Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 8, Evidence - May 1, 2014
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 1, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs met this day at 10:30 a.m. to examine the subject matter of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments to certain acts; and for the consideration of a draft agenda.
Senator Bob Runciman (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning and welcome, colleagues, invited guests, and members of the general public who are following today's proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
We are continuing our pre-study on Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts. This bill proposes amendments to numerous aspects of Canada's electoral law.
This is our eighth meeting on this subject matter. A quick note to members before we begin: We have had a last-minute cancellation by the witness from the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. However, members have received copies of their brief. As a reminder to members, after our witness testimony today we will be meeting in camera to discuss other matters.
For our first panel of witnesses this morning, please welcome, as individuals, Ian Lee, Associate Professor, the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, and Louis Massicotte, Professor at Université Laval.
I understand you both have opening statements. Professor Massicotte, would you like to begin?
Louis Massicotte, Professor, Université Laval, as an individual: If you wish.
The Chair: Please proceed.
Mr. Massicotte: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make my presentation in French and I will answer questions in either language.
[Translation]
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the committee for inviting me here today.
The bill under your consideration has been the subject of intense controversy that has extended beyond the confines of Parliament, which is rather unusual for this kind of measure. The bill perhaps reflects a tension between Parliament and Elections Canada that is more destructive than it is creative.
My professional career has involved both these institutions. I was a researcher with the Library of Parliament for approximately 10 years, which included working for the Standing Committee on Elections and Privileges, the committee that considers election laws. I then worked for the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer in various capacities for five years.
What these two institutions had in common was their political neutrality. A researcher was once asked by a senator — a rather awkward question — if he was happy with the outcome of the most recent elections, and the researcher answered "Senator, the Library of Parliament is happy with the results of all elections." I found the same mentality to be true of Elections Canada.
As an academic, and as one who is reasonably familiar with issues related to electoral reform, I have carried out research for Elections Canada. The most recent research I did was on the evolution of duties of poll clerks and deputy returning officers, as defined in election laws since 1920. Given the current climate it is perhaps a good idea for me to mention that. The report is available on the organization's website. Some may be inclined to think that because of this I should abstain from speaking on this topic. I did in fact hesitate to become involved in the debate. However, you invited me, and anyone who asks for my opinion runs the risk of getting it.
I was in Australia when most of the debate on Bill C-23 took place and as, you know, in that country one almost never hears anything about Canada. I was therefore very surprised to open the newspaper one morning and see an article on Australian election law reform that said this:
[English]
Canada's government, embroiled in a furor after disenfranchising 120,000 voters by changing identification standards, has demonstrated the way not to go about important electoral reform. Australia's changes should be driven by Parliament's multi-party Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.
[Translation]
I was mainly interested in the comment on process, and it is precisely the issue of the process for changing electoral legislation that I will be speaking about. By the way, I have learned over the years that in Canada especially procedure is almost just as important as content when it comes to reform. In terms of electoral legislation reform, Parliament, for about 80 years, always proceeded in the following way: a special parliamentary committee on the Elections Act was struck; statutory reports of the Chief Electoral Officer, private members' bills and suggestions from the public at large about this topic were referred to it. Members from all parties represented in the House, after having heard the Chief Electoral Officer and other witnesses, adopted recommendations that sometimes even took the form and shape of a draft bill. The government then brought forward a bill that for the most part contained the committee's recommendations. This was a collegial process that avoided surprises and facilitated consensus.
Why was that procedure used? In my opinion, it was simply because previously other more expeditious methods had been tried but had not been very successful. Therefore, without necessarily giving you the entire history of the Elections Act, I will simply state that in June 1934, the Prime Minister at the time, Mr. Bennett, two weeks before the end of the session, pulled out of his hat two huge bills that created a permanent voters' list as well as a distinct organization — the Chief Registering Officer — to compile that registry.
Opposition members, as well as the Chief Electoral Officer at the time, Mr. Castonguay, became aware of these two documents the day they were tabled in the House. Both were adopted in one week. Bingo! However, afterwards, a House committee concluded after three years of work — and this was a unanimous conclusion — that the reforms that were adopted so quickly in 1934 had ended up leading to some very bad results and in the end the reforms had to be abolished and the previous system reinstated.
Perhaps it is because of this negative experience that Parliament acquired the habit, since the second half of the 1930s, of proceeding in the more collegial manner that I have just described.
The few times that procedure was not used over the past few years were, in my opinion, mistakes. In 1986, the government published a white paper on election law reform which became Bill C-79, a bill full of excellent ideas except that the opposition parties were wary of a document that had been drafted without their input. In the end, it took seven years and the report of a royal commission for the reforms to be passed.
The second example I am going to give you involves a government of a different political stripe. In 2003, Mr. Chrétien took a unilateral approach to reforming financial policy. You know the rest: subsidies to political parties were instituted despite opposition from the Canadian Alliance Party, they were then abolished by the next government in just as unilateral a fashion.
I know that multiparty consensus takes longer but there is also a better chance of it lasting longer. Consensus is not always possible; however, in an area such as electoral rules, in my humble opinion, it is very worthwhile. What one government has imposed, another can take away in the same fashion. "Crash through or crash," as the Australians say, "make it or break it," as we say. It is not the best way to work in that area, especially in a country like ours. Election laws are not the property of professors, they are not the property of Elections Canada, they are not the property of opposition members, but, in my humble opinion, nor are they the property of the government of the day.
Your committee has lightened the mood a little by undertaking a pre-study and suggesting amendments. The government also decided last Friday to let go of something, so I am happy to see that. I hope that this bill, if it cannot be simply withdrawn, will at least have its most controversial provisions withdrawn.
I would now be happy to answer any questions you may have on more specific details.
[English]
Ian Lee, Associate Professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, as an individual: Thank you for inviting me before your august committee and the distinguished Upper House of the Parliament of Canada. I am a Canadian who supports the Senate of Canada and I have published op-eds to that effect. In the words of Carly Simon: you have a friend sitting here.
Today I will only address vouching. I have done over 250 research hours on this issue. Critics have not understood, I argue, this is a debate concerning the identification policies of large public and private institutions in a modern, complex society and the extensiveness and the pervasiveness of these multiple overlapping personal identification systems.
Restated: The arguments of the critics in favour of vouching implicitly assume, although it's unstated, that there are significant numbers of Canadians without identity cards; yet in Canada today, every large organization, public and private, has completely digitized organization recordkeeping, including employee and personal records.
