The red triangle and blue circle for October 2000 indicate we would get up to 98% of electors on the list and 87% at the correct address if we could add electors, especially youth, from administrative sources such as Canada Customs and Revenue. This 4% increase represents approximately 800,000 electors, mostly between the ages of 18 and 21, and it would increase our coverage of youth on the preliminary list of electors.

As I indicated earlier, some 380,000 electors turn 18 each year and must be added to the register. We identify them from drivers' licence files and revenue files and send them pre-printed forms to obtain their consent and confirm their citizenship. They just need to verify and correct information and sign and return the form in the postage-paid envelope provided. We also include a brochure explaining what the register is.

We conducted our first mail-out in the spring of 1999. Some provinces were excluded due to recent or upcoming elections. The Canada Elections Act permits us to add electors directly from a provincial list or register. Our response rate was 28%. A second mail-out was conducted in the spring of 2000 to all provinces except Quebec, where 18-year-olds are added automatically and those are provided to us from the Directeur général des élections du Québec, and the response rate was 25%.

For the election the preliminary list had approximately 30% of electors who had turned 18 since the 1997 election. During the election we sent reminder cards to some 400,000 18-year-olds who had not responded to our mail-outs.

Given the low response rate to our mail-outs, in the summer of 2000 we contracted a firm to evaluate the program to date and to recommend enhancements. Focus groups were conducted in three centres across the country with 18-year-olds who did not respond. The results were received just prior to the election. The reasons for not responding vary from “too busy” to assuming they were already registered because we had sent them pre-printed forms.

The recommendations to improve the registration rate include using a standard government envelope to make it look more official, offering online registration, and automatically adding 18-year-olds from administrative sources, such as drivers' licence files or Canada Customs and Revenue. They also recommended we work with schools to register youth. I'll return to this subject later on in the presentation.

The third issue I would like to discuss relates to the management of addresses. An address management program was initiated in 1998 to standardize addresses across Elections Canada, with particular emphasis on the register. The register software standardizes addresses received from various administrative sources. However, there are some that require special treatment to correct spelling and to ensure we can locate them properly in the electoral district and polling division. Many people also use unofficial place names instead of municipality names in their address.

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The register software has been improved since the original implementation, but not all addresses have been verified and standardized. We have developed special tools to perform this function, and our first pass of standardization occurred in the summer of 2000, where 60,000 changes were made. A second phase is proceeding now, after restructuring our database to handle alternate place and street names. Addresses returning from the election are being standardized and synchronized with our geography database as part of the update process for the register.

I'll now move on to the recent election. A release of the register, a snapshot, was produced in August 2000, after our major update in the summer using revenue data, in preparation for the provision of registered data to members of Parliament and parties on October 15. The same data were used for the preparation of preliminary lists of electors and the 301 electoral district databases deployed at the start of an election as part of our standard election readiness program.

Just prior to the election, initiatives were undertaken to enhance the quality of the list based on the availability of more recent data. However, changes to the preliminary list or the electoral district databases cannot currently be made centrally. These updates were pre-printed on revision forms and provided to returning officers to enter as revisions at the beginning of the election. This was done in time for the mailing of the voter information cards so that no action was required on the part of the elector.

A file was received from the Directeur général des élections du Québec on October 5 that represented some changes since July. This was matched to the register, and some 286,000 updates were provided to returning officers as revisions, including the addition of 45,000 18-year-olds.

A list was also received from Elections Alberta in mid-October based on their door-to-door confirmation process conducted during the summer. A total of 187,000 updates, including 67,000 18-year-olds, were sent to returning officers.

Finally, a file containing 10,000 records representing deceased persons was received from Manitoba, and those were sent to returning officers, who removed the voter information cards for these electors and removed them from the list.

Target revision is directed at areas that have high mobility and new developments, and it is designed to deal with areas where keeping up with the rate of change is particularly challenging, such as student residences. During the second and third week of the election, a pair of revising agents visits each targeted door and collects or confirms registration information.

Returning officers used local knowledge to identify areas to target in a pre-writ assignment in the spring of 2000 in consultation with parties and MPs. During the election over 500,000 addresses were targeted, and this represents approximately one million electors, or about 5%. The results above indicate that in just over a third of the cases we collected some registration information, in approximately one-third of the cases the information we had on the register was confirmed, and in the remaining cases contact could not be made so mail-in registration packages were left at the door.

The voter information card provides important information on when and where to vote and how to contact the local returning office if revisions are required. It is addressed to the elector or the occupant to ensure it gets delivered to the address. We have special arrangements with Canada Post not to redirect these cards and to ensure they get delivered. Out of the close to 20 million cards, 100,000 were returned as undeliverable due to address problems, a success rate of 99.5%.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les-Patriotes, BQ): How much?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: I said that 99.5% were actually delivered to the door.

During the election electors can contact their returning officer to get added to the list or to have information corrected, including a change of address. They can also register at advance polls or on polling day.

This next chart shows the accumulated number of registration adds and moves during the election. The blue bars show projections, and the red bars show the actual. Projections are developed using a statistical model based on estimated register quality levels and factor in past participation rates.

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We projected that 2,455,000 registrations would occur during the election. Actual revisions are tracked daily at Elections Canada headquarters during the election by statistics uploaded from returning offices automatically each evening over a network. Based on the 1,792,000 registrations recorded during revision and in advance polls, we projected 660,000 registrants on polling day but planned for one million.

Changes in the law as a result of the passage of Bill C-2 allowed for polling day registration at all polls, and provided more flexibility where staff could register electors at the polls. All returning officers were authorized to increase the number of registration officers to allow them to work more hours as required and to keep extra registration officers on standby. Some 70 ridings identified as high volume were contacted one week in advance to ensure they were prepared. Returning officers were instructed to consult candidates regarding polling day registration plans. Overall, 1.8 million registrations were added, recorded prior to polling day, and over a million electors registered on polling day.

This next chart provides a comparison of the total projected versus actual registrations, along with a preliminary assessment based on our analysis to date. It's important to note these results are based on statistics compiled during the election. We need to analyse the data returned from the election in depth before final conclusions can be drawn.

Overall registrations, adds, and moves were 387,000 higher than projected, primarily in Alberta and Quebec. This represents approximately 2% of electors nationally. Removals were on target and corrections were higher than expected, representing about 1.5% of electors, due to a higher rate of address corrections. We will need to analyse these changes further, but have already begun work in this area with the address management program.

The next chart gives a provincial and territorial breakdown of the projected versus actual registrations during the entire election. The projections are shown in blue and the actuals in yellow. It shows that overall projections were generally on track, except in Alberta and Quebec, where we provided revision data to returning officers at the start of the election. We need to compare the data that was sent to these returning officers with the actual revisions that were made before we can draw any conclusions.

The last table compares a number of Canadian citizens of voting age to the number of electors on the final list for the last five elections. The first column shows the year of the election and the next column is an estimate of Canadian citizens of voting age based on census data. This is followed by the number of electors on the final list and the number of votes cast. Turnout is shown as a percentage of votes cast versus electors registered on the final list. The next two columns show estimates for deceased and duplicates on the final list, which are subtracted to derive the number of registered voters.

The number of duplicates shown for the 1997 election represent the actual number identified and removed after the register was loading. The bolded column indicates that the number of citizens of voting age and not registered has been consistently around 5%, even when an enumeration was conducted, when compared to estimates based on Statistics Canada census data.

Finally, I would like to present some areas for improvement that we have identified. We started the election with approximately 30% of youth on the register. We estimate that we have between 55% and 60% on the final list as a result of the revisions during the election. As indicated earlier, we could improve the registration rate of youth to over 75% if we could add electors from administrative sources, such as Revenue Canada.

We've already had discussions with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency regarding modifying the consent box on the income tax form to confirm Canadian citizenship so we can add electors from that file. We are working on various proposals to present to the privacy commissioner.

We can also improve the quality of the register by working with our data suppliers to improve the timeliness of the updates we receive and our ability to process them faster.

Our election preparation time can also be reduced if we can provide register data to returning officers electronically over a network at the start of the election.

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We have recently signed a contract with Canada Post Corporation to use their national change-of-address information to further improve the quality of the register and our addresses. We will continue to develop the address management program, including consideration of new data sources aimed strictly at managing addresses.

