In his opening statement to the committee on March 29, Mr. Mayrand affirmed that Canadians ought to take pride in their country’s electoral system.
“However, recent events and media reports have shaken their confidence and, as I indicated at the outset, the trust of electors and the integrity of the electoral process is an essential aspect of a healthy democracy,” Mr. Mayrand referred to the ongoing “robocalls” scandal that has cast a pall over Canada’s electoral system and raised questions over the competency of Elections Canada in recent weeks.
“If the regime is inadequate and needs to be improved, it is my role to make those changes or recommend legislative amendments. We all have a role in preserving trust in our electoral process,” Mr. Mayrand said.
“This includes not only Elections Canada, but electors themselves, the candidates, the parties, and also the media. The quality of our democracy depends on the vigilance and the conduct of all players involved.”
Mr. Mayrand told the committee that he plans to table two reports to Parliament. One report will directly address the use of robocalling to commit electoral fraud in the last federal election.
He said that he expects to deliver this report “within a year,” but when pressed by committee members and the media as to whether this meant in 2012 or by March 29 of next year, he declined to give a definite timeline and restated that the report would be delivered “as soon as possible.”
The second report that Mr. Mayrand plans to deliver is on the wider issue of modernizing the Canada Elections Act to bring punishment in line with the severity of offences, and to address the impact that social media and other modern technologies are having on electoral outcomes.
“The enforcement mechanism in the Canada Elections Act can and should be improved,” Mr. Mayrand stated. “On one hand, regulatory matters that could be addressed more effectively with administrative measures and penalties are subject to the delays and costs associated with criminal investigations and prosecutions. On the other hand, serious offences carry disproportionately light penalties, including maximum fines that are very low—usually $2,000 to $5,000.”
Mr. Mayrand told the committee that he intends to provide an overall review of the Canada Elections Act’s “compliance and enforcement mechanism” to Parliament before the next election. He did not specify whether the report would be delivered in time to be translated into legislation prior to the 2015 election.
Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who served as Canada’s chief electoral officer for nearly 17 years before leaving the post in 2006, praised his successor’s decision to address the enforcement of the Canada Elections Act.
“There has to be a recalibration,” Mr. Kingsley told The Hill Times. “[Mr. Mayrand] wants to do a thorough job instead of just doing a few things so that Parliament can look at the whole regulatory scheme and determine what offences we think are serious, what warrant jail time, and what offences aren’t considered serious.”
Mr. Mayrand agreed to update the committee on new developments before the summer recess—a motion that w NDP MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre, Ont.) introduced and which passed unanimously.
Mr. Mayrand initially requested to appear before the Parliamentary committee to address allegations of phone-based electoral fraud and vote suppression over the course of last spring’s general election after Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen revealed that Elections Canada was investigating automated calls misrepresenting the agency.
The calls had been directed through an Edmonton-based telemarketing firm RackNine. RackNine is not suspected of any wrongdoing and has fully cooperated with the investigation, which has shifted focus to the southern Ontario riding of Guelph, where someone using the alias of Pierre Poutine uploaded calls directing voters—who have been identified as non-Conservative supporters—to nonexistent polling stations.
Mr. Mayrand delivered several revelations in his testimony. Of the 40,000 public contacts that Elections Canada has received since the robocalls story broke in February, Elections Canada has determined that roughly 800 warrant investigation, while the rest were acknowledged as statements of concern by Canadians.
However, Mr. Mayrand said those 800 complaints span well beyond Guelph—the agency has 250 active files on 200 ridings located across all 10 provinces and one territory.
Mr. Kingsley, who has recently gone on the record as saying the so-called robocalls scandal is “unprecedented” in its scope, said that despite the revised number of complaints, the severity of the allegations made it irrelevant whether or not the issue had been blown out of proportion.
“When I was in office, there was never 800 complaints about one particular topic, so this remains very serious,” he observed. “Who perpetrated this? Is it one name? Is it more than one name? What is the relationship of that individual or those individuals with any political party? These are the things we must ascertain.”
While Conservative members of the committee attempted to minimize the severity of the allegations, opposition members tried to establish whether or not there was nationwide, orchestrated effort to defraud electors.
Conservative MP John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, N.B.) asked whether Mr. Mayrand stood by his certification of the election results in all 308 federal ridings, to which he responded, “Absolutely, unless the courts determine otherwise, I certified those writs, they were returned and I stand by those certifications as we speak.”
However, when Conservative MP Bob Zimmer (Prince George-Peace River, B.C.) suggested, intentionally or unintentionally, that there was some error that may have led to the allegations, Mr. Mayrand bristled.
“The one thing I can assure every Canadian and the committee, is that calls made on behalf of Elections Canada are not errors. That’s not an error. That’s a deliberate attempt to defraud the right of an elector,” said Mr. Mayrand.
Although Elections Canada maintains a voters list, which Mr. Mayrand estimated is 85 per cent accurate, the agency does not keep records of voters’ phone numbers, nor does it contact voters by phone.
Conservative MP Laurie Hawn (Edmonton Centre, Alta.) denounced the “circus” that had been created by media and opposition, and contrasted Canada’s reputable electoral system with the heavily tampered balloting that occurs in countries such as Haiti and Afghanistan.
Mr. Christopherson, who serves as the NDP’s critic for democratic reform, took particular issue with Mr. Hawn’s suggestion during and after the hearing.
“If the government doesn’t like this ‘circus,’ too bad, we need the kind of electoral system that we’re proud of,” Mr. Christopherson said in a trademark tirade to the media. “The government said it’s a model for the world. It’s a model of the world because we take allegations like this very seriously as Canadians and we do investigate them, and we engage our Parliament.”
When Mr. Mayrand testified before the same committee on Oct. 6 of last year he recommended that Elections Canada be given broader investigatory powers to ensure that political parties comply with the Elections Act.
On March 8, Mr. Christopherson introduced a motion to give the chief electoral officer the power to request any documents necessary to ensure compliance with electoral law, have all contracted political telemarketing firms contracted for elections to register with Elections Canada, and have individuals who procure the services of such firms register and verify their identity. Although the motion passed unanimously, the government has yet to table such legislation.
Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski (Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, Sask.), who serves as Parliamentary secretary to Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.), said that he supported strengthening the Elections Act and suggested that the Procedure and House Affairs Committee would continue to investigate the laws governing Canada’s electoral system.
“Anything we can do to better enhance the Election Act to make sure elections are held in a proper manner, the better for everyone involved,” Mr. Lukiwski told The Hill Times. “It’s certainly an area of study that this committee should look at.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: CHRIS PLECASH
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