Thus, I argue, Mr. Mayrand and Mr. Neufeld and the now over 400 professors who have unwittingly significantly overestimated the number of Canadians with zero identity cards due to their apparent lack of familiarity and research with the very substantial identification systems operated today by government agencies, departments and private firms.
It appears they took the evidence of vouching in the last election as proof of absence of identity cards. Restated as a logical proposition, the critics argue as follows: The presence of A, vouching, proves the absence of B, identity cards.
I will give you an example. Ian Lee owns a bicycle; therefore, this proves that Ian Lee does not own a car. As you understand, this is specious logic because it is a bogus correlation of two disconnected conditions or facticities.
I will argue contra Mayrand, Neufeld and the 400 professors, based on my extensive empirical applied research, it is legally and factually impossible in Canada today to be digitally invisible with zero identity of any kind in any database anywhere, i.e. significant numbers of Canadians are not being recorded, tracked or monitored by any government agency or private firm anywhere.
I'll now highlight the empirical evidence from government agencies and statutes that mandate record collection on Canadians who provide identification cards. In Canada today, enormously powerful, real-time-connected mainframe computers and modern bureaucracies, public and private, create massive interconnected databases on we, the people. Hospital databases register an electronic hospital record the very moment we're born. Provincial vital statistics acts across the country require by law that every birth, marriage and death is registered in provincial records; in other words, the basis of birth certificates, death certificates and marriage certificates.
SIN numbers are registered in the federal database. Primary and secondary education databases record, by law, our progress through the education system with identification cards issued. The health ministry database requires immunization shots be completed and recorded; municipal databases record library cards.
Properly understood, Canadians are recorded in multiple overlapping digital identification databases, and their corresponding outputs, which are identify cards. From health care cards to driver's licences to student ID cards to employees cards to birth certificates to passports to SIN cards to auto ownership cards to library cards to debit cards to credit cards to Aboriginal identity cards, which can be understood as overlapping VENN diagrams such that at the centre of all these overlapping and intersecting circles there are zero Canadians with zero identity cards.
You'll get the document from me with all the URLs documenting the government agencies from which I've sourced this information. I will highlight it.
Number 1: Every Canadian must have a health care ID card to access any health care in Canada. I reviewed five provincial government agencies and the three territories, which made it very clear you cannot access a doctor, clinic or hospital without a health card.
Number 2: Income Tax Act, section 237 makes a SIN card provision mandatory with a penalty of $100 to Canadians if they don't get one. But that's not just for employment. You need a SIN card to apply for a Canada Education Savings Grant, RESPs, RRSPs, unemployment insurance, CPP, QPP, OIS, GIS, Child Tax Benefit, student loans, GST rebates, social assistance benefits, veterans' benefits and worker's compensation.
Number 3: The FCAC, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada established by parliamentarians found that 96 per cent of all adult Canadians have a bank account.
Number 4: The FCAC found that 94 per cent of all Canadians have a debit card. These are astonishingly high numbers.
Number 5: Canadian Bankers Association report that there are 71 million credit cards held by Canadians. Note that only 12 million people voted in 2011. So this is about six times the number of people who voted. Clearly Canadians process multiple credit cards, but the issue is whether we have an absence of identity.
Number 6: Statistics Canada reports that 69 per cent of adult Canadians are homeowners with registered deeds of title, because all the people in this room will know that you cannot do land transactions with verbal contracts. They must be in writing; therefore, every homeowner in this country has a deed that states their name and the address of their property.
Number 7: Statistics Canada, 31 per cent of adult Canadians rent with written tenancy agreements required under landlord and tenant acts across the country.
Number 8: This one really got me. Transport Canada records 29 million vehicles registered in Canada. That's cars, trucks and motorcycles. Every ownership certificate of a car, truck or motorcycle must provide a name and an address. That's three times the number of people that voted in 2011.
Number 9: I just got this public information. It did take some digging with Transport Canada, and I do have the complete spreadsheet broken down by province, age, segment and so forth. There are 23.8 million licensed drivers in Canada. If we subtract those below the age of majority, it reduces to 22 million licensed drivers in Canada; however, Mr. Mayrand claimed that only 85 per cent of the 18 million eligible voters have driver's licenses, i.e. 15 million.
There is a discrepancy between Mr. Mayrand of 15 million licenced drivers and Transport Canada that states empirically there are 22 million licensed drivers in Canada above the age of majority. That's more than the number of eligible voters of 18 million; so he argued it was only 85 per cent so a driver's licence wasn't a universal device. I'm arguing it is more than universal because it's more than the number of voters. I'm not sure how that can be, but there you go.
Number 10: Passport Canada reports that 70 per cent of Canadians have a passport per their 2012 annual report, up from 45 per cent in 2008. Why did it skyrocket? Well, 2008 — and this is a direct quote from the U.S. Homeland Security website:
The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was designed to address the risks posed by accepting oral declarations and the many potentially unsecured documents presented at the border.
So what did we do as Canadians because of this change? We changed our behaviour and we all ran out and got passports, and the passport office is predicting that figure is going to continue to climb.
Number 11: There were stories of students being disenfranchised because they have no ID. I laughed when I heard this. I'm in university; I'm a professor. I proctor my own exams as we're required to do, and professors should have known better. Every university and college in this country requires that every student provide photo ID to write every last exam in every last course. So the idea that you can wander into an exam and write it without photo ID is preposterous.
Statistics Canada reports 2 million people in colleges and universities. Every student is issued a photo ID card, and every student must present it to write an exam.
Number 12: These are the databases I'm presenting to you to disprove that there are people without identity. Public Works, responsible for all federal government buildings in Canada, mandates photo ID to enter any government building, including — hang on — Elections Canada. To enter Elections Canada, I need photo ID, which I thought was interesting.
Number 13: The Parliament of Canada. I just had to present my photo ID to come here — they won't accept utility bills, by the way.
Number 14 is Aboriginal Affairs Canada: 800,000 Aboriginal identity cards have been issued, according to the department — necessary for any Aboriginal in Canada to obtain the numerous benefits that they are legitimately and completely entitled to, including HST rebates. You can't walk up and say, "Give me a repeat" without an identity card.
Number 15: Statistics Canada reports 2 million flights in 2012 on Air Canada and WestJet, each requiring photo ID. Everybody knows the miserable experience it is to fly today, and you have to present your photo ID multiple times.
Number 16: The Canadian Library Association reports on their website that 360 million visits were made in person to libraries — 164 million visits were to public libraries, 88 million to academic libraries, and 108 million to school libraries across Canada. We all know you need a library card to remove the material from the library.