Regular reviews by returning officers can provide valuable assistance in assuring that address and geography issues are identified and resolved on an ongoing basis.

By connecting our headquarters and field registration systems, we will enable returning office staff to move an elector from one riding to another. We will continue to simplify and enhance the revision process. Given the high level of Internet penetration, especially with youth, a secure online system would provide yet another means for electors to verify if they are registered and perhaps update that information.

Finally, we'll continue to work with our provincial and territorial colleagues to share register information, especially as more of them move to permanent lists.

This concludes my presentation. Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: The Advisory Committee of Political Parties has already made its observations and helped us better identify some technical aspects. Everything indicates that the parties are convinced that the register is here to stay and that the necessary improvements should and can be made.

We would also be very interested to receive any comments or recommendations you might have about the register or any other subject. I would welcome further opportunities to discuss the election with you. I am always available to meet with MPs and parliamentary groups, including the various caucuses who express the desire to discuss the election or any other aspect with me.

In fact, this is something I have already begun. I had an opportunity to meet with a few MPs and I will be meeting a caucus in the very near future.

During a subsequent meeting, I could talk to you about measures we are undertaking in addition to those of which Mr. Molnar spoke. For example, we are thinking about creating regional offices to serve the returning officers both during and between electoral events.

We are also planning to hold more frequent meetings with returning officers and to set up a mechanism for ongoing communication with returning officers using e-mail.

Once we have completed our consultations, we will initiate program enhancements, and we will be submitting our recommendations to you, particularly those involving legislative changes. We will also be glad to present our administrative changes to you for approval.

I hope that you will find today's information useful. I would like to mention one more time that I will be presenting my statutory report on the general election of November 27, 2000, to the Speaker of the House by mid-March. This report will cover much more than just the register, and will provide a fuller picture, as I have said, of the general election and of Elections Canada's activities.

In the interim, my colleagues and I will be happy to answer your questions as best as we can.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kingsley, and to your Elections Canada team.

Colleagues, before we get into questioning, the private members' business subcommittee has indicated to us that they have been unable to reach a consensus in connection with making a Senate bill votable. They recommended that the full committee take that up at a next sitting. So I just inform you of that. I don't think there's anything we have to add now, Ms. Parrish. Is that satisfactory?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): That's perfect. With your permission, I also want to get permission from the committee, and that will take two seconds. You referred a project to us, to look at the hundred signature rule.

The Chair: That's right.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: The committee met once, and they would like to expand a survey they're going to do on that to include the concept, again, of making every bill and motion votable. I suggested we needed the committee's permission to do that.

The Chair: I don't think members of the committee want to put any restrictions on what you're doing. Go right ahead.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Good.

The Chair: Thank you for indicating that.

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Colleagues, Mr. Kingsley and Elections Canada may come back to us a few times this spring. We have an amendment to the Canada Elections Act that is just about to come before us from the House. We have a review of the Referendum Act. We have estimates. We have a report on the election. We have a subsequent report on election issues.

So this will not be the only occasion to deal with Mr. Kingsley and the team from Elections Canada. However, as we embark on this today, there's clearly a lot of member interest in a number of issues, and we will probably go past 12:30 in our meeting. I'm not going to terminate the meeting unless members are finished. I'm going to try to keep the rounds at about seven minutes. I'll indicate to members when we hit seven, and we'll move it around to try to make sure everybody gets at least one round here today.

Can we begin with Mr. Reynolds?

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In your performance report for 1999-2000, you state:

The National Register of Electors prompted new forms of productive collaboration.... Our partnership with Statistics Canada to produce a digital road network for Canada yielded new possibilities in electoral mapping, and in making the National Register of Electors more accessible to jurisdictions that have different electoral boundaries.

Now, it all sounds great, but at one other meeting before you got here, we heard that just about every member on this committee has had a problem. As the whip of the party, I have a bunch of notes from members who have real problems. In fact, for your information, when I went to vote in this election, I wasn't on the voters list, yet I'd been the member of Parliament for three and a half years in that riding and know that my documents had all been filed with the change of address prior to it. I had lots of complaints about that from constituents, in that they just weren't on the list.

When I look at those comments in a book, I just wonder if it is impossible to fulfil the promise of performance that you stated in your last report. There just seemed to be an awful lot of mistakes at the riding level, whether it was in mapping or in boundaries. Maps were wrong in my own constituency. Absolutely wrong. So is it impossible? It's great to have these stats that show 99.5% and all these other numbers, but it just doesn't seem that way when you're on the ground. It's very embarrassing when you're the member of Parliament and you get in the lineup when you get there and you hold the line up because you have to swear that you're a Canadian so you can vote.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I have a general comment to begin—and I won't try to elongate my answers unnecessarily.

When I said this was a significant change, what I meant was that in the past you had door-to-door enumeration, with 92% of the names on the list to begin with. Revision gave you 3% more, so your offices and you were geared to 3%. With a permanent list, with the quality indicators that we gave you, you wind up having to have 15% of electors making changes. So you've quintupled, multiplied by five the number of electors who need changes, for whatever reason, like being at the wrong place. I remember that, even with door-to-door enumeration, there were electors in the wrong ridings, the whole thing. There was no big difference in that. But the numbers are very significantly different.

My last comment here is that through some of the measures we've indicated to you—and we're just beginning to look at this, because it was a big change—we know we can increase the quality of the list right at the start, and that would reduce the numbers needing revision. But if we go to 86% or 87% of people at the right place, you're still going to wind up with having three times the number of changes that are required during an election as you would if you did door-to-door enumeration. That's a fact of life.

I will ask Rennie to talk a little bit more about the quality of the maps. I will tell you that we showed the maps to the advisory committee several months before. I think we even came in and spoke here about the quality of the maps. The one area of the maps that was missing was where there were new additions that had been made within the last six months before the call of the election. Those are the difficult ones to grasp, and they're also difficult whether you have computerized maps or not. They were always a problem, and we still have not solved that. We can work at it to reduce the time that is needed by the time we need the information, by the time we're able to pump it back, but there is basically a minimum of four months required before we can process changes to a map.

There are what, Rennie, 2,500,000 maps that have to be produced for a general election?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: Across the country, yes.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Perhaps you want to add one or two details.

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Mr. Rennie Molnar: Sure.

The maps are produced from the geographic database you referred to. That database was frozen, let's say, when updates were stopped in May of last year. We had completed our work with Statistics Canada in the summer of 1999 to cover the entire country with this cartographic database. We then focused on high-growth areas between then and the spring to get as many updates done on that geography as we could before we had to stop. As Mr. Kingsley says, it takes about four months for us to actually produce the 2.5 million maps that cover the country. So in some cases in high-growth areas, we wouldn't have all the updates.

Mr. John Reynolds: I didn't hear this myself, but I know I got it from the people working on my campaign that you had an ad saying to people that if they were not on the list, they couldn't vote. That wasn't correct.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Yes, that was terrible.

Mr. John Reynolds: I'm wondering how that could get through your system.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: That got through my system because I personally approved the ad. There was no misleading statement, because you need to be on the list to vote. The fact that you can get on the list on polling day is what we say during the last six days of the election. You need to get it changed. If you're going to have any information revised about you, you have up to day six to do it. Those ads were meant to stimulate people to do that, because if we do not do that, then what we wind up with is polling day registration that is very significant.

What's the name of that council? The Advertising Standards Council of Canada received some complaints about this. I think they got two or three. They looked into this, and I think the precise wording was that they closed their files because they found there was nothing wrong. This was an independent body that did this.

Now, if it created an impression that we were misleading people, I just want to remind you that we stimulated 1,800,000 Canadians to go in to get revised. That's why there were one million on polling day, as opposed to one million being revised and having 1,800,000 on polling day. There is a very difficult relationship built into our system right now, and that is that if the ultimate fail-safe—the aim of which is to take into account any mistake that can be made—that allows electors to vote, to register on polling day, becomes too widely used a system, it will destroy the rest of the system.

Mr. John Reynolds: So what you're saying is that it's all right to not tell the truth if it gets people out to do the job.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: No, I'm saying—

Mr. John Reynolds: It's not an accurate statement to say that if you're not on the list, you can't vote, because you can vote if you're not on the list. I wasn't on the list and I voted.

