LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON LEGIS­LATIVE AFFAIRS

Monday, December 2, 2024

TIME – 6 p.m.

LOCATION – Winnipeg, Manitoba

CHAIRPERSON – MLA Carla Compton (Tuxedo)

VICE-CHAIRPERSON – MLA Billie Cross (Seine River)

ATTENDANCE – 6— QUORUM – 4

Members of the committee present:

Hon. Min. Fontaine, Hon. Min. Wiebe

Mr. Balcaen, MLAs Compton, Cross, Mr. Perchotte

APPEARING:

Grant Jackson, MLA for Spruce Woods

Shipra Verma, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Manitoba

MATTERS UNDER CONSIDERATION:

Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2022

Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2023

Elections Manitoba Proposal: Vote Anywhere in Manitoba on Election Day at any Returning Office, dated October 2024

* * *

Clerk Assistant (Ms. Melanie Ching): Good evening. Will the Standing Com­mit­tee on Legis­lative Affairs please come to order.

      Before the com­mit­tee can proceed with the busi­ness before it, it must elect a chairperson.

      Are there any nominations?

MLA Billie Cross (Seine River): I nominate MLA Compton.

Clerk Assistant: MLA Compton has been nominated.

      Are there any other nominations?

      Hearing no other nominations, MLA Compton, will you please take the Chair.

The Chairperson: Our next item of busi­ness is the election of a Vice-Chairperson.

      Are there any nominations?

Hon. Nahanni Fontaine (Minister of Families): I'd like to nominate MLA Cross.

The Chairperson: MLA Cross has been nominated.

      Are there any other nominations?

      Hearing no other nominations, MLA Cross is elected Vice-Chairperson.

      This meeting has been called to consider the following: Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2022; Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2023; and Elections Manitoba Proposal: Vote Anywhere in Manitoba on Election Day at any Returning Office, dated October 2024.

      Are there any sug­ges­tions from the com­mit­tee as to how long we should sit this evening?

Mr. Wayne Balcaen (Brandon West): I would suggest no later than 8 p.m.

The Chairperson: It has been suggested that we meet no–that this com­mit­tee meets no later than 8 p.m. this evening.

      Is that agreed? [Agreed]

      Does the hon­our­able minister wish to make an opening statement, and would he please intro­duce the officials in attendance?

Hon. Matt Wiebe (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Perfect. Well thank you, hon­our­able Chair. I ap­pre­ciate the op­por­tun­ity to welcome everybody here this evening.

      Of course we're joined by our Chief Electoral Officer Shipra Verma, and I wanted to thank her individually for the work that she does. You know, it's a big organi­zation; it's a big under­taking, and our electoral integrity is such an im­por­tant issue that I think is–crosses all party lines and really is some­thing that, as elected officials, we certainly ap­pre­ciate and respect.

      So I wanted to thank her for being here, making herself available to the members of the com­mit­tee tonight. I'll allow her to introduce her team, but I just wanted to, at the outset, say just a quick word, again, of thanks to the work that she does, that the team does, Elections Manitoba in general.

      But that also includes all of the many folks through­out many of our com­mu­nities that come together to help run an election, whether that be a general election, a by-election. We ask citizens to partici­pate and to get involved and to come out and support demo­cracy, and I always feel like that is probably one of the most im­por­tant parts of the way that we run our elections, in that it really brings in the com­mu­nity.

      It involves the com­mu­nity, and, you know, if there's ever any questions about election integrity, there cer­tainly–again, the work that's done at Elections Manitoba is so vital, but all you need to do is talk to the person down the street who worked on the local campaign, who sat at the ballot box, who ensured that the local polling station was secure and was–and every­thing was done correctly.

      I think that just instills a real sense of integrity in the system and the–and shows the importance that we place on demo­cracy here in our province. There are certainly no shortage of challenges when it comes to the future of elections and how we conduct them. I know that there has been a number of initiatives that were new in the last couple of elections, and I hope that we're going to learn some lessons. I know that the Elections Manitoba has done that work and reported back to us. I hope that we'll have some good discussion around those initiatives and some of the successes and some of the challenges that we saw.