Number 17 is getting at the argument that low-income Canadians are disenfranchised and are disproportionally vulnerable. I argue the exact opposite; I want to turn the upside. My research has shown that low-income people need more identification, not less, to access the myriad of government benefits in this country; they're very stringent and demanding.
Number 17: The Canadian Bus Association's submission to the federal-provincial Intercity Bus Service Task Force — and I believe the Senate did a very nice report on this as well — documented the intercity bus traveller — the 3 per cent of people who travel by bus — and stated bluntly that they're marginal, low-income Canadians. So then I went to the Greyhound website and found out that to buy a ticket and to board a Greyhound bus, you need photo identification. My goodness.
Number 18: Canadian Bankers Association. To open an account, pursuant to the Bank Act passed by Parliamentarians you must present two pieces of primary identification — meaning birth certificate, passport, that sort of thing; not utility bills.
Number 19: I use this as a proxy or a representation of all provincial governments. I looked up Ontario Works, which is the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and these are the examples of the identity you must bring in to apply — not to obtain but to apply — for social assistance: your SIN card, your health card, your birth certificate, your bank account statement, your mortgage or rental agreement, your record of employment or most recent paystubs, a copy of your Child Tax Benefit if you have children, information about other money you're receiving such as a pension, and information about assets. That's vastly more onerous than anything in this elections bill.
So I concluded, after spending well over 250 research hours on the ever-expanding list of identification systems in Canada, first, that no one else has attempted to provide a comprehensive summary of the extant identification systems in Canada. My advice to this committee, and indeed to any parliamentary committee or any journalist interviewing any person making claims or allegations concerning any aspect of public policy, should be to adopt the sage advice of Cuba Gooding Jr. in that wonderful movie Jerry Maguire when he said, "Jerry, you're my friend, but show me the money."
I challenge Mr. Mayrand and Mr. Neufeld and the 400 professors to show you parliamentarians the money — the empirical evidence of substantial numbers of Canadians with zero identification. I argue before you today that this claim is a content-free, manufactured urban legend. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, professor, and we have members who have indicated an interest in asking questions. We'll begin with the deputy chair.
Senator Baker: Thank you to both witnesses. I would like to say a special welcome to the person known as the omniscient Dr. Lee. I was recently in a Political Science 101 class, giving a short address, and the professor there, after playing one of our debates — called the Baker-Lee Debates years ago — called you the "wise man of the East" in that he agreed with you on the subject and disagreed with me. I think he just picked the wrong debate, but anyway.
Dr. Lee, we heard evidence before this committee yesterday from one of the returning officers. The returning officers said something in response to a question posed to her involving the constitutionality of this bill in that if anyone's right to vote is removed, this will constitute a violation of section 3 of the Charter, which will not be saved by section 1 of the Charter and the legislation would be struck down as being unconstitutional. That was the intent of the question: Could somebody lose their opportunity to vote even if they used due diligence?
She gave the example of an elderly couple — I believe she put it that way — where the woman of the household did not have any ID, would never receive mail and so on, and that person — Senator Plett is shaking his head, but I can show you the record where she said this — and that the lady of the household would not be able to vote unless vouching existed, under this bill, unless she had one piece of ID.
So you're saying that there is no Canadian today of voting age in this country with zero pieces of ID to show at the polling booth; is that correct?
Mr. Lee: Yes. And thank you for your very kind words, Senator Baker. I speak very highly of you wherever I go and in courses at Carleton, so I want to reciprocate.
What I didn't state in my opening statement, because I knew this was going to come up, is that I'm not suggesting that people do not walk into the polling booth with zero ID. I have gone to my doctor's office twice in the last three years and I forgot my OHIP card. In both instances, they said, "I'm sorry; you cannot see the doctor. You have to go back and get your card." I was told to go get the card and come back, and I did that.
I've forgotten my wallet at home and driven down the road without my driver's licence, completely accidentally and inadvertently. That does not mean I don't have ID; it means I forgot my ID at home.
I'm not suggesting there are zero people who forget their ID; there are zero people who have zero ID. That ID may be in the car or a glove compartment —
Senator Baker: What ID would that woman have?
Mr. Lee: As a senior?
Senator Baker: Yes, or as any individual would have.
Mr. Lee: I've already given the evidence of the 22 million Canadians with driver's licences across the country.
Senator Baker: Suppose she doesn't have a driver's licence.
Mr. Lee: The stats are showing the opposite, though. That's why I want to say.
There are 18 million eligible voters and there are 22 million Canadians who have drivers' licences who are 18 and older. There are 29 million automobiles, trucks and motorcycles, and most people carry their driver's licence, their ownership and insurance with them because it's required by yet another law.
Senator Baker: Your point is that the woman would have health care.
Mr. Lee: She would have health care because it's universal.
One final point: You're the lawyer, so I'm going to defer to you, but keep in mind that if you're going to invoke the Charter, there is a freedom of movement and association and that's going to call into question mandatory photo ID to board an airplane or to cross the border. I think it will be found that it's a reasonable restriction under the Charter, but I defer to you; you're the lawyer.
Senator Frum: I have a question for each of you. I'll start with Dr. Lee. At the end, it was quite a tour de force and a very persuasive presentation, and I agree with what you say. So I have two questions for you.
One is when you talk about this content-free urban legend about the ID-free Canadians, we have seen the position that you referred to by Elections Canada and the 400 professors, one of whom is with us today, who have this bias, that there is an ID problem in Canada. Where is that bias coming from? What is the motivation of Elections Canada to insist people don't have ID?
Mr. Lee: I thank you for that question. I was hoping it would come up.
I'm not suggesting that Mr. Mayrand is unprofessional or that he has acted in a deceitful fashion. I assure you I am not.
I am going to invoke your op-ed. I was hoping Senator Baker was going to ask the question because your op-ed hit a huge chord with me because I have been making this argument for years in my courses and not just about Elections Canada but about quasi-judicial bodies that don't have the same rigorous legal standards of due process and evidence. I'm not a big fan of quasi-judicial bodies, whether competition tribunal, human rights and so forth. I wanted to put that on the table.