You're saying it's all right to lie to Canadians just to get them enthused and to get them out, because it's going to make your job easier at the end. I don't give a damn what the council said, because they're not going to sue you anyway. It's a waste of money and a waste of time.

Mr. Kingsley, with all respect, it did cause confusion in my constituency, and I can tell by looking at other people here that it did the same thing in theirs. People were saying, God, this can't be true. People in my riding knew it wasn't true. I don't think it's proper to put an ad out that doesn't tell the truth.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Sir, I will reiterate what I said, with due respect. It does tell the truth. You must get on the list on polling day. Even if you register on polling day, you're getting on the list.

Mr. John Reynolds: No, the ad said, “If you're not on the list, you can't vote”. Now, I'll give you an example. I wasn't on the list. I went to an advance poll, but I had to swear that I was a Canadian and I got to vote. Anybody else could have done the same thing on voting day; so to say “If you're not on the list, you can't vote” is not an accurate statement. I don't care how you want to twist it.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Okay, what we're going to do is revise the ad—

Mr. John Reynolds: Hopefully.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: —but we're going to have to find a way so that we don't switch people around from revision to polling-day registration and change those numbers.

Mr. John Reynolds: Maybe you could use patriotism: It's time to get out and vote. Tell them how to get there and how to register. You don't have to lie to them to get them out to vote.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Okay.

Mr. John Reynolds: Thank you.

The Chair: If I could, I don't want to put words in Mr. Kingsley's mouth, but what Mr. Kingsley is saying is that the law makes it very clear that you do have to be on the list to vote. In your case, Mr. Reynolds, you were able to put yourself on the list immediately before you voted.

Mr. John Reynolds: See, you're a lawyer so you understand. But the average guy doesn't understand what you lawyers understand. The legalities are there, but—

The Chair: Yes, but I say that just so the record shows it. It may be a fine point for many ordinary Canadians. I accept that, but I think the point's been made.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: And I've agreed, sir, that we will do something about that.

• 1155

The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. John Reynolds: Right. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.

Ms. Patricia J. Hassard (Assistant Chief Electoral Officer): Mr. Chairman, there's just one point I wanted to add to that to round out the discussion. We did send notices to every household in Canada, about 12 million of them, which did indicate that you could register and vote on polling day. So I think, if you look at the campaign in total, including the subsequent radio advertising, any impression that was given by those ads was rounded out by the full campaign.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'll go to Ms. Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I have a million questions, so I assume you'll come to me a couple of times if we stay here until three o'clock.

The Chair: We have seven minutes, then I'll go to—

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Okay.

Welcome back, Mr. Kingsley. As a great advocate of a national registry, I have lived to eat my words. We had a rough time in this election. We also had a rough time with the national registry in the 1999 provincial election. I don't expect perfection, and I think it'll probably take several elections to get this thing ironed out and cleaned up, so I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater quite yet.

I'd like a couple of sets of statistics, though. I'm more concerned about the voter turnout than I am about anything else. I think the voter turnout was poor. A low voter turnout disenfranchises the poorest and most disenfranchised people in society to start with. I think it was really good for the blue-haired ladies who have lived in my riding for 60 years, because they were on the voters list, they had property, nobody hassled them, and they were fine. The teenagers didn't get to vote, nor did new immigrants, people who had moved recently, or the poor. Generally, society doesn't give a damn about those people, but I do—even if they vote NDP.

I have a series of questions I would like you to look into, if it's possible, before you come back the next time. One, I would like to see if you can do a study of countries that do not enumerate and see what their voter turnout decline has been over several elections. I would like you also to survey, if possible, or give us some stats on the chances someone will ever vote if they miss the first vote. It's kind of like your first sexual encounter—don't put this in the minutes. If you don't know what you're missing, you're not going to be inclined to try to do it again. So I'm wondering if there's anything on lifetime voting patterns there.

I must apologize to my staff. He's probably embarrassed.

I would also expect—and I think you've probably done it by now—a survey of the chief returning officers in all the 301 ridings, to find out if they think we should continue to not enumerate. Try to make them be honest with us. I'd also like you to look at the shortened electoral period and the effect anything similar has had on voter turnouts in other countries.

You see, a short electoral period is really great for the incumbents because it puts everybody else at a disadvantage. We've been advertising for three and a half years, so we're in good shape. But a low voter turnout is also a result of a shorter election period because you have less time to make sure those people know that the vote's coming and that they've got to get out and vote. I'd like you to look at those.

The second point—actually, a series of questions—is your “or occupant” card. High-rise buildings in my area had stacks of them. People were bringing them into our office. Canada Post delivered them, they were cleaned off your statistics as delivered, but they sat on the ledge in the high-rise building lobbies. Enterprising young people probably went and picked them up and voted several times from several locations. I don't know how that affects your statistics as being delivered, because they weren't. And they were delivered, all right, to my election office, and they came in by the hundreds from high-rise buildings. This is because a high-rise occupant takes the card out, realizes that it isn't their name and that it says “or occupant”, doesn't care, and puts it on the ledge. The superintendent throws them out, or an enterprising young person picks them up and distributes them to people who would like to vote several times in that day.

I want to know how that affects your statistics. And again, it's the most disenfranchised and the most disadvantaged who are not going to be voting because they didn't get their card.

Also, I'm wondering how your statistics are able to address people who got fed up trying to get on a voters list and went and voted at their old address because it was in the same riding. How do they ever get tracked? How do you ever find out they've moved? I had a lot of people who phoned, and we told them how to get on the voters list and where to vote. They said “Oh, gee, my old address is in your riding; can I go vote there?” and I said “Yes”. Have me arrested.

We also had some dead people who had good friends who voted on their behalf, and the friends came in proudly and told us. I don't know how that affects your statistics.

• 1200

I'm just doing questions, if that's okay. The other thing—

The Chair: It's a great list of questions. We've gone through about five minutes.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I have one more. Let me do one more.

The Chair: We'll need some time for an answer.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I don't think we can answer any of these today because I want real answers. It's not like question period in the House.

[Laughter]

A voice: You want the answer period later.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I'm going to get fired as an MP shortly.

Concerning third-party advertising, you need timely access and timely penalties. I had a drop done on me that had to be worth $8,000 or $9,000. It was delivered by Canada Post to every resident in my riding. That's $7,000 for delivery. The printing was at least $3,000 or $4,000. I am very suspicious that it was done by a member of my own party against me, but I could do nothing in a timely fashion.

I called Canada Post and they said that it was privileged information and that they couldn't tell me who paid to deliver 40,000 of those in my riding. The ads were insulting and nasty, and they kept our phones tied up for days, with people phoning to ask who would put this out on you. My opponents all cried “I'm not guilty”, offered to give me their first-born children, and said they had nothing to do with this. That third-party advertising really is frustrating, because you can't find out who did it, it may exceed the limits, you can't stop it in time, and you cannot get any publicity out in time to correct it. And that's the end.

The Chair: Okay. Well, there about 17 seconds left for an answer. That's all right. Try to take a shot at it, Mr. Kingsley.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Okay. Well, with respect to third parties, there are things we can do. The post office doesn't have to answer you as to who did it, but the commissioner has powers that can be invoked. Now, you mentioned earlier that you had brought this to the attention of the commissioner but had not heard anything. I'll make this my business, because the commissioner answers indirectly to the Chief Electoral Officer, and I'll be getting back to you on that front.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: If I have time to change the vote. Now, I got 65% of the vote, so it really didn't affect me, but—

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I don't have the power to revisit the votes.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: No. But if I had had a very close race, if this piece had been passed out, and if I had lost by 2,000 votes, I couldn't have stopped the process in time.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There are powers that were given to the commissioner of Canada Elections to intervene directly in matters such as this to prevent damage from occurring. I will have to review with him how the file was handled and get back to you.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Okay.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: But you people granted, as Parliament, special powers to the commissioner to arrive at ways to stop things from happening as they are happening.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Oh, yes.

[English]

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Okay.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Yes, that was given to him.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I wasn't aware of that.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: This was all contained in the caucus briefings I gave on the powers of the commissioner.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Yes, but he did not use them.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: That is what I will be checking. I need to have a chance to do that.