      And just in general, again, we know through­out the world that there's so many challenges around elections in many other places, and for us to have such a well-run and pro­fes­sional organi­zation like Elections Manitoba I think should give all Manitobans con­fi­dence.

      So I ap­pre­ciate the work that Elections Manitoba does, our Chief Electoral Officer, and I look forward to the discussion here tonight.

The Chairperson: We thank the hon­our­able minister.

      Does the critic for the official op­posi­tion have an opening statement?

Mr. Balcaen: Again, it gives me great pleasure to speak to this com­mit­tee and welcome our Chief Electoral Officer for the province of Manitoba, and thank you for the sig­ni­fi­cant work that has been done during this election.

      For myself, this was my first foray into politics, and I learned on the fly and I learned a lot from the websites and from the different areas that I could glean the infor­ma­tion from. So I think that's very im­por­tant, not only for our citizens in a very demo­cratic society, but for those of us that were running for office and looking for the processes and following the rules. I've always been a rule person. I like to make sure that the rules are followed and enforced, and, well, you certainly gave us the guidance for that.

      Again, welcome to your staff that are here as well and people on your com­mit­tee that are going to help with some of the questions that we'll have through­out the night. It's very im­por­tant, obviously, for all of us to have a very integral and trans­par­ent system when we're talking about elections and when we're talking about the demo­cratic process that all of us were elected under, and certainly ap­pre­ciate that and what Elections Manitoba and yourself bring to the table here.

      Like the minister mentioned, I'd like to thank all of the com­mu­nity people that get engaged in this, whether it's in a volunteer capacity or whether it's as an employee–a term or a temporary employee–under Elections Manitoba, making sure that the systems that are in place are adhered to and are fair for each and every one of us that seek office.

* (18:10)

      I know that there is sig­ni­fi­cant challenges when you run an election. I know I faced some myself with some of the results at the end and timing so, you know, I'm interested in learning some more of the processes tonight as we go through this.

      And so with those statements, again, ap­pre­ciate you being here and I look forward to what's to come in the next few hours.

The Chairperson: We thank the member.

      And I'd just like to take a moment to remind folks, when addressing the Chair, please use the term hon­our­able Chair. Thank you.

      Does the repre­sen­tative from Elections Manitoba wish to make an opening statement? All right, Ms.–is it Ms.? Ms. Verma.

Ms. Shipra Verma (Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Manitoba): Good evening, Chairperson–Madam Chairperson and members of the com­mit­tee, and thank you for this op­por­tun­ity to discuss our tabled annual reports for 2023, 2022 and the proposal to modify the voting process for the next prov­incial general election. I'm joined today by director of elections financing, Tracy Nylen, and director of elections operations, Jeanne Zwiep.

      Today, I'll give you a brief overview of our annual report of 2023, which covers the conduct of the recent prov­incial general election, the recom­men­dations contained in the report and the proposal for Vote Anywhere on Election Day at any Returning Office in the Province.

      A common element you will notice as we discuss each of these is the importance and the work that goes into maintaining the integrity of the election. When we look at election integrity, there are certain ele­ments that must be maintained: the in­de­pen­dent administration of free, fair and accessible election delivered securely and reliably, a secret ballot where one voter gets one vote, a verifiable process that uses paper ballots, an observable process, regular disclosure all contribute to maintain and protect the integrity of the electoral process.

      The election moderni­zation efforts we have under­­taken have supported all these aspects of election integrity. They have enhanced service delivery by provi­ding a con­sistent voting ex­per­ience for advance and election-day voting across Manitoba, making the process more convenient for Manitobans and the political parti­ci­pants.

      To give you an overview of the last election, we saw the partici­pation of 188 candidates from six registered political parties. The total number of votes cast increased by 10,000 from the last general election and voter turnout remained con­sistent at 55 per cent.

      Voting took place at 300 advance voting places, 866 regular election-day voting places and 310 in­sti­tutions. The total operational expenditure was $14.4 million, which was within the budgeted amount. Election expenditures were audited by an in­de­pen­dent audit firm. The audit report found that our office demon­strated sound practices in financial adminis­tration.