To answer your question, I think the logic is that because in his compassion and his concern as an advocate to ensure that everyone gets to vote, there has been a rush to judgment. There is a real concern I have for anybody, whether you're doing audit work of any kind, or you are a public servant analyzing policy that you cannot become seduced by the mission of the organization. You still have to retain critical distance. You still have to be able to say, "Wait a minute. Does what I'm saying make sense"? I think the problem is when you mix advocacy with audit, which is an absolute no-no in banking. You can't have people selling loans involved in auditing the banker making the loans, and I say that as a former banker. That's why I'm so troubled by quasi-judicial bodies. You have people doing advocacy in the same organization that's supposed to be doing the policing function, and there is an institutional conflict of interest. I think Mr. Mayrand and Mr. Neufeld, because they're so committed to the mission of the organization — and I'm not suggesting malfeasance or that they're acting badly — they believe so deeply in what they're doing that they lost their critical judgment and distance.
In terms of the 400 professors, most professors — and Professor Massicotte is an exception — who go from high school to undergraduate to masters to PhD, they have no worldly experience. I can say that. I'm in the university. I'll throw a statistic out. In North America, in business schools which are supposed to have all the people with business experience, the average for Canada and the United States is about one professor in three in business schools have actual business experience. Two out of three do not, and business schools are much more applied than other academic departments. It's not that they're bad; they just don't have the worldly understanding and familiarity with things like identification systems, so I think that's where they went wrong, and no one, as far as I can tell, in their testimony actually said: Let's go look at identification systems in Canada. I'm hoping any of you will challenge Mr. Mayrand and Mr. Neufeld and say: Where is the evidence of people with zero identity in this country? I don't think they have it. I think they based it on the 100,000 who vouched, and they made the leap in logic to say, "They vouched; therefore, they have no identification." I don't think that that's evidence. I own a bicycle and I own an automobile. A does not preclude B.
Senator Frum: Professor Massicotte, I might be the first to address the issue of our past history, our tradition of consensus on election bills. I think that is a very debatable idea, and I can come back on second round.
I want to ask something else. You used a great story about the Library of Parliament being pleased with every election, the inference being, of course, that Elections Canada feels the same way.
Given the respect that you have, and appropriately so, for the importance of Elections Canada maintaining an image of impartiality, non-partisanship, non-bias, that they have to appear in the public to be highly independent, and you spoke about the importance of consensus in Canada. Elections Canada as an agency of Parliament has been very vocal and has taken a strong advocacy role on Bill-C-23, and given your experience in terms of the appropriate role that an agency of Parliament should take on a bill like this, where is the line? One could argue they have taken a highly partisan position on this bill and perhaps gone outside the boundaries of what's appropriate. Can you comment on that?
Mr. Massicotte: When you are attacking an institution the way the government has attacked Elections Canada over the recent months, I'm not surprised that anybody will take offence from that and argue that this is not true. Servants of Parliament are human beings. If I had been accused by a senator of having done something I had not done, I certainly would have complained if I had been accused by that senator. With all due respect for Parliament, we have the right as human beings, as citizens of Canada and as professionals to answer these accusations, and if Elections Canada had been caught taking highly partisan stances, I would understand.
I know from my experience — and I will not identify — of some chief electoral officers who exceeded in other jurisdictions proper boundaries as I saw them personally. No one is immune to such deficiencies.
Frankly, you have understood that I feel a bit torn in the sense that it's Parliament against Elections Canada, and because of my personal history, I have had a sense of loyalty to both.
But in this case, regrettably, I'm not sure that the highest — les plus grands tare — are on the side of Elections Canada. What I see today is really unprecedented in Canadian history.
Senator Frum: I understand the distinction of a personal attack. People would be inclined to defend themselves if they are attacked personally. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a policy attack, posting on Elections Canada's website a critique of a bill that's in Parliament's right and obligation to put forward. Is that not in the realm of partisanship?
Mr. Massicotte: With all due respect, senator, I'm wondering where you have been for the last 10 years. It is quite common.
I'm trying to figure out the present situation. Someone is wondering what the Chief Electoral Officer has told Parliament, and is unable to find it on the organization's website? Are these people secretive? Are they ashamed of what they have taught? It seems to me clear that, yes, they have the right to express their point of view and, of course, Parliament has the right to ignore their point of view. No one denies that, but should they be silenced or should they hide themselves under the table because the government is not pleased with their behaviour? With great respect, I think that you're pushing the requirements of loyalty far too much.
Senator Frum: It's not loyalty.
Senator Moore: I want to thank the two witnesses for being here.
I have a couple of quick snappers here for Professor Lee. With regard to the various sources you mentioned to support your position today, under the Aboriginal Affairs item, you say there are 800,000 Aboriginal identity cards. Do they have an address on them?
Mr. Lee: I don't believe they do. They're certainly photo ID, the revised Aboriginal identity cards. The old cards were inadequate, apparently. I'm just quoting the government department, but they came up with a revamp that's tamper proof like the new driver's licences. There is photo ID, the name and photo, but not address.
Senator Moore: When was that survey done?
Mr. Lee: In 2012.
Senator Moore: Thank you. Maybe it might be helpful if I suggest to you that a number of Canadians hold a number of driver's licences: Motor vehicle, chauffeur and so on. That might explain the discrepancy in terms of the licences issued.
Mr. Lee: Seven million?
Senator Moore: I don't know. I know a number of people who hold two or three. That may help reduce the gap. Mr. Mayrand can answer for himself. I'm suggesting that's an obvious consideration that may not have gone into your numbers.
With regard to the passport, as you know, there is no address on that, and I was part of the group that worked on and was successful in getting the U.S. to go along with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
You mentioned that in your remarks in the other place dealing with this bill, but you must admit that the right to travel back and forth across the border is not a constitutional right, whereas, as Senator Baker mentioned, the right to vote is. I don't think it's an appropriate example to say that an ID — because that is a constitutional issue, the right to vote is, and passage across the border and so on is not a constitutional right.
Mr. Lee: Senator Moore, I was referring to freedom of association. Freedom of association means I can move around. That means I can get on a plane, but they make me produce photo ID four times before I board one plane.
Senator Moore: Most of us only have to produce one. Why do you get four?
Mr. Lee: Upstairs to check in; second, to check in the luggage; third, to go through security; fourth, at the gate. I came back three days ago.
Senator Moore: Professor Massicotte, in the closing of your remarks, you said you would like to see the bill withdrawn, but if not, certain sections amended. Could you speak to that please, which sections and what would you like to see done?
Mr. Massicotte: It would be difficult to list all the sections that I find objectionable.
There is one thing that I liked in this bill. It was the idea that there would be one more polling date reserved for advance polling. I think this is in the right direction, because in the research I conducted I came to realize that more and more Canadians are taking advantage of advanced polling, and the number of people who do that is impressive. It contributes to increase the workload of polling officers and, therefore, I think it's a great idea.
