OTTAWA — Canada’s chief electoral officer is scheduled to go before a House of Commons committee Thursday to testify on the government’s sweeping proposals on election reform.
Opposition politicians have been picking away at the Conservative’s proposed election overhaul, arguing for the past month it will do little more than benefit the Conservative party in 2015. All the while, the NDP has been using almost every available tool to stop the government from ramming the legislation through the House of Commons.
READ MORE: Elections watchdog rails against Conservatives’ elections bill
But there’s nothing to fear, the NDP is merely preoccupied with conspiracy theories, the prime minister says. He and his Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre are adamant the reforms are necessary to heighten the integrity of the election system and keep the country’s democracy secure.
The man tasked with administering federal elections, meanwhile, has publicly said only a few words on the proposed reforms, but those words have been powerful. Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand last month blasted the government for insinuating he wore any “team jersey,” and in a later radio interview said parts of the bill amount to an affront to democracy.
Today, while sitting at the head of a committee table, he will have the opportunity to deliver opening remarks before facing several rounds of questioning from Conservative, New Democrat and Liberal MPs.
Here are five things to know about Bill C-23, or what the government has titled the Fair Elections Act.
1. The bill could add a layer of partisanship at polling stations
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If C-23 passes, one of the top positions at polling stations — the person who essentially manages the gym, community centre or school where Canadians cast ballots — would be appointed based on a recommendation from the party of the candidate who won the riding in the last election.
Under current law, Elections Canada appoints the top dog at polling stations, the returning officer, who is assumed to be non-partisan. In turn, the returning officer appoints the central poll supervisor (or manager), also assumed to be non-partisan.
Those two positions supervise the deputy returning officers and poll clerks, who are appointed based on recommendations from the party of the candidate who finished first and second in the last general election, respectively.
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This bill proposes changing the means for appointing the second in command, the central poll supervisor, so that person is also appointed on the recommendation of the party of the candidate who finished first in the last general election, potentially tipping the scales in favour of one party.
2. Cross-country consultations
After a lengthy filibuster at a House of Commons committee, the NDP has decided to get in the driver’s seat and forget about the Conservatives’ resistance to launching cross-country consultations on Bill C-23.
The NDP was pushing to have a committee travel around Canada to hear what citizens outside Ottawa thought of the proposed election reforms, but the Conservatives weren’t having any of it.
The NDP devoted an opposition day in the Commons to the cause, launched a petition, threatened to veto all committee travel and held a weeks-long filibuster … but nothing swayed the Conservatives into bringing the show on the road. They instead argued this whole idea amounted to little more than an attempt for the Opposition to grandstand and turn the whole issue into a circus.
The official Opposition has decided to hold its own cross-country hearings, but have not yet released any details.
3. What the chief electoral officer can or can’t say
The chief electoral officer has shot down aspects of the bill, saying it’s a slap in the face of democracy. In his role as chief administrator of federal elections and byelections, Marc Mayrand’s office often conducts studies into voting patterns and has funded ad campaigns reminding Canadians of their democratic right to vote.
But as the bill is written, Mayrand’s role could become limited to letting the public know where, when and how to vote. Elections Canada could be stripped of the right to encourage the electorate to cast ballots and making relevant research available to the public could be banned.
There is even a question of whether officials within Elections Canada could speak with journalists, who often have questions about election legislation, investigations and findings, or are looking for insight on trends.
The government argues the agency’s outreach campaigns, which began a decade ago, have been ineffective and failed to adequately curtail the downward trend in voter turnout. Since 1993, voter turnout has been as high as 70 per cent and as low as 59 per cent.
Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning recently added his voice to the fray, saying the chief electoral officer should maintain his role in encouraging Canadians to vote.
4. Get out the vote
While the bill proposes removing get-out-the-vote campaigns from the hands of the chief electoral officer, it seeks to put that function in the hands of the parties and politicians.
As Poilievre put it, it is the politicians who are in a unique position wherein they can inspire voters and give them a reason to head out to the polls on election day.
Motivation, rather than access, is one of the primary reasons voter turnout has consistently dropped over the past several decades, said Alison Loat, co-founder and executive director with Samara, a non-partisan organization working to improve political participation in Canada.
While handing the motivation reigns to politicians could prove beneficial, it remains difficult at this point to gauge whether the move is practical, Loat said, since the bill is so vague on that front.
The bill also proposes ending the current practices of vouching for someone without proper ID and accepting voter information cards received in the mail as acceptable ID. Those two moves, the opposition say, can disenfranchise some voters who don’t stay at one address for long periods of time, such as students, First Nations communities or low-income Canadians.
The Conservatives argue continuing to allow those methods of identifying voters opens the system up to fraud.
5. Political financing
Bill C-23 proposes some changes to the political financing framework that would, in essence, raise the limit on how much parties are allowed to spend during election campaigns.
Under the new bill, fundraising costs would be exempt from campaign spending limits, so long as that fundraising is targeted toward people who have donated at least $20 to the party, one of its riding associations or a federal or leadership candidate within the past five years.
So, parties can call existing supporters without the cost of that call counting against the party’s expense limit.
Poilievre has said the measure will be regulated through compliance audits of parties’ expenses and parties being obligated to keep copies of the lists of fundraising calls made and any scripts used.
Another aspect of the bill touching on financing would increase the existing cap by five per cent for national and local campaigns.
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