      Candidates' and parties' election report deadline was February 5 of this year; returns are published on our website and we will report on the reimbursement and financial activity in our next annual report. Of the official candidates, 161 were eligible for reimburse­ment and four registered parties were eligible. The  approximate amount of reimbursement was $1.4 million.

      This election was one of transformational change. Service to voters and political parti­ci­pants was elevated using tech­no­lo­gy across Manitoba. Over 600 vote-counting machines were used through­out the province during the election; 97 per cent of advance voters and 82 per cent of election-day voters cast their ballot using a vote-counting machine. Electronic strike-off was used to serve over 90 per cent of voters.

      This change was imple­mented in full accordance with legis­lation and elements of election integrity while offering greater service to voters at the poll. The political infor­ma­tion portal provided parties and can­didates real-time voting infor­ma­tion using data from real-time strike-off at the polls.

      The last election was one of the most ambitious elections my organi­zation delivered in terms of tech­no­lo­gy and legis­lative changes. Much of what we did went well and as planned. We delivered a free, fair and accessible election, and majority of the results were reported on election night within two hours.

      There were a few things that did not go as intended, and we have reviewed and learned from these situations. Our recent public survey showed 94 per cent of Manitobans believed we ran a fair election. Also of note, three out of four Manitobans felt the tech­no­lo­gy was trustworthy or very trust­worthy; nine out of 10 people remember getting their voter infor­ma­tion card, and 97 per cent said the name and address infor­ma­tion was correct; 86 per cent of the voters knew that any eligible voter could vote at any advance voting place.

      After each election we engage in finding ways to better serve Manitobans at the polls and to enhance and sustain the critical systems which protect our demo­cratic rights. We have learned much through internal and external review and are applying that knowledge and ex­per­ience while planning our next election cycle.

      This report also includes a report on modification of the voting processes that were approved to be used by this com­mit­tee on October 13, 2021. This modifica­tion allowed for voters to cast a ballot at any polling place in their electoral division on election day. Approximately 7 per cent of election day voters chose to vote at a polling place that wasn't their recom­mended election day polling place.

      We note in our report that this modification was well received, did meet the objectives set out in the legis­lation: we're enhancing efficiency, improving service for voters and maintaining the integrity of the voting process. We are therefore recommending that this modification be incorporated into legis­lation.

      Building on this, we have submitted a proposal to modify the next general election voting process to vote anywhere in Manitoba on election day, at any returning office, which adds an additional three days of voting, including election day. Under this model, voters can cast their ballot at any returning office or satellite returning office in Manitoba for a total of 11 days.

      We believe this proposal meets the criteria of section 28.1 of The Elections Act. It improves the voting process for voters by adding convenience of voting anywhere. It achieves admin­is­tra­tive efficiencies by making use of the existing voting infra­structure in place for advance voting, and this model of voting will preserve the integrity of the vote; voters will still go through the usual process of confirming identity, casting a paper ballot by hand and maintaining the secrecy of the vote.

      This brings us to the other recom­men­dations in the annual report. We are making one new recom­men­dation under The Elections Act to counter the threat of disinformation that can under­mine the integrity of the electoral process.

      This recom­men­dation would place restrictions on deliberately transmitting false election infor­ma­tion designed to mislead voters. This recom­men­dation would develop legis­lation to prevent individuals or organi­zations from deliberately transmitting specific types of disinformation that are objectively false, including transmitting a false statement about election officials and voting administration tools, transmitting false election infor­ma­tion, transmitting unauthorized material or infor­ma­tion.

      In addition, we are carrying forward recom­men­dations to have a con­sistent calendar for general elections, fixed-date elections and byelections; to use the Manitoba voter register as a source for eligible voters when registering a party rather than the voters list from the previous general election; to change the date for a con­stit­uency association to file their financial statements to align with the party return and con­sequently changing the recovery time for the late filing fee. Additionally, we continue to recom­mend the esta­blish­ment of a single address author­ity for Manitoba.

      To conclude, I would like to recap a previous election cycle from 2019 to 2023. We all navigated a global pandemic. We presented two modifications to the voting process, both which were accepted by the com­mit­tee. We saw these modifications, some of them adopted into legis­lation through bill 11, enabling election modernization to improve service and access to Manitoba voters.