I tend to go on the side of openness and accessibility as far as possible. I'll tell you why. It is because the greatest problem that our electoral system is facing, in my view, is the decrease of turnout. In the good old days of Mr. Diefenbaker and Mr. Pearson, at times 82 per cent of Canadians were voting, and 75 per cent used to be the benchmark for most of the years until 1988, inclusive. Since then, as you know, the percentage of Canadians going to the polls has been decreasing.
I've heard, by the way, all kinds of explanations, sometimes not quite interesting, given by analysts and politicians, but the best explanation is that younger people are turning off. I think this is cause for concern.
Elections Canada, for the few years I was there, seemed to me quite concerned with these trends and quite willing to do what they could in order to facilitate the act of voting. Now, the issue is: Have Canadians gone too far? Have we — I say the state — been too open in adopting requirements?
My approach is this: If you have evidence that big fraud has been committed, I'm not going to argue about being very strict on demands of identification. I'll give you an example. In Quebec, until the 1980s, the practice was as everywhere else in Canada. It was simply to ask people, "Are you so-and-so?" You trusted the people. It was called the honour system.
In 1994 and later in 1998, we had two provincial elections in specific districts. That was Bertrand after 1994 and Anjou after 1998. You had unmistakable evidence in both cases that people took advantage of the openness of the law to defraud. The reaction of legislators in Quebec was appropriate. They reacted by requiring ID cards, which I understand they do not require, which, by the way, is the issue as far as I understand it. The issue is not whether we require ID cards. My understanding is that has been settled for a long time. The issue is whether the address should be indicated on the ID card, and not all ID cards indicate this one. That's the issue as I see it.
Senator Moore: Those two examples were provincial elections.
Mr. Massicotte: Provincial elections. Even after these instances of fraud — in this case you are experienced politicians, and you know that following an election there are always allegations from the other side, especially if you lost: The other side cheated, and it's always "massively" cheated. I could have hundreds of stories on this, but at some point, as a professor, I tend to take as solid evidence the judicial evidence. When something has been proven in court, well, leave aside the good ideas of openness. I agree to have restrictions. Obviously, people have taken advantage of the openness of the legislation.
In this case, how many elections have been declared void federally over the last years? I counted them, and there are very few of them. The last one was in Etobicoke. It was first voided, and I understand that the Supreme Court of Canada decided in the other direction.
Is there solid evidence of massive fraud? I don't see it, and for that reason, I would tend to recommend that the present legislation be maintained.
Senator McIntyre: Dr. Lee, I draw attention to No. 14 of your opening statement:
Aboriginal Affairs Canada: 800,000 Aboriginal identity cards necessary to obtain benefits such as HST rebates.
My question is a follow-up to Senator Moore's question regarding Aboriginals.
That tells me that you have done your homework as far as vouching involving Aboriginals is concerned. As you know, as far as First Nations are concerned, some bands hold elections in accordance with the electoral provisions of the Indian Act. Other bands use custom election codes.
Recently, I was reading an article in which national Chief Executive Officer Peter Dinsdale said:
. . . residency vouching is better than no vouching at all, since it would mean, for example, that an Aboriginal with a status Indian card, which doesn't list an address, could present an ID and then sign an oath.
My question to you is this: How often is vouching used with Aboriginals? For example, for Aboriginals, is vouching used when elections are held in accordance with the electoral provisions of the Indian Act and under custom elections codes?
Mr. Lee: I don't know. I didn't look. What I was looking for was the presence of identification systems across multiple groups of Canadians, not just wealthy people but marginal people who take buses, and the bus association said they are low income or marginal people. I wanted to look at Aboriginals and students, because there were claims made that these groups simply lack identification.
I was at the bank years ago, and we had the national Aboriginal association at the time as a customer of mine, and I remember it vividly. I mean, banks have always been focused on identification. You have never been able to walk into a bank and say, "Give me my money, and by the way, I don't have any ID with me."
This long predates the computer world or digitization and online banking. Banks have always been concerned about identification. It has only been in the last 10 years or so that we've become more and more increasingly concerned with identification. I mean, borders because of 9/11. Universities only started demanding photo ID to write exams about 10 or 15 years ago.
In a modern, sophisticated society it has become more important that there is a standardized system of identification. Of course, all kinds of organizations have risen to the challenge and produced them, including the Aboriginal identity card to which you referred.
[Translation]
Senator Rivest: I am going to refer to a discussion you had with Senator Frum.
Elections Canada falls under Parliament. One cannot blame, for example, the Auditor General of Canada for publishing on their website criticisms of the government and say it is disloyal. That is part of the very nature of their institution. Mr. Massicotte, thank you for reminding us, in your opening statement, of the fundamental fact that the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada are not here to serve the government party but rather all parties. Simply having a parliamentary majority does not grant any specific privileges or rights with respect to the Chief Electoral Officer.
In Quebec, the practice concerning amendments to election law is for political parties to meet periodically with the chief electoral officer of Quebec to agree on amendments. Many people have criticized the government for proceeding unilaterally. Mr. Massicotte, you reminded us that this was also done in the past, under Prime Minister Bennett, and under Prime Minister Chrétien. Even in Quebec, René Lévesque's law concerning the financing of political parties was brought in unilaterally. Also, a law that was just as fundamental to the electoral system, the law concerning public consultation, was also done unilaterally; this is the law on which referenda are based. But there is nonetheless a practice that has become established. Ms. Marois, for example, amended the law concerning the financing of political parties, and in that case, there was a consensus and a study.
You reminded us of a very important point; customary practice within the Canadian government. In the other Canadian provinces, when an electoral law or the status of the chief electoral officer is amended, are there generally consultations with the other parties before the bill is tabled? Or is that practice obsolete and does current practice reflect what the Canadian government is currently doing?
Mr. Massicotte: Unfortunately, Senator Rivest, you will not be able to call me "the all-knowing professor", because I am not able to answer your question about the other Canadian provinces, or even about other countries in the world, because we did not study them. Frankly, an international comparative study concerning the process of reforming electoral law would be a very interesting subject to research.
I did this in the case of Elections Canada because the Chief Electoral Officer had asked me to look at the source of all of the major changes made to electoral law since the 1920s. To do so, I had to look at parliamentary committees, and that was where I was able to observe this differing approach that existed before and after Mr. Bennett, and to notice that there was this constant consultation.
