Bill C-50 (Historical)

Citizen Voting Act

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) eliminate the international register of electors and incorporate all of the information contained in it into the Register of Electors;
(b) require electors who are resident outside Canada to make an application for registration and special ballot after the issue of the writs at each election;
(c) stipulate that electors who are resident outside Canada may only receive a special ballot for the address at which they last resided in Canada;
(d) require that electors who are applying for a special ballot under Division 3 or 4 of Part 11 include in their application for registration and special ballot proof of identity and residence and, if they apply from outside Canada, proof of Canadian citizenship;
(e) require that an external auditor perform an audit and report on election workers’ compliance with special ballot voting procedures and requirements for every election;
(f) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information for the purpose of assisting the Chief Electoral Officer to, among other things, delete from the Register of Electors the names of persons who are not Canadian citizens; and
(g) add the offence of voting or attempting to vote by special ballot under Division 3 or 4 of Part 11 while knowing that one is not qualified as an elector and add offences under those Divisions of attesting to the residence of more than one elector and of acting as an attestor when one’s own residence has already been attested to.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Monsieur Mayrand was quite laudatory in his comments about that provision contained in Bill C-50. I assume you agree with that and that you think that's a positive move.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Bill C-50 does it by having the Chief Electoral Officer gain access to information with the ministries of Employment and Immigration so that he can access the names of non-citizens.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I appreciate that.

I know that over the past number of elections evidence has come forward that there have actually been non-eligible voters included in the National Register of Electors. I think in the 2006 election evidence came forward that there were over 40,000 people, due to administrative errors, who were actually placed on the National Register of Electors who weren't actually eligible to be on that registry.

What safeguards do you think are required to try to ensure compliance, not just with residents in Canada but more specifically with Bill C-50 with non-residents?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

No comment on age coming from me.

Some of the main criticisms of Bill C-50, at least some of the ones we've heard in committee, have been from those who suggest that the requirements for producing identification for non-residents is too onerous. You mentioned that in your opening remarks, so I'd like to get a bit of an expansion on that. Do you think it is overly taxing on non-residents to have to produce identification that actually proves that they're a citizen of this country? If so, then why would they be treated any differently from Canadians who reside in Canada who have to produce certain forms of identification?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Former Chief Electoral Officer, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, it's a privilege to appear before the committee once again. Thank you.

I believe that I understand the objectives set out in the bill, in light of the court's decision in Frank. I have read the presentation of the Chief Electoral Officer and reviewed members' input, all of which I appreciate.

Consequently, I would like to propose alternatives aimed at achieving the same ends as the bill, all the while unburdening the process in light of the right of Canadians to vote.

The first one would be that a further advantage of the fixed election date would allow the start of the registration process 30 days before the issuance of the writs, therefore allowing reasonable time to process the required documentation and to overcome difficulties, if there are any. In the case of a minority government, the Chief Electoral Officer could initiate the process, and if no election is called within three or four months, let's say, it would have to start again. Registrants would be advised that this had happened.

Second, under Bill C-50, the passport would now be required, as has been the practice until now. That's how people got on the list, essentially. It will serve automatically as proof of ID, as it has your picture and your name. For proof of a last address in Canada, should it coincide with the data in the register of electors, no other proof would have to be required.

Driver's licence data, I remind you, is provided every two or three months for updates to the register, thus making it essentially the same information, and we're asking people to provide proof of a driver's licence amongst one of the documents. If you're already on the register at the address that you're claiming to be your last address, that would be it. If the address differs, the alternatives in the bill will then prevail. You must provide proof of address, as the bill requires. I noted that the register will be purged of non-Canadians, and I think this helps the acceptance of the measure that I've just mentioned.

With respect to the third proposal, the list of those electors would be kept for the subsequent election and not incorporated in the register. Canadians still living abroad would need to reapply, which is what the bill asks for, and would be verified against this list. It would be used by the CEO for registry quality control purposes as well, something that we all aspire to.

I wanted to make a comment as well with respect to military personnel. It's important to remember that they may change their address in Canada annually. That's their right. Spouses and elector dependants do not have that right. Military personnel will receive their voting package automatically. Spouses and dependants will not. They have to reapply one way or the other.

There's a fifth point that I wish to make with respect to proofs of ID and address. A further measure would be to recognize the VIC as proof of address. Another proof of ID would still be required.

I will add as well, as a personal comment, that it is completely incongruent to me that the Canada Elections Act, which is a federal statute, does not recognize the VIC as proof of both when it is the only federally issued document that contains both. A federal law says that you must have these two things, but no federal agency except the Chief Electoral Officer has it, and Parliament says to the Chief Electoral Officer, “You can't use that.”

By the way, my comments are for both proofs, but my recommendation is that it be used as proof of address at this stage, in order to make the recommendation somewhat acceptable. Any resulting confusion with the new terminology on acceptable documents—and I saw the debate on this—should in my view result in a provisional ballot, to be resolved before the official results are announced. We have seven days after polling day for official results.

If a deputy returning officer is not satisfied that the proof of ID or address that's been provided to him is acceptable, he could not reject that elector if the elector said, “I want you to provisionally put that aside and check with the Chief Electoral Officer.” There would not be that many, and therefore, they could be easily controlled after the event.

That also raises, though, the interesting phenomenon of electors not having sufficient ID and proof of address, if we introduce the concept of provisional ballots; and that is that they could vote provisionally, go home and bring the proof that is missing, not having understood what was required when they went to the polls initially and therefore adding to the substitute for vouching, which was introduced in Bill C-23, I think.