[English]

With respect to all the studies you've requested, we may have some of them already, but I don't want to answer that if I don't have them at hand. We will get back to you and provide you with that.

With respect to dead people who vote, I've heard this before from MPs who meet with me individually, and they all know, or seem to know, one or two examples. What good does it do you to tell me and what good does it do me for you to tell me if you're not willing to give me names? I need names so we can prosecute. I can't uphold the law if MPs are not willing to cooperate. If you know people who said that to you, I want their names.

We've convicted people in this country for doing exactly that. Their names are on the websites of Elections Canada. Ever since I've been Chief Electoral Officer, we haven't hesitated to do that. You can go to the website and find them right now if you wish. But I need you to cooperate with me. It won't suffice to say that you know them. I need to know them. That way, I will create a deterrent. This is what Mr. Lee told me years ago, that if their names were up there, it would act as a deterrent. Well, they're up there, but I need fresh names. Okay.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: You need fresh dead bodies.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: So we'll get back to you on the other issues as well.

The Chair: Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Guimond, then Mr. Jordan, and then Ms. Davies.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de- Beaupré—Île d'Orléans, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kingsley, I will save my questions on the general operation of the last election for your appearance here again in mid-March.

• 1205

Along the same lines as what Ms. Parrish was saying, we could certainly talk to you about relations with the returning officers, polling stations that were inadequate or inaccessible, of the 20 polling divisions that were located together in a room like this one, where a person could literally—since candidates have the right to walk around—see who the person in the booth was voting for and tell you horror stories about how the election was run generally. But I would rather keep that for mid-March, when you will be back here with us.

On page 9 of your document, Mr. Kingsley, you state that, "The register met our expectations for the most part". I beg to differ slightly.

Through my first questions, I would like, among other things, to know how you interpret the fact that there were approximately 15 more registrations, largely in Alberta and in Quebec. Is there a connection with the electoral representation before the elections? There certainly is not any connection there, but why was this the case particularly in Alberta and in Quebec?

I have another question. According to information I received, the Memorandum of Understanding that you have with the Quebec Chief Electoral Officer provides for the possibility of updates four times a year. I am told that, under the agreement, a fifth update can be done withing 72 hours following a request on your part. Once the process is triggered, you can have the information within 72 hours.

I would like to know why that request was not made by you, since it would have corrected a considerable number of registration problems with the list and improved registration effectiveness. I would also like to know why you never asked to have the 38,000 or 48,000 young people—I do not remember the exact figure—added to the list who turned 18 and who were on Quebec's list as of October 1. We are talking about 38,000 or 48,000 young people. I forget the exact figure, but in any case, I will come back with more detailed information when you appear next time. With respect to the problem concerning young people, you could have had this information by making a request to the Quebec Chief Electoral Officer.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There are some aspects of your remarks that I will ask my colleagues to respond to, but I will answer some of them myself. With respect to the information from Quebec and this clause that provides for updates pending 72 hours' notice, I congratulate my people for having negotiated that. It is a good thing to have.

The reason it did not need to be used was that the Quebec Chief Electoral Officer sent me all his fresh information without my having to ask for it. So I got it. That is what Mr. Molnar was telling you earlier. We had the returning officers put in the additions because it was too late to update the list as a whole. The information arrived on October 14 or 15 and it was too late to update the whole list.

The information was analyzed, and the data on 18-year olds, people who moved and those who died in each riding was put on change forms. Each returning officer received instruction to enter the information before sending out the voter information cards. That is why the registration rate for Quebec is higher, as is that for Alberta: it is because of these last-minute additions that could only be done through the returning officers in each riding.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Was it done correctly by each returning officer?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: If they followed the program, yes, it was done correctly.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Yes, if they followed...

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: It is not difficult to enter data and record changes of address. The software provides for this and the returning officers did the same thing for other information that they got for people whose address was wrong because notification of their change of address had not been received from the Quebec Chief Electoral Officer. The only information that we receive from Quebec for the federal register comes directly from the Quebec Chief Electoral Officer. That is our only source of information except for federal sources.

• 1210

Mr. Michel Guimond: What you are telling me, Mr. Kingsley, is that if it was done correctly, it was correct. But are you able to guarantee us that it was done correctly? There were problems. We were told that there were problems. For our part, we are going to do a survey of the 75 ridings in Quebec and then you will have to acknowledge that, yes, there may have been problems.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: If the returning officers followed the instructions, they had to enter this data immediately. We received reports that that had been done.

Luc, could you respond to this, and also to the questions about relations with returning officers and about Quebec polling stations where there were particular problems?

Mr. Luc Dumont (Acting Director, Operations, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer): In your riding in particular, 9,000 electors were added. Naturally, in the case of manual data entry in the ridings, there is an error rate of approximately 3%. There are processes in place to check this information. It is not just a case of people entering the data and it coming out automatically. There are verification processes. There is nothing to indicate that those processes were not followed in your riding. We will look at the quality of the data to see if there were particular problems, but there's nothing to indicate at this point that there were any particular problems, except for the extra data entry that was done.

Mr. Michel Guimond: I was not necessarily talking about my riding, but 9,000 is quite a large number.

Mr. Luc Dumont: Yes, it certainly is, but that is the amount of data from the list I was provided...

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: But those 9,000 people are the ones I told you about when I spoke to the caucus. These are the same 9,000 that the returning officers should have told you about at the beginning of the election but they did not. We did a survey of returning officers, and you are one of the only people here at this table who received a quality statement from the returning officer. That was supposed to have been done in every riding, so that you would know that there were 9,000 changes to the register in your constituency. That was supposed to be done. A small minority of you received that quality statement that was prepared for each riding and that was sent to every returning officer with the order to share it with every candidate, and not only with the Bloc Québécois or Liberal Party candidate.

Mr. Luc Dumont: To come back to the first point in your question concerning the location of polling stations in your riding—and this was the case of five other ridings in Quebec—the school boards gave the returning officers permission to use the schools, and your poll representative should have been informed of that. There was not a problem.

However, there is a special situation in Quebec now, since the facilities committees are the ones who decide on how the schools should be used. And in your riding, the facilities committees refused access to the schools, even after receiving confirmation from the returning officer. The impact was major, since 50,000 electors, that is 135 polling divisions, had to be moved. We are talking about a total of 15 schools, 135 polling divisions, and 50,000 electors, that is a lot. The result was that there were in fact two places that were not accessible to persons with disabilities. The location was far from ideal, but it was the solution that the returning officer was able to find during the election period. So that is a problem in certain ridings.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Guimond.

We'll go to Mr. Jordan, then Ms. Davies, then Mr. Regan.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of questions.

Mr. Molnar, as to the youth and your questionnaire, you said you got about a 25% response rate. That reflects the voter behaviour of youth, doesn't it, about one in four? No?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: I'm not sure about voter behaviour, but the survey people we talked to said that's a standard response rate for people in that demographic group.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Do you have a number on that demographic group, on how many vote?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: One survey we conducted after the last election indicated that approximately 50% of people aged 18 to 24 vote.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: So the 24%, 25% take-up hit us right across the stomach. We thought we were going to get 84%, 85%. We thought these kids would be just happy. All they had to do was sign a piece of paper and shove it back. They didn't even have to put in their name.

• 1215

Mr. Joe Jordan: They're not sure now—

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: All they had to do was sign a piece of paper, and the envelope was prepaid. We thought we'd get take-up just like that. We had hired a firm to do the design the appropriate way to be attractive. We were shot out of the water. On two occasions that's what happened.

Mr. Joe Jordan: You're not alone in not being able to predict the behaviour of youth. I guess it's chicken and egg. Are they not registering because they don't want to vote? Are they not voting because they're not registered? I guess you have to take a look at that.

I want to come to the chart on page 13. This picks up a little bit on what Mr. Guimond was saying. When you're talking about registrations and what you've got plotted here, you're defining registrations as addresses and moves, right?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: Correct.

Mr. Joe Jordan: When I look at Alberta—and Mr. Guimond touched on this—a lot of people are going out there because of the economy, the 15%. But in Quebec—you're starting with the Quebec list, aren't you?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: We use the Quebec list to update ours.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay. So if I'm reading this correctly—and my eyes aren't that good—there are about 190,000 or 185,000 registrations more than you predicted. Is that correct? Am I seeing that right?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: Correct.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Are your projections just based on population, some sort of ratio?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: It takes that into account. We look at Statistics Canada estimates and factor those in, compare them to the actual number of updates we've made on the register. For example, if the mobility rate in a certain area is cited as 15% a year by Statistics Canada, and we look at how many moves were actually made, the difference between those defines our—

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay, fair enough. But it didn't pick up in Alberta, which you would think it would have.

