Electoral reform legislation delayed
Elections Canada recommends an overhaul of the voting system
The Conservatives’ long-delayed election reform legislation will be delayed yet again while the government considers a new report that found systematic problems with voting in the last election.
During the height of the “robocall” affair last March, the Conservatives voted with an NDP motion that called for legislative changes within six months to better allow Elections Canada to police elections, but the government has yet to table a bill.
Tim Uppal, the minister of state for democratic reform, announced in the House last month he would table the bill on April 18 — six months later than promised — and even scheduled briefings for reporters and Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.
The day before, though, during the weekly closed-door Conservative caucus meeting, MPs raised objections to the bill and the government decided to shelve it.
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, NDP MP David Christopherson attacked the government for the report on voting problems, pointing out it is cutting Elections Canada’s budget by $7.5 million even as it struggles to fix the problems.
“With Elections Canada facing all these serious challenges, why on earth would the Conservatives choose now to cut the budget of Elections Canada by eight per cent?” he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper replied that the budget cuts were made by the agency, and said the government will bring in changes based on the report “in the not too distant future.”
“I think Elections Canada will obviously accept the recommendations of that audit and we will look at those recommendations as we move forward with changes to elections law.”
Kate Davis, spokeswoman for Uppal, said the government will consider the latest report before finally tabling the election reform act.
“The report highlights widespread errors in Elections Canada operations during the last election,” she said. “We will consider the report’s recommendations in the context of our forthcoming Elections Reform Act.”
She could not say how long that might take.
“I’m not going to speculate,” she said. “We’ll take the time necessary to get the legislation right.”
The Elections Canada report found widespread administrative problems in the last election, largely caused by outdated legislation.
Mayrand ordered the report after problems came to light in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke Centre, where former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was defeated by 26 votes by Conservative Ted Opitz in 2011.
Wrzesnewskyj identified dozens of votes that were cast without proper paperwork, and convinced the Ontario Superior Court to overturn the election, a decision later reversed by the Supreme Court.
The report found that Elections Canada has system-wide problems with the roughly 15 per cent of voters who show up to vote without being properly registered.
The 200,000 workers who run elections across the country struggle to administer the complex rules for dealing with problem registrations as laid out in legislation, the report found. Most workers receive about three hours of training and make less than minimum wage. They are often reluctant to tell voters — especially senior citizens who show up at the wrong polling station — that they have to go somewhere else.
The report recommends that Elections Canada completely reorganize how it administers elections, connecting every polling station to an online database so voters can be checked off electronically, and funnelling voters with registration problems to special tables where specialized workers can help them.
The Elections Act doesn’t allow for the agency to make those kinds of changes.
Without legislative change, the agency can’t: ❚ Set up a system allowing online voter registration. ❚ Hire extra workers to boost a particular poll. Staffing levels are set out in the legislation. ❚ Increase the money paid to election workers. A poll clerk, for example, now receives $175.74 for their work on election day, an amount determined by the government, not Elections Canada. ❚ Overhaul the outdated system of appointing deputy returning officers (DROs) and poll clerks. The legislation allows in each polling station for DROs to be appointed by the incumbent MP and poll clerks to be appointed by whichever party came second in the last election. Because fewer people are volunteering in elections now, the jobs are rarely filled, so Elections Canada ends up scrambling for workers at the last minute.
Mayrand wants to overhaul the voting system, but needs MPs to act before he can make any changes, spokesman John Enright said Wednesday.
“It’s going to be hard to fix,” he said.
“We can do part of it, and we’re going to begin doing what we can, but to do a thorough job, there are targeted legislative changes required, and we’re hoping Parliament will consider those.”
The report says Elections Canada will not have time to introduce a completely new voting model in time for the next election, expected in 2015, but can make some changes before then.
The report suggests elections should likely eventually be conducted online, but budget cuts forced Elections Canada to suspend a project exploring that possibility.
The agency says its investigation of deceptive and fraudulent political calls in the last election is not affected by budget cuts since the commissioner of elections has statutory authority to spend money as necessary to conduct investigations.
NDP democratic reform critic Craig Scott said Wednesday the cuts may have an impact.
“The eight per cent cut puts pressure on any spending on the statutory funds, and that includes any contractual hires to beef up resources for investigating fraud,” he said. “So choices will need to be made.”
On Friday, former Conservative campaign worker Michael Sona is to appear in a Guelph courtroom to face a charge stemming from a fraudulent robocall in the riding on election day. He maintains he is innocent and is being used as a fall guy by the party.
An investigation into possible wrongdoing in ridings across Canada is ongoing.