      We conducted three by-elections in 2022, one during the pandemic, all while preparing for the delivery of the general election, which required sig­ni­fi­cant updates to training material, processes and pro­cedures. Through this period, we have seen a multiple shift, not just in legis­lation that guides the conduct of elections and the tools and processes used, but in how my office delivers electoral services.

      This shift creates new opportunities to further engage with Manitobans. We are committed to sharing election knowledge and best practices with com­mu­nities and munici­palities across Manitoba and con­tinue to explore new avenues to engage with people, organi­zations and com­mu­nities across the province.

* (18:20)

      I ap­pre­ciate the op­por­tun­ity to meet today. I thank this com­mit­tee and all members of the Legis­lative Assembly as well as the political parties, their volunteers, for your support of election modernization. The work we have done on modernization would not be possible without your en­gage­ment, your time, careful consideration, your questions, suggestions and the legislative amendments that have led to increased efficiency and better service to Manitobans and reaffirm our shared commit­ment to election integrity and demo­cracy.

      This concludes my opening statements, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

      The floor is now open for questions.

Mr. Balcaen: Certainly. Thank you very much for the infor­ma­tion provided in your opening remarks. It is greatly appreciated.

      And again, as somebody who just went through this for the first time, I'm wondering if you could please walk us through the system, through the pro­cesses, and high­light what went well and what needs to be, you know, rectified or changed.

Ms. Verma: May I just clarify the question: Are you looking at the processes, the new processes which were implemented for this election, or generally the overall election process?

Mr. Balcaen: I would say a bit of both but mainly focusing on the new processes and what happened.

Ms. Verma: So in an–for Manitoba, we–for a fixed-date election, we have a 28-day election calendar. Prior to that, we also have gov­ern­ment advertising restrictions, which are for 60 days. We have third-party legis­lation and candidates in political party pre-election advertising limit, which is for 90 days prior to the issue of the writ.

      The nomination process for the candidates–the election cycle begins from a political–for a political parti­ci­pant's perspective when the parties nominate their candidates, and it could be through a party affiliation or as in­de­pen­dent candidates.

      When a candidate gets nominated under The Election Financing Act, we are required to appoint an official agent. That gives us the trigger to provide infor­ma­tion to assist in filing and doing the required paperwork. Also, the election filing return timeline begins from the time that the candidates are nominated.

      We provide infor­ma­tion sessions, that's one area of en­gage­ment, but we also have–working on maps and voting places, which we share with the advisory com­mit­tee. The advisory com­mit­tee is under The Elections Act and under The Elections Financing Act. Both com­mit­tees have repre­sen­tatives of political parties who are registered, so we are in constant con­sul­ta­tion with them. We provide them with all the changes which are coming in, with the highlights, with also the tools that they will need to–for their own election purposes, such as maps, voting areas, street keys, indexes.

      From an election perspective, the–even though the calendar is of 28 days, the offices–we have 57 electoral divisions, 57 offices are esta­blished, and not–we also esta­blish satellite offices con­sid­ering how large the electoral divisions are and to ensure there is proper repre­sen­tation and access to infor­ma­tion.

      The calendar is a set-date calendar, but we also have offices opened in August, and we started with target registration. Target registration is for those areas where we have vacant properties, and we also conduct door-to-door enumeration in areas of high mobility or where we know that the voters list is not as complete as we would like it to be. That was started in August for two weeks, and then the preliminary voters list is issued to all candidates who are nominated under The Elections Financing Act and to all registered political parties.

      With the issue of the writ, this time the changes which we had were quite sig­ni­fi­cant. We had, for the first time, a full modernization of the election process.

      So earlier, if you would–like, how the process used to be, it was all manual. And this was done in a phased manner; 2019 was the first election where we started with the real-time strike-off of the voters list but only during advance voting. For this election, we had the real-time strike-off for voters list, both advance and election day. Manitoba is the–was the first province to have vote anywhere in the province, and we have advance voting for eight days.