Mr. Rennie Molnar: In the sense of...?

Mr. Joe Jordan: With the fact that the economy is picking up, the mobility trigger should have been apparent, you would think. But it's not an exact science. I'm not criticizing it.

Mr. Rennie Molnar: Got you.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But what I want to know is whether the criteria to be on the Quebec list are identical to the criteria to be on the federal list?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There are two major differences. To be on the Quebec list, you must be a resident of Quebec for six months—the six-month residency of most of the provincial laws. The other one is that under Quebec law, if you are under curatelle, you cannot vote. In other words, you are excluded from the right to vote.

Mr. Joe Jordan: If you were what? Sorry?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: If you were—I don't know how to say that in English—

Mr. Joe Jordan: I'd like you to try.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: If you cannot exercise your rights because of diminished mental capacity—

Mr. Joe Jordan: Oh, okay.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: —you are identified as such in Quebec, and therefore, you are excluded from the right to vote. At the federal level, you are not automatically.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: So those are the two differences between the two regimes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: So you have to take that in mind when you're starting with that list as your core, right?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: That's right.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay. Because I had a couple of cases involving constituents of mine who were students of Bishop's University and were charged under Quebec electoral law for voting in the referendum. Obviously they didn't meet one of those criteria. But they can vote federally in that riding, provided they meet the six-month residency rule.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There is a difference as well, not about who gets on the list, but in the legal definition of “domicile” in Quebec, and “residence” under federal law. The definition of “residence” under federal law is, I would say, broader, and it requires less of a test as to where you live.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Is there any thought, given those differences, that it might be better to copy what you're doing in other provinces, as opposed to starting with their list? That's a significant number of revisions you've had to make. There's no way you can then take your revised list and pass it back to Quebec, because it will not necessarily work for them, will it?

Mr. Rennie Molnar: We don't actually start with the Quebec list. We started with the list we developed from the 1997 general election. We then used the Quebec list on a regular basis to update ours, and we used federal sources as well—Canada Customs and Revenue and Citizenship and Immigration data.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay. My final point is that in my riding too there is a high level of anxiety. The difference, I suppose, on the government's side, at least in my case, is that when people get mad at Elections Canada, they take it out on the member of the government.

A voice: Absolutely.

Mr. Joe Jordan: So even though Mr. Reynolds may have had mad people, he probably rallied them around him. We had to wear it a little bit.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: We had some like that in our office.

• 1220

Mr. Joe Jordan: But were they not going to vote for you because of that? In our case, they didn't make the distinction between Elections Canada and you being an MP from the government.

Anyway, I'm very concerned about these issues. I guess it will be an ongoing process of discussions. Thanks very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Jordan.

We go to Libby Davies, then Mr. Reid and then Mr. Bergeron.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much.

I find it ironic that the information we've had presented today—these graphs and slides and so on that make the national registry look like a success story, even though there are some problems—is vastly different from the experience we actually had on the ground. I consider all of us, as MPs, as the real experts in this matter. We're on the ground, travelling around in our ridings and hearing stories from people.

Within our own caucus, I know the first thing we talked about when we got back here was what happened on election day. Everybody had incredible stories of concerns and situations that took place. In my own riding of Vancouver East—and I've met with Mr. Kingsley on this—there's discrimination against poor people and aboriginal people. There was a vast number of corrections and of people registering on the day who weren't on the list. To me, these are all warning signs that the system is not working. And I think this is the fundamental core of our democratic system.

Hearing the presentations today, several things strike me. First, we're relying now on this national register, but even Mr. Kingsley has told us that five times as many people as in the previous system need to have changes. That's incredibly high. And yet we're told that door-to-door enumeration is not very effective, and we're not going to rely on that any more. But we still do it for the census.

It seems to me that the profile and stature we give to the census, which people understand and respond to, is very different from the kind of system we have here.

I'd also echo the comments of Mr. Reynolds. I don't usually agree with Mr. Reynolds, but those ads were misleading. Technically, Mr. Kingsley, you're correct; technically, you had to be on the list ten seconds before you voted. But the message left was that you couldn't vote on election day. I think we'll never know how many people didn't vote because of those ads. I think that's really tragic.

I guess the issues I want to follow up on, following Ms. Parrish, is that if you're going to do further evaluation, you should actually survey MPs and even candidates. You should ask us, even in an anecdotal way, about our experience on the ground, because I think that's a very valuable source of information. And if you're going to look at other systems vis-à-vis a register or enumeration, I think it's important to get our input on what we feel happened.

Second, it struck me while listening to you today that one of the problems is that this system is highly centralized. When you talk about these 2.5 million maps, with all the errors and corrections to addresses and how they're listed.... Perhaps we should actually decentralize the operation so that, again, people on the ground are closer to the reality of what's going in their municipality, town, whatever. That's another question.

Third: like many members, in our party we've had a huge concern about the registration of young people. There was a clear sense from young people that they thought they were automatically registered—which of course was not the case. I see you suggest that will be one thing that's looked at, but I think it's very, very important to look at ways of registering people automatically.

I guess that would require a change to the act, but our main concern is the lack of door-to-door enumeration. I know you have issues with that, but it seems to me that we should not necessarily throw it out completely. We should still look at it relative to what's happened in other countries, to see whether we can decrease the number of corrections and changes. I thought it was quite alarming when you said it was up to five times what it used to be.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I will address your points in the reverse order you presented them.

• 1225

With respect to door-to-door enumeration, targeted revision is door to door. We've given you the statistics: 30% of people don't open their doors any more after two visits. However, I think we can do more: I think we can increase the number of places where we do door-to-door in conjunction with the register. You ask about decentralization—this is where the returning officers are trained to get in touch with you and show you all the places where targeted revision is scheduled, and to get you to agree, disagree or make proposals for other places. There may be places they've forgotten.

That brings me to another thing: the cards that were found in high-rises. One of the things we may decide is that where we have targeted revision, we will no longer send the cards. They will be brought by hand when the people actually enroll themselves. In other words, we can improve the system to make it much more palatable, much more acceptable.

The fact that there are five times more changes is the expression I use when I talk to the caucuses. “Revision, revision, revision”—I repeated it three times, just as we do at Elections Canada with “testing, testing, testing” whenever we have a new program.

With respect to youth, if we do the administrative arrangements with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, and if we get the consent of the Privacy Commissioner, we won't necessarily even have to change the law. We are going to be able to pick up 225,000 youth and 50,000 other adults who will have attested to their Canadian citizenship. That's something you require in the federal law from the federal source right now.

You passed the law that said “You must obtain an attestation of Canadian citizenship before you add anybody to the list”. That's what you said, so I'm bound by that. We're trying to find a way to have that on their form. They've agreed it's possible, and we're going to have a chat. For youth, we'll have solved a significant portion of the problem outside of Quebec. In Quebec the problem is solved because they're added automatically.

With respect to the decentralization of mapping, that's an idea we could pursue. I appreciate your making the suggestion. There are things we ask returning officers to do. As I indicated in my opening remarks, we're going to look at how we can change the role of the returning officers—no matter who appoints them, by the way; that's not the issue.

We're keeping them online, providing them with computers in their homes so we can be online with them. From now on, whenever we test a program that involves them, we'll get them to input the data as if it were coming from a returning office. That will make it much more realistic.

At the same time, we can ask them to do more mapping exercises. Maybe advances in computer technology will provide ways for them to produce high-quality maps for their ridings in a more timely fashion than we can centrally. We'll look at that.

With respect to the ads, I've indicated that we're going to be looking at them, but I've also mentioned that I don't want this to be dropped off the record. We did produce ads for the six days before polling day that really hammered home the point on radio, in newspapers, in other media, that you can still vote if you're not on the register or on the list. Go to your polls, bring the necessary two pieces of ID. We did that. If we got 1,050,000 people to respond—you say, well, we'll never know how many people didn't. Maybe we can do a survey and try to find out—because if it bugs you, it bugs me. Maybe we'll find a way.