You mentioned the Quebec law concerning the financing of political parties and also the law concerning public consultation, and I can see that you have an excellent memory, because I have sometimes had to argue with eminent scholars and to insist on the fact that the law concerning public consultation was not the result of a consensus, and that it was passed despite objections from the Liberal Party of Quebec during second reading. You might remember the relationship that existed between Mr. Lavoie and Mr. Burns at that time.
So the law concerning the financing of political parties is a perfect example of the collective mistakes that were made in 1978. I am speaking about this subject passionately because, over the years, I have studied that law, assuming that politicians respected it.
Over the years, we have heard more and more comments suggesting that an entire parallel system was being established. Currently, the public has had that impression for around two or three years; this law was a huge mistake. Opposition may not have been expressed, but it was tacitly felt; it was ignored because of the context at that time. It would have been better, at that time, to study the premises underlying that virtuous law, more calmly, to find out if it was possible to finance political parties simply through the contributions of supposedly impartial individuals. As you know, over the years, it became clear that everything was being twisted and that the reports absolutely did not reflect what was really happening.
Indeed, I think that when it comes to questions of electoral reform, there are always people who have an idea, think that this is the way the world should work, and they charge ahead in that direction. On the other hand, others will say that before taking action, we need to study the empirical data to see if the assertions being made are based on something real, on scientific research, or on court decisions. Personally, I think that approach could take a bit more time if one decides to take all of those things into consideration, but it can also lead to better results.
[English]
The Chair: I'm going to ask witnesses especially to tighten up their responses. I've been giving more latitude today because our second panel won't be here, but at the same time we have other business. Unless I hear serious objections, I will extend the time for another 10 or 15 minutes so we can get all senators on with questions. I hope you will respect that request.
Senator Plett: If I could, chair, I would like to correct the record, and Senator Baker was fully expecting me to raise the issue.
I think Ms. Giesbrecht, in her comments, and we can check the record, was talking about people who didn't have an address on their identification, not people without an address. When I asked her about it, she agreed it was ladies for whom everything came to the man's address. Of course the women had ID without the address on it.
As we all know, one of the amendments has dealt with that particular issue, so I don't think that is an issue anymore.
The other thing I would like to correct, Senator Moore talked about a driver's licence. He knows people with two, three or four driver's licences. If he knows those people he should turn them in because I believe it's illegal to own more than one. My driver's licence allows me to be a chauffeur, allows me to drive a bus, an ambulance and a fifth-wheel truck with air brakes. It is one licence that allows you to do a whole lot of things. It's the class on the licence that makes the difference, not the number of licences. In any event, maybe his province has some special issues, but mine does not.
Professor Massicotte, in your comments, and you just referred to again, Prime Minister Bennett and his rushing legislation through. You kind of at least intimated, I think, that maybe this was being rushed through.
This has been of course studied in Parliament extensively at their committee. They are still studying it. It still hasn't gone anywhere. We are doing a pre-study right now; this is not a final study. This is a pre-study, and the chair said we had eight meetings on this pre-study.
We suggested a number of amendments, and of course the minister has accepted some of them. This will now be studied more in Parliament before it goes to their third reading. At some point it will come back to the Senate for first and second reading before it comes back to this committee again for multiple meetings. After those multiple meetings I'm hoping, of course, that it will go to third reading and pass.
I would suggest, and I would like to hear your comment on this, that this is not exactly a one-week, ram this thing through, as you suggested Prime Minister Bennett had done. Could you comment on not whether you support it: 90 per cent of Canadians support this, so you are in the 10 per cent that does not, according to EKOS? Could you comment on whether or not you believe we have ramrodded this thing through or whether we have taken some proper precautions here?
Mr. Massicotte: Senator, we will easily agree on one thing. I did not suggest that Mr. Bennett rammed through the thing. I said that he had; it was factual. To stay on the factual, I think what has been done over recent years is certainly not as bad as what Prime Minister Bennett did in the 1930s.
Senator Plett: Thank you, at least, for giving us maybe a D on this as opposed to an F.
Professor Lee, thank you very much for your support of this legislation. Again, just in reference to what Senator Baker asked, I would at least like to, again, for my own purposes, ask the question, even though I do know the answer.
With the part of vouching, with the part of identification and so on and so forth, all of the senior citizens mentioned by the returning officer probably get Old Age Pension cheques. Probably, they need some identification to collect that Old Age Pension cheque.
Mr. Lee: I went to Service Canada. Maybe I didn't put it in there; I will send around an amended document. I have an enormous amount of background documentation backing up this document.
I did go to Service Ontario and to Service Canada. Service Canada does provide a list of the identification required to apply for Unemployment Insurance, old age pensions, CPP, GIS. It is more demanding than this; understandably so. That was my larger point. I didn't embed it in my comments here, but I did say this before the House of Commons committee when I testified there.
It is really extraordinarily naive to believe that any person can apply to any level of government in this country, walk in and say, "I want benefits from this government agency. I have no ID. I'm not going to tell you who I am. Now, please give me welfare, social assistance, social housing, old age pension, CPP." You just can't do it. Government agencies don't work like that. No organization today disperses benefits of any kind without you providing substantial identification.
Senator Plett: It's amazing, when you want some money, how you can come up with ID.
Mr. Lee: In fact, you have to come up with the ID if you want to get the benefits; absolutely so.
Senator Moore: I want to know, in view of Senator Lee's driving talents —
Senator Plett: My name is actually Senator Plett.
Senator Moore: Sorry, Senator Plett.
Senator Plett: With the support that Professor Lee gave us, we might nominate him to the Senate.
Senator Moore: He's working toward it; I can see that.
I'm concerned about this. If I'm wrong, I regret it, but I'd like to know: In the Transport Canada figures, would Senator Plett be listed for each of the licences that he carries, or is he only down once for all of them?
Mr. Lee: That's an excellent question. It's an actual Excel spreadsheet. I'm going to forward it to the committee clerk to circulate to all of you. It's broken down by province. I cannot answer your question because I didn't drill down into the databases. I was trying to identify databases and the numbers of people in the databases, not how they got there or how they did the counting or the methodology.
Senator Moore: I find that quite a wide spread. That why I was trying to figure that out. It just doesn't make sense to me to have that kind of a spread.
Mr. Lee: Either way, it does correspond in another. I didn't mention this. I looked up the StatsCan 2011 census because I wanted to know how many people were above the age of 18, and the Transport Canada number corroborates. We're mixing up apples and oranges a bit because StatsCan is measuring all people in the country, whether or not they are Canadian citizens eligible to vote, whereas Mr. Mayrand was referring to the eligible voters. What I asked was a different question: How many people have driver's licences? Why? Because licences have names and addresses. There are 23.8 million Canadians, but only 22 million above the age of 18.