      There's sig­ni­fi­cant public edu­ca­tion and com­muni­ca­tion which happens. We conducted around 60 com­mu­nity events across the province for voter registration. We also had vote pop-up, which was a way to engage with new Canadians or for people who may not be that familiar with the voting process.

      When the nomination process–180 candidates, 188 candidates–were nominated through the formal nomination process. We had more e-signatures were not–like, we would–we were accepting electronic nomina­­tion papers. That was also first time new. Earlier the papers had to be submitted in person, so that was one step for provi­ding better service.

      We had the political party portals, where all the infor­ma­tion was available to the registered parties and to candidates through an online portal for maps, voters list, and that provided, again, another aspect of modernization.

      For advance voting, vote-counting machines were used in 300 polling places across the province. We also have advance voting in high-traffic areas, which are the malls, the airport, colleges, uni­ver­sities and we also had it in a couple of hospitals.

      Con­sid­ering the scope and breadth of the changes that we were having, we were expecting a high learn­ing curve because of the amount of tech­no­lo­gy. At the poll, what was different was there was a laptop, there was a scanner to scan your voter infor­ma­tion card. There was printers–ballot-on-demand printers, so that voters who are from outside the electoral division will also get the same ballot as the resident voters. We also had an integrated voting book. We had laptops.

      So all across the province, there were three models that we were using for voting, both for election day and advance voting.

      One was complete modernization where you had the whole kit here. You had the full tech­no­lo­gy, and those–the deployment of these machines and tech­no­lo­gy was based on connectivity, on our previous ex­per­ience on which are the more high-target areas, but also, we were making all efforts to ensure that urban, rural and north have a con­sistent voting ex­per­ience.

      The second type of voting place was hybrid, where we did have the laptops and the scanners for a real-time strike-off of the voters list and ensuring that the parties and the candidates also get real-time strike-off infor­ma­tion on voting. However, there was no vote-counting machine and there was a paper ballot box.

      The third was completely manual where there was no laptop, a regular book and no vote-counting machine, but a regular ballot box. We had a new style of ballots which could be accepted in the vote-counting machine. We also had a ballot transfer box, so that every day, when the advance voting ballots were done, they were secured and moved to a secure location.

      The other–for all the vote-counting machines, from the date the nominations closed and we had one week to do a logic and accuracy testing on each and every card which went on–in the vote-counting machine. All 600 machines, some of them had–were being used for election day in advance, so around 750 uniquely programmed cards were generated, and each card was tested for full logic and accuracy testing based on the guide­lines which were published on the website.

      Advance voting also changed that the vote was being counted where the advance vote was being done. Earlier, the non-resident advance voting would all be through a certificate envelope. Those certificate envelopes would come to the head office, we would sort them out and then send them back to all the returning officers, which were done in a period of two days. Because of the increased volume of advance voting, use of the vote-counting machine, we were able to–we had made the recom­men­dation that the vote be counted where the advance vote was cast.

      Moving on to election day, we had the same pro­cess. We had three types of voting scenarios: full tech­no­lo­gy, hybrid and full manual.

      The in­sti­tution polls are 310. They cover personal-care homes, seniors' residences, in­sti­tutions like cor­rections facilities, homeless shelters and they're also mobile. So that means one team would–could go to multiple places, so–because, con­sid­ering the volume of the votes, you don't need the voting place to be open from 8 to 8.

* (18:30)

      Every­thing–most of the things were going as planned in the election cycle up 'til the election day. On election day morning, our website started having issues. One of the firewalls was not functioning, and we worked to get the firewall reconstructed. By 6 p.m. the firewall was up, but still it was giving issues to the connectivity to the website.

      Because of that reason, there was a change which was made to reroute the traffic. The rerouting of the traffic caused load-balancing issues when the election night results were happening. That caused the website to close down for 30 day–30 minutes.

      In addition to that, we had a storm which wasn't expected on election day morning. That caused us to have the vote-counting machine set up; there were some challenges with that. But the goal was, we had–the clear instruction was that voting should proceed on the time, and for that purpose there was a con­tingency plan of using auxiliary ballot boxes.

