Debates of March 30, 2021 (day 72)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that Section 144(1) of the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to allow for voting in the Office of the Returning Officer to commence on the 21st day before polling day. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. In the last election in 2019, what happened was that voting in the Office of the Returning Officer opened up the very next day after the nominations were cleared and accepted. If you did go in, you were given a slip of paper where you had to write in the candidate's name. That ballot doesn't look a lot like what you actually get if you go to the poll on election day.

This is to allow for a few more days to make sure that the proper ballots can be put together so that everybody is voting using the same ballots. This was raised by Mr. Wasylciw, as well, so I want to give him some credit. This is just to make sure that people don't have to know how to spell or write; they can just mark their X on a ballot, and everybody is using the same ballots. This will just give a few more days to get the proper ballots prepared. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that Elections NWT follow the same procurement practices as the Legislative Assembly and publicly disclose all contracts, the procurement process used for each contract, and the amount of each contract in the Elections NWT annual report. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This issue was raised by Mr. Wasylciw and OpenNWT. There were some contracts that the Chief Electoral Officer entered into in the last election, particularly around online voting. Although some of the information was disclosed in the report on the conduct of the 2019 general election, it wasn't done in a systematic way. I don't think there was anything that was ever done wrong by any stretch of the imagination, but we just felt that it would be clear and more transparent to have that information presented in a consistent fashion in future reports following the practices that we have at the Legislative Assembly so that it is more clear, transparent, and accountable. That is what this recommendation is about. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Chief Electoral Officer undertake a review of best practices on election reporting and return to the Legislative Assembly within six months with the findings of that review and any potential amendments to the Elections and Plebiscites Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This issue was raised by OpenNWT. I want to compliment the Chief Electoral Officer. For anybody who has seen her reports, there is a lot of detail in there. There are some good graphics and so on that she has developed and presented over time, but the style and content sort of changes from one report to the next. Sometimes, it is hard to track trends and so on over time. There were also some issues around how absentee ballots are reported, including electronic ballots and mail-in ballots. That arose in the last election. What this does is ask the Chief Electoral Officer to go and do some work and see how this is done in other jurisdictions to make sure that we can learn from that, take the best practices, and apply them here. That work will come back, and we will have another chance to look at it in six months or sooner. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that Elections NWT post all election data that is included in its report in a machine-readable format on the Elections NWT website. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This issue was raised by OpenNWT. What they are recommending is that the elections data that is presented is in spreadsheet format or some way so that somebody can take that information and do their own analysis of it. Right now, it is not in a user-friendly format. I think this is in keeping with a more open and transparent government. That's why I think the committee supported this and recommends this for Committee of the Whole. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Chief Electoral Officer undertake a review of the requirements to publicly disclose a candidate's residential address and return to the Legislative Assembly within six months with the findings of that review and any potential amendments to the Elections and Plebiscites Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Nokleby.

Yes. Sorry. I'm not sure if I'm actually on the right one. My apologies. Are we on the address one? Okay. I just wanted to take a moment to thank the committee for including this recommendation. I raised the concern. The first time I realized my address was going to be published, as a single woman living alone, was when I came down to get my mail and my address was on the local telephone pole. It was a bit concerning for me to see that. I raised that concern with all of us as Regular Members, and I appreciate that Mr. O'Reilly and the committee continue to carry that forward to include this so that, potentially, we can remove what I see as a bit of a security issue for people like myself. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Wawzonek.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to move that the committee motion actually be amended by adding the words "or donors" immediately following the word "candidates." Thank you.

Thank you. We will return to the motion. The motion is in order. To the motion to amend. Mr. Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm in favour of the motion to amend. Right now, if you make a donation to any political candidate, your address becomes public information, and I'm not sure that's needed. I think it should be required that whoever donates to a political candidate, their name should be attached to it, but I'm not sure of the necessity of having residential addresses. As my colleague from Great Slave pointed out, there are some concerns there for people, so extending this to people who also make donations I am in favour of. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion to amend. Ms. Wawzonek.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know that I have much to add, but given that I did make the request, I wanted to just reflect that this actually came to me originally out of concern for someone raising concerns similar to what the Member for Great Slave has said, that people who are concerned for their personal safety and who have been through something in their life may not want their personal address on there. I would share the other comments raised, that, really, anyone who is making a donation to a political party or to a political candidate or wants to participate in the political process should be able to do so without necessarily having their personal residential address made public, which doesn't take away from the need to gather that information, but the need to publish the information. I'm grateful that committee has undertaken these considerations and is including the original motion, and I'm grateful for the support that I'm hearing on the proposed amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion to amend.

Question.

All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carried.

---Carried

To the motion as amended.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that Section 24(4) of the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to specify that the act applies to additional assistant returning officers, the same as it does to assistant returning officers, except for the limitations specified in Section 24(4). Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This is to make sure that family members of a candidate are not eligible to serve as returning officers or additional assistant returning officers to maintain the integrity of the election and so on. That's what these section numbers are really all about, and it comes from a recommendation from the Chief Electoral Officer, so committee thought that this was something they wanted to recommend, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. O'Reilly.