We know we have a Canadian elections study, that group of academics. We'll see if they're doing anything in that respect. If they are, we'll come back here and share it; if they're not, I'll look at the opportunity for me to do such a survey.

• 1230

I also want to mention that what we presented here was not a story that everyone must agree is a success story. We told you this met our expectations, because this is what we had forecast. The subliminal message in the presentation was quite clear: here are the number of times we've told you this, MPs; here are the number of times we've told the advisory committee, which you asked me to set up so that the parties could tell you and the other candidates for your parties; here are the times I told you when I met you in caucus. That's what I'm trying to tell you. We did say the game is now revision, and it's going to be massive. That was the message.

It's not a complete success. If you don't consider it a success—if there were problems—part of it is because it's new. Part of it is because expectations were not set straight. We'll take our share of the blame for that. But I also liked the comment that it may take one or two more before we've got this finally home.

I can tell you that we're going to make significant progress with you and the parties at the next event because of all the changes we're contemplating and because of the consciousness that has now been created, which revises the name of the game.

My last comment is with respect to the poor who you say are not favoured by such a regime. The answer has to be targeted revision under a computerized register. We will have to do more targeted revision where the poor live.

We might want to do things with parties in that respect, because the advisory committee of political parties told us they would like to be involved in the recruitment of new electors. I'd like to sit down with them and with you and see what is feasible here that would still maintain the integrity of the system. There has to be a way of addressing the issue, and we know there is.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kingsley.

We'll go to Mr. Regan, Mr. Bergeron, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. Reid.

Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kingsley, I have two comments and three questions.

First of all, in relation to the ads referred to by Mr. Reynolds, if just before an election people feel that a government department or agency has not been quite upfront with them, or has in their view misled them—whether for a good end or not—or if they feel they're being manipulated, they're likely to get angry. It concerns me that it might affect how they vote. It may have affected the people who voted across this country in various ridings. How many votes it may have affected in how many ridings, I don't know. But I can tell you that when I saw it happen, when I was getting calls in my headquarters during the campaign about it, I was very concerned about what impact it might have on election day. I think it is important to understand it in that context.

The second thing is in relation to maps. We heard today that if streets were created six months before the maps came out, they were on the maps. Well, there were streets in my riding of Halifax West that in fact had been there with people living on them three and a half years before, in the 1997 election and before that, that weren't on the maps. All I'm saying is that the six months was not the experience I found in the campaign I took part in.

Now I have three questions.

First of all, you mentioned in your presentation the issue of trying to improve the timeliness of updates from data suppliers. I'd like to understand how much that was a problem, because people were saying to me that they had ticked off the box on their tax return every year for the past four or five years—or whatever number of years it was since the new system came into place—and they weren't on the list. It didn't have any impact. There was no benefit for all kinds of people, and I don't understand why that was the case.

Secondly, early or maybe mid-campaign you had an ad that said if people wanted more information, they should call this toll-free number. People were calling it and not getting answers. In other words, it seemed to me—and I wrote to you about this—that there were not enough staff there to answer the calls coming in. One man came into my office and said that he had called 22 times and never got through. We finally directed him to the returning office, so he could get registered directly at the returning office.

Imagine people's frustration and their feeling about the performance of a government agency and their feeling about the government when they call 22 times and they can't get through. Is that going to affect any votes? I think it might.

Lastly, I want to ask you how many letters of complaint you had from candidates and how many of them you replied to. I didn't get a reply.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: With respect to the last question, I'll come back with a precise answer.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Thank you.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: The number doesn't strike me as being massive, but I'll look at it.

• 1235

With respect to the 1-800 number, several things need to be corrected. First of all, we need a 1-800 number for candidates. To mix them with the general population was a mistake.

Secondly, we tried to run the 1-800 number ourselves by staffing and having the places all done on our fifth floor at the office. Our lack of expertise in running this showed through very rapidly and was exacerbated significantly by the fact that we could only offer people 30 days of employment. As soon as we got them, trained and paid them, someone else was hiring them for another telephone answering system in town at an equal or better rate. For six months, for a year, we stood no chance. We were chronically understaffed most of the time. The lesson was learned and it was learned during the election, which is why for the last two weeks we were able to correct the problem. We got in touch with CCRA, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, which runs an extensive telephone answering system. We also got in touch with a government inquiry centre. They both pitched in and helped save the bacon.

Yes, I understand how frustrating it can be. Every time I call 1-800 and I'm on for five minutes, I'm boiling at the end of the five minutes. That's why we tracked the time from the previous event. Our performance this time was supposed to be better, but we skewed ourselves through the miscalculation that I've mentioned. It's something about which I feel very bad, because I do understand the frustration. The fact is, though, that the last two weeks we were able to produce, I would hope, offered people the opportunity to allow us to correct the mistake.

With respect to the timeliness of updates, you specifically asked about the tick-off on the CCRA box. Rennie may be able to add other elements here. The problem with the box at the present time is that we cannot add a person who checks off that box. We can only change the data if the person is already there. That's why we're trying to work out an arrangement right now with CCRA to modify it so we will have citizenship. We can't have them because we don't have citizenship. We're going to try to find that out and be able to add them.

That'll give us 50,000 more each year to be added to the list and 225,000 students or 18-year-olds that could be added from the very same source. One little box will give us 275,000 additional names with no change in law.

Why didn't you do that before, Mr. Kingsley? I've answered. We thought the youth would be jumping at the opportunity to have the right to vote. We had a great letter congratulating them on having become an elector. We thought that this would sell them and they would register like hot cakes. We told you the reasons why they turned it down. So that's why we are only now doing it.

Those are the answers, at least at this stage, to your questions, sir. With respect to the ads, I've answered already.

Mr. Geoff Regan: That was a comment, not a question.

The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Bergeron, then Mr. Macklin, and then Mr. Reid.

[Translation]

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

Mr. Kingsley, I would first like to thank you for being here today with your team as an officer not of government, as some people have implied, but of Parliament. That is why I believe that, if there were some problems during the most recent election, not only members from the government party but also those from all the other political parties received phone calls and bore the brunt to some extent of the frustration and displeasure felt by people who showed up to vote or who tried to take part in the election exercise.

I would also like to tell you that I am aware that your appearance here this morning before the committee is a thankless task. This is because you have to answer for a new system, a new way of doing things. You also have to answer for the work of hundreds of people that you did not select. You have to answer for their work, regardless of their competence.

You said earlier that that is not why you are here today. I think that you are very courageous to say that since that is to some extent exactly what this meeting is about, since you have to defend the work of these hundreds of people throughout Canada who did work on your behalf, even though you knew nothing of their competence and you were forced to work with them.

• 1240

Having said that, I will deal only with the issues that have been raised during today's presentations.

Firstly, on page 7, if I may, you say:

...given the absence of a door-to-door enumeration, the 37th general election presented very specific characteristics...

I must admit that I love the way this sentence is worded. It speaks volumes without stating anything directly. It is a delightful euphemism.

I have a number of questions and comments. In your presentation, you said:

...we are thinking about creating regional offices to serve the returning officers both during and between electoral events.

Mr. Kingsley, might these regional offices also serve political parties and candidates in the various ridings that would be covered by these regional offices?

I also have a comment about the schools. An answer concerning the schools was given earlier. I can tell you that in my riding, the returning officer did not even take the trouble to check on the availability of the schools. I myself spoke to the chairman of the schoolboard, who told me that he had never received a telephone call. The choice of some polling stations in my riding was absolutely scandalous during the last election, and I know that was the case in many other ridings.

With respect to the Commissioner of Canada Elections, Mr. Kingsley, I might say that I was quite surprised at the answer you gave Ms. Parrish earlier. I was surprised, not because I am not aware of the fact that the Commissioner does have powers, but because he chose not to use them.

I will give you an example. During the last election in Quebec, I was among the members or candidates who were struck full force by the municipal amalgamation issue. One of the affected municipalities in my riding decided to campaign against me by investing enormous sums of money and by posting its own signs beside the candidates' campaign signs. I complained. It was only after the vote was taken that I received an acknowledgement saying that the matter would be submitted to the Commissioner. The Commissioner has only now written to us, barely a week ago, saying that we would have to show him examples of these signs. However, the election was over a number of months ago, I mean...