      Auxiliary ballot boxes are the regular ballot boxes. So the machinery was set up. There was a time that the vote-counting machine would need to set it up; the ballots would go in the auxiliary ballot box. The contingency which was expected was 5 per cent, but due to the storm, 45 per cent voting places had to use an auxiliary ballot box. The main reason was that because of the storm, they could not stand at the door with all the material for the doors to open, so they had to secure that the office–the polling place doors would be open, because it was all electronic machine and it was pouring.

      The storm also caused tele­commu­nica­tion chal­lenges in the North, and those challenges led to–we knew how many results have to be reported wherever there was an electronic strike-off. So 97 per cent of the results were reported within two hours. The area that we were not sure about, what is the count which has to be reported, is in the manual count. And when the tele­commu­nica­tion went down in the North, and the phone lines were also hampered, we had to wait to make sure that all the results are reported.

      So, hence, on the election night, when we said 97 per cent of the results are there, the other thing which we did was to enhance a trans­par­ency of advance voting results. We said we gave how many counts were there for how many non-resident votes are being reported by the electoral division. That means every electoral division had 56 electoral–

The Chairperson: Excuse me, Ms. Verma. Sorry, your time is up. Thank you.

An Honourable Member: Can we just give her some time to finish or wrap up?

The Chairperson: That's okay?

      Okay, yes, you can finish, Ms. Verma.

Ms. Verma: So every electoral division had 57 results to be reported for advance voting. One was resident; 56 were out of the ED. We knew how many results were reported, but for the 56 EDs which had to be reported, zero result also had to come in. And that zero result we could not confirm in every place. That was 0.001 per cent. So hence the zeros were not showing, and it showed 50 out of 57 from the North, or 51 out of 57.

      Those were the challenges that we faced. To address those challenges, we have changed our reporting system. We have also changed the–we are looking at if we can set up the voting place the night before of the election day, so there are some changes that we are looking at for the next election cycle.

      But I will answer the–more questions as they come from this response.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

      Further questions from the op­posi­tion side?

Mr. Balcaen: Getting some feedback here, sorry.

      So when we're looking at mitigating these in the future, is there a way to look at the connectivity or to look at other areas? Through the Chair, asking this question.

Ms. Verma: Absolutely. We have done extensive review of our processes and debriefed with our staff, which would be the returning officers, assist­ant returning officers with our casual term staff that we hired as election officials.

      We have done a review with our vendors, with our suppliers, with our support. We have also done internal review of all these processes.

      So there were a couple of things that we do know. There is–can I continue?

The Chairperson: Please continue.

Ms. Verma: So we are looking at the way election night result reporting would happen. We have already made some changes to our system. We are also looking at setting up the offices, the polling places, a night before wherever it would be feasible, so that the challenges to have the opening and the setting up of the office can be addressed.

      We are looking at changing our–modifying our–the combinations that we have for voting. So we have this full electronic, hybrid and manual. We are looking at consolidating some of these options so that we can stream­line our processes.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

An Honourable Member: Can you recog­nize me first?

The Chairperson: Can I–Mr. Balcaen.

Mr. Balcaen: Right. Just through discussions, I think it would be best if we alter­nate back and forth between questions here.

Mr. Wiebe: I think the critic will ap­pre­ciate that these are very much in the same vein of some of the ques­tions that he's already been asking, so I think we're probably on the same page with some of this.

      I–so I wanted to say at the outset, first of all, that the advances and the use of tech­no­lo­gy was certainly ap­pre­ciated from, I think, all political parties in terms of organi­zation and under­standing how we can better facilitate voting and encourage voting. Certainly, the vote anywhere initiative was ap­pre­ciated and certainly I also understand there are challenges that come with that.

      The questions that I have spe­cific­ally with regards to that electronic voting–the electronic counting–you had mentioned 97 per cent reported, you know, within the two-hour–I think two-hour window is what you told the com­mit­tee. Certainly on the night of–election night–and I know there were challenges with the website as well, everybody was checking in–but there were a number of con­stit­uencies where there was a sig­ni­fi­cant delay, and I think, in fact, there were a few that we didn't know the results until the next day.