Senator Moore: I want to know how they are registered. That's all.
Senator Plett: I want to simply say that I do have one driver's licence in Manitoba. I will also, just for my benefit, check that, and I'm sure I'm listed one time.
Senator Batters: The first thing I wanted to mention, Mr. Massicotte, was you indicated that the Elections Act doesn't belong to academics or to Elections Canada. I'm not sure if you really concluded this, but my assumption from that was that it belongs to the people.
I wanted to put to both of you, I'm not sure if you've heard about this poll that was released late last Thursday night. Ipsos Reid did it for CTV News. They found that 87 per cent of those polled said it is reasonable to require someone to prove their identity and address before they are allowed to vote. Seventy per cent of people said that it is acceptable to eliminate vouching and require voters to personally prove their identity and address before they're allowed to vote. Only 30 per cent said it's unacceptable to eliminate vouching. Broken down by party, the numbers are very high. Sixty-six per cent of NDP voters said vouching should be scrapped.
So Mr. Lee, as to what you were indicating about the significant amount of identification that Canadians have, I think one explanation for the height of those poll numbers is that Canadians realize how much identification they have and that it is extremely reasonable to expect that they be able to prove who they are and where they live when they vote. This poll was done before our government made the announcement that we would be putting forth an amendment about vouching for address only. Therefore, some of those more vulnerable groups who don't have ID with an address can use that.
Mr. Lee, would you accept that that is a probable reason for the height of those numbers?
Mr. Lee: I would go beyond what you've said. It's not that they're sitting around counting the number of ID cards in their wallet. We have become accustomed. Our behaviour has changed, I argue, in the last 10 to 15 years. If you go back 50 years ago, it was a much more simple society, a much more casual, informal society, where everybody knew everybody and we didn't travel very much. We didn't need a lot of ID. We're a much more sophisticated society. We're a much more mobile society. We have been acclimatized and accustomed to the idea that you have to present ID everywhere. You have to present ID to the government, for every last government agency you deal with. You have to present ID to cross the border. You have to present ID to get into Carleton University, the University of Toronto or any university. Everywhere you go today, a Canadian is being challenged for ID at every activity. It's become part of our consciousness that that's the way the world is. Vouching is the anomaly. I will be frank; I have been astonished over these last three months over the debate on vouching. It goes contrary to everything that we all experience in our day-to-day lives.
Senator Batters: Mr. Massicotte, in your opening statement, you spoke about the collegial process, and you said that, typically, this type of legislation is the subject of consensus when it's passed. The letter that you and 400 other academics signed referred to this as a laudable Canadian tradition that wasn't followed in this particular case, but, to me, that seems to be a bit of revisionist history. You've talked about some occasions in history where that wasn't followed, but I will point out some more that were election law reforms ever the last couple of decades, so quite recent history.
Bill C-14 passed in 1993, on division. Bill C-63 passed in 1996, on division. Bill C-2 passed in 2000, on division. Bill C-24 passed in 2003, on division. All of those bills made substantial changes to election law and none of them became law as the result of consensus. All of those occasions, except for the first one in 1993, were made when the Liberals were in power. So I'm wondering if you or your colleagues raised issues about those times at that point.
[Translation]
Mr. Massicotte: Senator, if you will allow it, I can answer your question directly in French. The procedure I just described was followed from 1936 to 1938, in 1947, in 1951, in 1955 under Liberal governments, in 1959 to 1960 under Mr. Diefenbaker's Conservative government, from 1968 to 1970, and in 1977. I would add that in 1993, under the Progressive Conservative government of Mr. Mulroney, the procedure was based on consensus and was very collegial. Also, the overhaul of the year 2000 was overseen by a Liberal government. Finally, there was Bill C-31 which was crafted by a Conservative government. I have taken the time to examine each of these laws as part of my research.
I am not aware of the survey you mentioned, Senator, but I would like to know if the following question was asked: Do you agree that the current government is imposing rules on Parliament with which the opposition parties disagree? I would very much like to know what Canadians would respond to that question.
Senator Dagenais: Mr. Massicotte, I have been listening to your testimony from the beginning and, although I am not surprised, the tone of your comments has surprised me a little bit. If I have understood correctly, you heard about what was happening in Canada in Australian newspapers. You told me that you were in Australia; did you read about this in an Australian newspaper?
Mr. Massicotte: I monitored the subject in Canada. I read Canadian newspapers now thanks to the Internet. I was surprised by the fact that this subject was being discussed in an Australian newspaper. I was very surprised.
Senator Dagenais: To draw a parallel, I would say that Australian newspapers sometimes have the same flaw as Canadian newspapers: they report some of the truth but not the whole truth.
Mr. Massicotte: In the newspaper in question, Senator — you will allow me to mention this — what struck me was that it was an editorial-type newspaper that perfectly reflects your thought.
Senator Dagenais: That is because, in fact, I was not finished. To someone who is familiar with this, journalists sometimes criticize the Senate, but we never see any journalists in the Senate gallery. That was a comment that I wanted to make to you.
Laws have been enacted for a very long time, but they need to be modernized, because sometimes they do not age well. I think that the government's bill is more modern.
That being said, earlier we were talking a lot about three or four drivers' licences. I will speak as a police officer for a couple of minutes, because I was a police officer for 39 years. People only have one driver's licence and there may be three or four licence classes on the driver's licence; but people do not have four driver's licences. I am sure of that. I am not a lawyer, but I am a police officer.
To the police, there is no drug trafficking as long as they have not made an arrest, but it would be unjustified to conclude that there is no trafficking for that reason. And yet regularly, the police forces tweak their practices to make them more effective. So why would the same thing not apply in the case of the Elections Act, that is, that it is not because we have not found a large number of cases of fraud that these cases do not exist?
That being said, I come to my second argument. Mr. Lee mentioned that there are many ways to prove one's identity. The bill even sets out 39 ways proving one's identity in order to be allowed to vote. So based on all of that, do you not think that citizens have a responsibility when they exercise their right to vote? I think that they do and therefore this should not be overlooked. I would like to hear what you have to say on that subject.