When you say that he has the power to stop this type of thing from happening during the campaign, I would have liked him to do that. I don't think he even recognized the fact that there was a problem in my riding during the campaign. Now, he wants all kinds of information: what did the signs look like, where were they posted, what message was on them. I found that pretty hard to swallow, it really beats all.

I would like to raise another point. You talked about the percentage of cards that reached the voters. You mentioned a rate of 99.5%. I won't come back to what Ms. Parrish said about the apartment buildings, but I will tell you that in my riding, for example, some voters received a card containing 1997 information from the returning officer while others received a card on which there was a six-digit rather than a seven-digit telephone number. How can you call the returning officer when you only have a six- digit telephone number?

There were also some rather amusing situations where, in one family of three people, one person was registered in one polling division, the other was registered in a different polling division, while the third one was not registered at all. The one who was not registered—we would have expected it to be the son or the daughter—was one of the two spouses. So we had a situation where one person in a couple was not registered, where the son was registered in one area and the mother registered in another.

With respect to geographical maps, at the beginning of the campaign, I was sent a map of one of the municipalities in my riding that had absolutely no street names on it. That kind of tool does not make my job any easier.

• 1245

Earlier we mentioned the list of electors in Quebec. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that in the Memorandum of Understanding with the Chief Electoral Officer, there is a provision which allows you to obtain a fifth revision with a 72- hour notice.

You say that a final revision was sent to you halfway through the election, around October 15. Could that not have been obtained more quickly—of course, you could not know when the election would be called, we can understand that—but could you not have gotten it before the halfway point in the campaign, so that you would not have had to rely on the returning officers to incorporate this new data? You said earlier that they should have done so. With respect, Mr. Kingsley, I do not have the same faith in the returning officers in Quebec as I have in you, and I am not sure that the information was as well incorporated as we are being let to believe, in all the ridings in Quebec.

I will come back to the problem I raised at the outset: You have to deal with people that you do not know and whom you have not appointed. That is a problem. One day, in this modern democracy that Canada claims to be, we will have to take a serious look at that.

[English]

The Chair: I guess that was a question.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: With respect to incorporating the data, when this information is sent to us, we will ensure that the quality is controlled in the 75 ridings in Quebec, and we will make a report. That is something that we can control, at least I think we can, since all of it is on a computer file. We will see what we have sent them and what they have included and we will report on the quality of this data integration.

With respect to the maps that had no street names, that is the type of thing that you will have to tell me about separately. Moreover, as to some of your other observations, I will have to have more specific information. We are open to doing that with each member, so that we can get to the bottom of each case. In the case where a family member does not fall into any category and were the rest of the family was put into two different polling divisions, we would like to have the facts so that we can examine the file and see what happened. Incidents such as these have been raised in the media.

Upon analysis, we have found the names of people who had not registered in 1997. If you don't register and you don't vote, you are not on the list because the names come from no other source. That isn't necessarily an answer, but that does explain part of it.

For example, at some point, a couple wrote to us to ask why the wife's name was on the list when she was a German citizen and not a Canadian. However, she had voted in 1997. That is the type of situation that we can now establish thanks to the computer file, that is to say, who voted and who didn't.

As for the polling stations, you have put your finger on something for which I have no answer, and for which I will have no answer unless I ask her for an explanation.

With regard to the Commissioner, as I said following Ms. Parrish's observations, I will follow up on this to find out exactly what happened, and I will get back to both of you with the information.

[English]

The Chair: So far, so good. Colleagues, there are two of us left. The chair may have a question at the end. We'll go to Mr. Macklin and then Mr. Reid.

We may just wrap up at one o'clock. I'm wondering if colleagues see a need to invite Mr. Kingsley to come back on Tuesday, March 13, or have we substantially covered the territory here? If I don't see an indication that he should come back, he certainly will be back later. If colleagues wished to have him come back, we could invite him. My estimate is we'll have at least an hour's worth of time on Tuesday, March 13, where we might continue to take this up.

Ms. Davies, on that subject.

Ms. Libby Davies: It seems to me, Mr. Chairperson, that there were a number of questions raised today to which Mr. Kingsley was unable to reply. I think it would be great if he could come back and at least provide some of the additional information that we didn't have today. I think it's a very important discussion and it should continue. So I would be in favour of him coming back.

• 1250

The Chair: Sure.

Monsieur Guimond.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: I just have a comment. Let us get back to the purpose of today's exercise on the estimates. Mr. Kingsley will be back, in any event. We really want to question him and we will have a list of topics and cases to debate, when he submits his report on the election, on March 13. I myself am saving a number of questions until then. Perhaps he will determine that everything went very smoothly. We will have questions to ask him. I do not see the point of having him back on March 13, before he has tabled his report.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: In any case, he is to table it in mid- March, and so we will see him again.

Mr. Michel Guimond: We will see him again, after he has tabled his report.

[English]

The Chair: I offered that to colleagues, because there are two or three smaller items we will take up on the Tuesday. There would be extra time available in case we wanted to finish off. But Mr. Kingsley definitely will be coming back in the future on the occasions I described earlier. I just want to try to keep things efficient.

Do you have a comment, Mr. Kingsley?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I am silly putty in the hands of the committee—at one hour's notice, sir.

The Chair: Well, we'll give you a break on Tuesday, March 13, and we'll do our other business instead.

So we'll go to Mr. Macklin, then Mr. Reid.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): Mr. Kingsley, with respect to the voter information cards that have been brought forward, one of the examples brought to my attention of something that could be looked at is that the “or occupant” was in very small print. In many cases, if the name of the person to whom that card was sent wasn't the appropriate one, it was being thrown away—they never caught the concept of “occupant”. Clearly something could be done there to make it more obvious that it was directed to occupancy.

Secondly, I had a number of people who said, “I've voted for years, I've lived here for 40-plus years, I didn't look at revisions, I didn't look at the list, I went to vote, and my name wasn't there.” I'm not sure why those situations occur, unless they're simply errors within the system. But do you have any comment about why we would have so many of them?

Last on my list, with respect to the estimates you've brought forward today and the comments you've made within your opening address, I did a little bit of quick math, and I just want to understand. It looks like it's about $800,000 to run a by-election. No? Is that correct?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: She'll answer in a minute.

Mr. Paul Macklin: Very good.

And it appears that in the general election context it's about $660,000 per riding, if I'm right in my math, which would leave a difference of some 20% or more in running a by-election. Is this due to economies of scale? Is an improvement in the ability to run an election? What would be the comment in relation to the difference in cost between a by-election and a general election, as it relates to each individual riding?

Ms. Janice Vézina (Director, Election Financing, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer): The $1.6 million that's indicated in supplementary estimates for by-elections includes St. John's West at $500,000, Kings—Hants, and Okanagan—Coquihalla at just over $1 million for the two, and then some clean-up of previous by-elections. So it's just over $500,000 each.

Mr. Paul Macklin: So on average about $800,000 per?

Ms. Janice Vézina: No, just over $500,000—there are three by-elections.

Mr. Paul Macklin: Oh, there are three by-elections there.

Ms. Janice Vézina: Yes.

Mr. Paul Macklin: So then maybe the question is, why does it cost us more—is that the fact?—to run a general election than to do by-elections?

Ms. Janice Vézina: What normally happens with by-elections is that the work at headquarters is absorbed basically by the ongoing staff. With a general election, we have to hire new staff, we have to build an infrastructure to support the volumes that occur.

Mr. Paul Macklin: And that would be the difference?

Ms. Janice Vézina: Yes.

• 1255

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: If I may, with respect to the other two questions, I'll answer the first one or make a comment about the first one on the voter information card.

It's clear to us that we're going to have to revise the functioning of the voter information card. In regard to the printing of the variable information on the back of the card, it may be more desirable to have it following, and have an opportunity to detach and make that “or occupant” more significant. On the other hand, it may be that we will have to revise it in other ways as well—and we'll want to discuss this with you, because it has an impact.

But those voter information cards are the same ones that we tested during the by-elections. Of course, by-elections are only so good in terms of preparing you for an election. But none of the problems that you've manifested today or have described today came out during the by-elections when we tested the voter information cards in, I think, eight by-elections.