      So, I just wanted to understand the relationship between the electronic voting–the equip­ment that was being used–the relationship between the challenges with the electronic voting and the hybrid model, which was employed in different places. If you can help unpack that for us and help us understand where–what the issue spe­cific­ally was.

      And then, I guess, the other question that I have–just because I have the floor–is, with regards to advance voting, I can ap­pre­ciate that there were more loca­tions. However, because of the–you know, the real need–or, the real interest in building on that advance vote as–you know, as sort of the way that people want to vote these days–what are the limitations that the tech­no­lo­gy is presenting to rolling that out more widely?

      For instance, in a individual electoral district, instead of two locations, multiple locations that would be available for advance voting, in addition to the vote anywhere initiative.

Ms. Verma: I'll take the second question, then move my way to the first question.

      The second question, advance voting, 300 voting places across the province. We have at least two advance voting places in every electoral division. In rural and north, there is also a require­ment, no more than 50 voters will travel more than 30 kilometres to–for advance voting. So in some places, we have around–some electoral divisions–we have around 18  to 20 advance voting locations. We're always open to any sug­ges­tions that you may have for–on this.

      The use of tech­no­lo­gy is quite–we try to stream­line it based on where the maximum traffic is coming based on our survey or analysis of advance voting from 2007. So we identify areas where we know there are really high foot traffic and we can have more ballot-on-demand printers and more tech­no­lo­gy there.

      In smaller com­mu­nities, it–because of the connect­ivity issues, it doesn't seem technically feasible to have a full solution in those areas. But in the North, we had quite a few electoral divisions and areas where we did have return–all returning offices had full tech­no­lo­gy use.

      So, at this point, tech­no­lo­gy is not the restriction; it is finding locations which are accessible, which meet the foot traffic to deploy advance voting. But if there are sug­ges­tions where the members–we always consult with the parties and the candidates and provide the list of the locations–if you have more locations that you can suggest, we'll always take that into con­sid­era­tion and see what–how best to serve Manitobans.

* (18:40)

      With regard to the result reporting: Okay, let's start with that there's advance reporting and there's election day reporting. Advance reporting was, where there was a vote-counting machine which was used, advance was reporting 57 electoral divisions. None of these machines were connected to the Internet. So in some places, we reused the vote-counting machines. So they had two shifts, which one was advance voting shift and one was election day voting shift.

      Advance shift was uploaded–the result was uploaded through a secure system which was–and an interface between the company, which was Smartmatic, whose vote-counting machine we were using. So the results would be uploaded into the result manage­ment system of Smartmatic. Through a secure interface, that result would be sent to Elections Manitoba.

      Our result would then move on to the website. The count for these advance voting–if we were to do a manual count, we would be up to around 3 to 4 a.m. looking at the volume of advance voting because 40 per cent of people–Manitobans–voted advance. So that was a sig­ni­fi­cant increase in advance voting.

      The concern which was happening was wherever there was an auxiliary box which was used, the result had to be uploaded. We had to unlock the result for the returning office to upload–manually enter the auxiliary box result. Even where there was full tech­no­lo­gy, because of the use of the contingency, that had to be unlocked, and when we were unlocking the result, you entered infor­ma­tion into one; it had to be entered into all 56.

      That is a process that we can take back and say, we don't need to do it. If they're unlocking, we only unlock for the area they tell us, and the rest of the results remain zero. So that's where the issue was happening, that the zero result was not being reported, and they were showing incomplete results, but it wasn't the case.

      In the case of election day, the result was of that electoral division–a tape was printed from the vote-counting machine. The printed–the result on the printed tape was manually entered into the system. Again, where an auxiliary box had to be used, they had to print the tape, count the auxiliary box results, add the results together and then enter the infor­ma­tion. In some places, the addition was missed or they had to unlock the result again to show the auxiliary box usage.

      There were three electoral divisions in the city where the results reporting started coming after 9 p.m. The three electoral divisions had a concern because the–there was a confusion and a mis­commu­ni­ca­tion which happened that the results–some brought in the results to the returning office to be entered rather than to report at the location or there was a confusion around–in place first and then reporting the results. The instruction was report the result and then do the recon­ciliation and the balancing. We are looking at that from a training perspective and to see how to stream­line the process.