Mr. Massicotte: I think that we are all exposed to a certain mentality when we are very involved with how elections operate. For example, electoral officials, who know the Canada Elections Act like the back of their hand, or politicians, who must necessarily think about politics 24/7, end up forgetting that for ordinary citizens, the act of voting is something that occurs — it is not like driving on a highway — it is something that occurs, in principle, once every four years. It is something that takes only a few minutes. Luckily, it does not take longer than that. How many people, really, are going to sit down for half an hour and go over each and every detail of what they are about to do and all of the administrative functions that are involved? I suspect that in the mind of the average voter, what is important is knowing which side they are going to vote for. They are not thinking about the mechanics of voting.
Personally, my fear is that the changes made to the procedure by Parliament, even with the best intentions in the world, may risk upsetting old habits. For example, think of the person who for years has been used to voting without bringing along a piece of identification and, for that reason, may forget it because they have been voting for 20 or 30 years without having to produce one. And all of a sudden, they are asked to produce one. As I said, I think that there are good reasons for producing pieces of identity. In my opinion, the debate boils down to the matter of the address card. That, perhaps, is where the problem lies.
[English]
The Chair: We're clearly going to go beyond the 15-minute extension, but I want to give every senator an opportunity to put their questions to the witnesses. I encourage the witnesses to be as concise as possible in their responses.
[Translation]
Senator Joyal: I would like to welcome Mr. Massicotte and Professor Lee. I will be focussing solely on the provision of the bill that fails to give the Chief Electoral Officer the ability to obtain a court order to compel a person to testify or produce documents. How do you assess the impact of the absence of this provision from the bill, whereas the purpose of the bill is ostensibly to fix any problems there may be, that prevent the electoral process from being as transparent and credible as possible? How do you explain that there is no such provision in this bill?
Mr. Massicotte: That is a very good point, and one that intrigued me. To my knowledge, the concern is not that the Chief Electoral Officer does not have the power to compel witnesses, but rather that the Commissioner of Canada Elections does not have this power. Indeed, that is what intrigued me the most when I was studying this bill. The bill is based on the idea that there are many cases of fraud, and that therefore, the situation is dire and the bill must be given more teeth. But at the same time, oddly enough, additional powers are not being given to the person who is responsible for conducting investigations into these cases.
I read the testimony of Mr. Côté, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, who confirmed that he needs these powers. But, it would appear that when he asks for these powers, he becomes a sort of power-hungry bureaucrat, and therefore should not be listened to.
I think that it would be a better idea if the federal elections commissioner had investigative power and the powers to compel witnesses to testify. What intrigues me is that I have observed — and this is something that is interesting about the bill — that penalties to punish cases of fraud have been made harsher.
Quite frankly, even if the authorities decided to cut off the hand of people who commit electoral fraud, without giving those who are empowered to conduct investigations the ability to catch them, the penalties imposed would be purely symbolic. People may say that the bill cracks down harshly on such offenders, but if the watchdog described by the bill does not really have these powers, the offenders will get away with fraud. That is all.
Senator Joyal: Thank you.
[English]
Mr. Lee: I will be very brief because I didn't do research on this, but it relates to the comment I made earlier about Senator Frum's op-ed and the expansion of powers of quasi-judicial bodies in Canada at the federal level over the past 40 years. I'm not sure why we should be giving powers to quasi-judicial bodies that are not available to police. It just astonishes me that I could be compelled to testify by the Elections Canada official when the police can't make me testify on some crime they're investigating me for. I find this astonishing.
Senator McInnis: Thank you for coming. That last point is the very point I made yesterday. We would be advocating that we have another level of the judiciary, which would be totally fallacious and terribly wrong. The police don't have that power, but the power, of course, is with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the court that can subpoena.
Mr. Lee: That's right.
Senator McInnis: I wanted to ask some other things but, in the interest of time, I will get in a few small points.
We had here by video from the U.K. a professor of political science two or three weeks ago, and he said, with respect to vouching in Canada, that it was supremely Canadian. Are you aware of any other country in the world where vouching exists?
Mr. Lee: I did quite a bit of research on the Europeans and the U.K. Of course, Northern Ireland has introduced mandatory photo ID since 2003 for voting in their elections. In the U.K. Electoral Commission report announced in January, and contrary to Professor Massicotte, they said there's very little incidence of fraud, agreeing with Professor Massicotte, coincidentally, but arguing that you still have to have the perception that there is justice, that there is integrity in the system. I don't assume that all my students are cheaters, but I still check every one of them to make sure, in case there is. You have to create the impression that there is fairness and legitimacy.
To answer your question, and I ran out of time to complete this research to report to this committee, but I believe I've identified 10 countries in Europe that require national identity cards. So the idea of vouching, they've gone way beyond that in Europe. Several jurisdictions are moving towards mandatory photo ID. I'm not aware of any other country that allows vouching, and I want to note, 5 of the 10 provinces — and I did go into the 10 election commissions of the 10 provinces online — prohibit vouching. Five allow vouching; five do not allow vouching at the provincial level; but outside of Canada I'm not aware of any other country. I haven't found any other country that allows vouching. In fact, the trend is in the opposite direction, going towards mandatory photo ID.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: My question is for Mr. Massicotte. We can see that you are on the side of Elections Canada. You stated at the outset that Elections Canada is objective and non-partisan, and that appears to have been your experience with this organization for years. I understand also that Elections Canada can table a brief on a bill that is put forward by Parliament. However, I have certain reservations with regard to your position. I was deputy minister in the Quebec government for over 30 years, and I did not speak my mind quite so vocally during that time.
I observed that, during the hearings, certain witnesses had been prepared by Elections Canada to defend the position of Elections Canada here. In your opinion, do not you think that this approach could be considered partisan?
Mr. Massicotte: Senator Boisvenu's ability to decide which side people are on is something I find somewhat surprising. You said that I am on the side of Elections Canada. But I am also on the side of Parliament. I saw two political transitions from the Liberal Party to the Conservative Party in 1984 —
[English]
The Chair: I am going to remind you that we're almost 20 minutes overdue. Instead of getting into all the history, I'd ask you to please try to directly respond to the question.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: You would make a good politician, but that is not what I am referring to.
Mr. Massicotte: On the contrary, I do not think so at all.
Senator Boisvenu: The fact that Elections Canada prepares witnesses to defend its position —
Mr. Massicotte: I have no idea what happened. All I can tell you is that, if this is of concern to you, I have not spoken with anyone at Elections Canada in relation to my presentation, and secondly, since you want to belabour the point, I was not a Conservative candidate who was defeated in the 1993 election like the other witness.
Senator Boisvenu: I was not referring to you.
[English]
The Chair: That concludes the session. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you both for appearing and contributing to our deliberations on this very important piece of legislation.
(The committee continued in camera.)