So we will have to review the functioning of the information card because we're not happy with it. I indicated one thing was that we would consider not delivering it to apartments, instead doing door-to-door revision in those areas that are targeted for revision. That way we would avoid that problem of the pileups of the cards, and they would only be delivered individually to persons who register. The other ones would go to single-family homes or condos where this is not a problem. So there's a relationship to be built there.

Rennie, I would like you to address the error rate with respect to people who get moved, because I think the committee has a right to know what the error rate is, and why someone who has been voting for forty years all of a sudden no longer exists.

Mr. Paul Macklin: But the assumption is that they haven't moved.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I know, but you'll find out why—

Mr. Paul Macklin: They were moved off the list.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: The fact is that they haven't moved, but insofar as we're concerned, they have moved. We'll tell you why and what the percentage is.

Mr. Rennie Molnar: For the vast majority, if people were on the list after the 1997 election and they have not moved, they were on the list for the 2000 election.

When we process administrative data sources such as a driver's licence file, what we do is match an address and a name with what we have on the register by using probabilistic matching techniques so that we can make that link and then change somebody's address. We find John Smith on the driver's licence file with a certain date of birth and J. Smith on our file with a certain date of birth. We make that match and we make an address change. In a small percentage of the cases—about 0.3%—we make that link incorrectly and we move people incorrectly. In terms of the moves that we made incorrectly, we estimate that there may have been about 30,000 of them across the country. That's one way someone could potentially get off the list.

The only other way that I'm aware of is if someone registered, for example, in revision during the election in 1997 and the address information that we got from them at that point in time was not adequate enough for us to get one of those voter information cards to them this time.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: The way to solve that.... Number one, it's impossible to be absolutely perfect. You have probabilistic matching in order to get as many moves that are genuine as possible. But because it is probabilistic, you have a certain percentage because the tools you're using allow that to happen. They let you match somebody who should not be matched. In point of fact, 0.15% of the electorate is affected by this, and that gives us that 30,000 across the land. In percentage terms, it doesn't represent a lot. In terms of individuals, it does represent a significant number.

What we're going to do is succeed in making slightly fewer moves, while reducing the number of people who are being moved unwittingly because of matching errors. In other words, we're going to have to develop even better matching tools than those we have at the present time. The ones we have are quite sophisticated, but we will develop even more sophisticated ones. By the way, we shared the functioning of them with the advisory committee of political parties, and they saw what the matches were.

But it's an important point. We'll have to perfect that tool to improve it.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kingsley. I found that very informative.

• 1300

We are actually at our one o'clock point. It probably is not technically necessary for all members to stay in the event that they have other commitments, but we'll continue the meeting to allow for Mr. Reid and a couple of questions that I have. If any of you have to leave now, let's wish each other well in our work in our ridings next week.

Mr. Reid, it's over to you.

Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Carleton, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Kingsley, for coming to the committee. I'm looking forward to the many future meetings that I gather we'll be having over the course of the spring.

I wanted to return to a couple of the subjects that had come up, and I'll then throw out a question on an unrelated subject. I'll then let you pick and choose how to answer. Let me start with Mrs. Parrish's comments and questions, but perhaps we'll skip the virginity question.

On the whole question of the 61% turnout, the short period of the vote and what the relationship there might be, I guess I'm calling upon your expertise in looking at past Canadian history, of course, but also the electoral cycles in other countries, other jurisdictions, that you might be aware of. Also, I concur with her, I think it's a problem, but I wanted to draw upon your expertise.

I also wanted to ask whether one could perhaps solve the problem of low turnout, or at least begin to address it, by consideration of the option of balloting on a Saturday or Sunday—as is the tradition in some European countries—as opposed to the traditional weekday balloting that's used in Canada.

On the subject of targeted revision, I thought your points were very apropos that the old-fashioned enumeration also would not catch people at home. Like my colleague Mr. Reynolds, I was one of the people who had to go in to register on the spot. I was quite impressed with the punctiliousness of the people who were registering me. Despite the fact that I was a candidate and I lived just down the street from the polling station, and notwithstanding the fact that I had a television crew in tow, they nevertheless went through the process and made me give my pieces of identification.

I wonder if there are other means of catching people who are not at home—and I want to suggest one. You can take it under advisement if you choose, or perhaps give a comment. It's now possible to use demon diallers. Those are random diallers that call up and then leave a message without ringing when they reach somebody who actually has a voice messaging service through the phone company. When the person checks their telephone, they find a message waiting for them. They can then go through and get that message, which can perhaps inform them about some of the things you've been trying to get through by means of your advertising. That's just a thought.

Finally, I had a question on a completely different subject. It relates to the manner in which returning officers are appointed. My understanding is that this is done currently by Order in Council rather than through your own office. Although I have no complaints with the level of professionalism that occurred in my own riding—in fact, I was quite impressed by it, given the difficult circumstances that the RO had to work with—I nevertheless wonder if one could perhaps deal with some of the problems that occur under the current situation if in fact the appointment process were changed.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Well, let me dispose of the last one first. Nothing occurred in this election that made me change my mind that the Chief Electoral Officer should run competitions to staff the returning officer positions and determine them on the basis of merit. Nothing has happened to change my mind.

With respect to leaving a message to check if people are all registered and so on and so forth, it's something we'll take under advisement. It's one of those suggestions that we will want to look at and come back to you with. We're not just going to look at them and drop them, or do something with them without coming back to you. I'd like to engage in and start a dialogue with the committee.

I'm also going to suggest that at some stage you may wish to have this committee strike a subcommittee to deal directly with Elections Canada on a permanent basis, as we do with the advisory committee of political parties. What I'm finding is that we do things with the advisory committee of political parties. I assume that they get back to you, but then I find out that it's not happening all over the place at the same time and with the same information. So I really would like that, because I would like to be meeting regularly with members of Parliament on this statute and on how we implement it.

There's a lot of stuff that goes on in my office. I brought along a part of the senior management cadre here so that you could see that, and so that they could answer directly more questions if you went into more detail. There's a lot more we'd like to share with you in terms of the changes, in terms of how things work, what is feasible and what is not.

• 1305

With respect to changing polling day to Saturday or Sunday, that is an idea that the royal commission ballooned at one time, and it got shot down because of the difficulty people have with voting on a Sunday. We can all guess what the reaction would be if we decided to hold polling day on a Saturday.

If it were a holiday on the day of the vote—for example a holiday Monday—I don't know if that would attract more electors or have the opposite effect.

Mr. Scott Reid: Do you know of other jurisdictions where that in fact is done?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Quebec.

Mr. Scott Reid: Oh. Well, there you go.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: When there's a Quebec election, at least the schools are out.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Only the schools.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Yes. The schools are out, so they can at least use the schools for polling purposes, and the teachers are out, which is significant also.

Mr. Scott Reid: Are there jurisdictions overseas that you know of where that's done? Do you have any idea how that affects the—

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Usually they do it on a Sunday. That's how many other countries I've been involved with have solved it. They have established it as part of their tradition that the election is held on a Sunday.

The Chair: I would like to point out that our other colleagues from the Bloc Québécois have booked the room for this time, and they are extending a courtesy by letting us wrap up here.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I want to make one quick comment with respect to low turnout. In the information we gave you, we have produced statistics that demonstrate that it doesn't matter if you're enumerating or if you have a register of electors, the rate is going down, and it's not related to how you're picking up the names. I thought that the discussion created through the musings of the Chief Electoral Officer with the reporter who is in the back of this room and most of the resulting editorials gave Canadians a lot of meat to chew on about what is impacting on turnout rates.

The Chair: That is in fact, Mr. Kingsley, an issue of significant concern. I'm assuming that will come back as an issue when you return on one of the other occasions.

I would just flag one issue for you. There may be a few prosecutions of federal election candidates taking place out there by municipalities or other parties in relation to signage and that type of thing. Could you bundle that together in one file for us? That question may come up at a future meeting as well. We'll have some concerns, not just for those who are sitting MPs now, but also for those who were unsuccessful candidates in the federal election. Is that okay?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Okay. We have that.

The Chair: Thank you very much. This is quite a complex issue. We've made a good start on it today. Thank you to both you and your team for attending.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Thank you all for the opportunity.

The Chair: We're adjourned.