Mr. Chairman, those are the comments I had to make with respect to what I considered to be concrete proposals on how to build upon the objectives of the proposed statute and at the same time facilitate this for Canadian electors, and not change the basic tenet, which is that electors living abroad must exercise initiative to get on the list to be approved for that election, and they then must vote. All of that requires initiative beyond what is required here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We will proceed. We're here at our 82nd meeting of the procedure and House affairs committee, pursuant to an order of reference of Monday, May 4, on Bill C-50. We have with us today—I won't say an “old” friend—a long-time friend.

Mr. Kingsley, it's great to have you back. We've always enjoyed it when you've visited our committee, and we think we'll enjoy it today.

If you have an opening statement, please go ahead. I know the members will be happy to ask you some very hard questions.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Yes, this is back more on the main estimates than Bill C-50. I forgot to ask it originally, so my apologies for that.

I just received information that I need some clarification on from you. It's in regard to what's considered to be pre-writ expenses for an EDA, and it's in regard to polling. If an EDA conducted a poll that was requested by the EDA and not promoted whatsoever by the candidate, and that poll was on a number of questions, on policy questions and other questions, including the horse-race question—electoral preference—I know that in previous years if it was conducted outside of the election period it wasn't considered a campaign expense. My understanding is that now it might be considered a campaign expense. Can you clarify that for me?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thanks.

I'll be very brief. I just want to respond to Mr. Christopherson's earlier comments. I don't know if he said that he didn't want to impugn the motives of the government or would certainly almost retract his statements if he had impugned the motives of the government on some of these key questions. Unfortunately, of course, the minister has not yet appeared before committee to answer the questions that the opposition may have, and frankly, some of our questions as well, but I know he will be coming. I believe he's scheduled for the 28th. Frankly, I wish he could come a bit before then, but unfortunately his schedule doesn't permit.

I can assure you from the government's standpoint that there's no ulterior motive here to deny people the right to vote. That is simply not the intention nor the objective of this bill. If there are problems or perceived problems as identified by members of the opposition, the person to speak with obviously would be the minister. But for the record, I want to point out that all we are attempting to do in Bill C-50 is to ensure the propriety, the accuracy, and the legitimacy of the vote. If that is not understood by the opposition, I'm here to enforce that.

Thank you, Chair.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's problematic for a whole bunch of reasons on your end in terms of time, resources, and the ability to get people in a position such that they can vote. But it also makes it more difficult for people to vote, which takes us right back to some of the problems we had with Bill C-23.

So I want to say to the government right now that on these two issues, unless they have a good explanation of why they're here—I'm going to raise the other issue about voter ID—both of these things look just like the problems we had with Bill C-23. The government is doing whatever they can to put in bureaucratic hoops that make it more difficult for people to vote by virtue of the steps that are involved, so that eventually they'll just say, “Aw, to heck with it.” That's what this looks like.

If we're wrong and I'm impugning the motives of our government, then I'm quite ready to hear quickly from Mr. Lukiwski that this is wrong and that is not the case, but so far it's looking like that to us.

Now, on the other one, voter ID, this was an even bigger issue in Bill C-23. We went through this whole thing. This whole issue of voter ID was part of why we had filibusters. Now it looks as if the government's trying to bring in through the back door with Bill C-50 what they couldn't achieve through the front door in Bill C-23.

My understanding is that the language is pretty clear, and you're very clear in your language, sir, and as an agent of Parliament, you folks are always very careful about words you use. You state in your analysis sheet that:

There will be no way for deputy returning officers or those receiving applications for special ballots to readily ascertain whether an entity is incorporated in or otherwise formed in Canada. The restriction is likely to cause confusion at the polls on the part of election officers, candidates' representatives and voters.

This sounds like the makings of a huge problem. I'm trying to understand—and my sense is that you are too—what it means when the law is now going to say “an entity that is incorporated or formed by...an Act of Parliament” or a provincial legislature “or that is otherwise formed in Canada”. That doesn't make any sense to me. What I'm hearing from you, sir, is that you're not clear on what that means either, or am I missing the point?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

Thank you again, Monsieur, for attending. It's always enlightening to have you here.

I'm somewhat jarred by this one issue, and oftentimes there's maybe a part of it I'm not getting.

First of all, there's the elimination of the International Register of Electors. Bill C-50 would get rid of it. Are you aware of problems? Is it broken and obviously in need of repair?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

The minister has said that Bill C-50 simply extends the rules in Bill C-23 on what the forms of ID are, and that's actually completely erroneous, because the new proposed subsection 143(2.11) is a new restriction on what you, as the Chief Electoral Officer, are allowed to delegate as ID across the board. Is that correct?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Okay. Did you want to add to that? No?

I have a final question on the coming into force. We're not far away from October 19. In light of the changes made by Bill C-23 that have to go through, and now this, Bill C-50, time is really tight. Is it possible to enact all this?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Okay.

One of the issues the minister brings up quite a bit is this idea of “riding shopping”, or being able to vote indiscriminately in any riding they choose, as one of the reasons why Bill C-50 exists. Did you see that as a major problem?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

So experience suggests that waiting to register until the election has been called already increases the chances that a ballot won't come in, and that's even before all these additional procedural components in Bill C-50. I think you would agree—and I think you've already said—that the dangers of delay created by having to wait are real. Is that correct?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Great, and that's something in this bill that we support as a reform. I wanted to make sure it was clear because it's being put out there almost as a way to send a subliminal signal to people about why there's a need for the rest of the bill, which has nothing to do with that issue.

Last, apart from having signalled some time ago in your own report at one stage that this would be a desirable reform—and therefore we have to be thankful the minister has now done it in this bill—were you consulted on Bill C-50?