      So I would say there were some challenges. There was a huge learning curve. This election was trans­formational, and there were multiple combinations in the way we were delivering the voting process, depending on custom solutions in the electoral division itself. They could be a complete manual, a hybrid and an electronic. What we have to look back at–look at right now is how do we stream­line this process better with­out decreasing the service options.

      So, in apartment blocks, there were some apart­ment blocks post-COVID which were very restrictive on the use of the space that we were being provided, so we can't put the whole tech­no­lo­gy there, or restricting it just for the residents of the apartment block. That–those things cause even changes in how where-do-I-vote infor­ma­tion appears on the website because we have to hide that infor­ma­tion from a general inquiry because we can vote anywhere in the electoral division or anywhere in the province. We had to make too many custom solutions for too many options for voting.

      And that's the big takeaway that we have to take, as you know. We have to stream­line the processes and use the tech­no­lo­gy in a way which can assist us in stream­lining the process rather than creating confusion for staff.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

      Mr. Balcaen? Mr. Jackson.

Mr. Grant Jackson (Spruce Woods): Thanks, hon­our­able Chair; you're doing a great job. I don't get to vote, but I do get to ask questions.

      Thank you for being here very much today, and I ap­pre­ciate the work that Elections Manitoba is doing in an attempt at working towards modernization.

      And I think, you know, the recom­men­dations that have come forward from yourself and the organi­zation, with respect to modernizing where folks can vote are very helpful. I have a large rural con­stit­uency, larger than Prince Edward Island in geography, and I  also have–I go all the way around the city of Brandon, so a lot of my con­stit­uents live rurally and work in the city. It would be the equivalent of me repre­sen­ting all the munici­palities of the Winnipeg capital region, so, obviously, on a much smaller popu­la­tion scale. So just ap­pre­ciate these folks being able to vote, and I hope that continues to proceed and modernize.

      Couple of the issues that I heard, and I'd like clari­fi­ca­tion, were that power outages caused some prob­lems during the election. So can you just talk a little bit about the impact of that, and then what Elections Manitoba is proposing as a solution so that if power outages happen during the next ballot counting process, how some of those hiccups could be avoided going forward.

      Thanks.

Ms. Verma: The power outages caused the delay in the set-up. The delay in the set-up caused the con­tingency that we had for these paper ballot boxes to be used. And I believe that having a paper ballot box available ensures that the voting continues uninterrupted, because the legis­lation doesn't allow me to modify the hours for election.

      So for us it was very im­por­tant and critical that the voting must begin at 8 a.m. so that the voting hours are not impacted. Hence the use of these paper ballot boxes was em­pha­sized that in case for any reason that the set-up will take time, there is a manual backup process which is available.

      And I think going forward, keeping a contingency plan is always good, because we cannot prevent a power outage, but one of the recom­men­dations or solutions we are looking internally is the ability to set up the voting place the night before election. That is done in other provinces, like British Columbia and Ontario. They do set up the voting place a night before. We'll have to consider the security arrange­ments and availability that would come with this kind of an arrangement.

      The second one was the power outages caused even the tele­commu­nica­tion lines to go down in the North. So phone–cell services, phone services, were also impacted. We are still looking for options as to what. We have used Starlink in some of the electoral divisions for connectivity. So this election we had Starlink, we had Bell, we had Rogers, we had all dif­ferent providers looking at wherever the connectivity was the best one.

      We have made changes into the election night result reporting system, both from the vendor per­spective and from our own perspective, to stream­line. The backup is to have telephone lines available in order that if the system is not working, we can report the results through telephone.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

MLA Fontaine: First, let me start by saying I always ap­pre­ciate these standing com­mit­tees, where we get to hear from you directly, and as I always do, for the last eight and a half years, I want to just acknowledge you for your in­cred­ible leadership, and I don't think that there's anybody in Manitoba that knows this–knows elections like you do. You know this like the back of your hand.

      So I want to just acknowledge your leadership, your profound leadership, and then also your team. I think that you have a pretty extra­ordin­ary team to be able to do this. So I just want to acknowledge that.

      I've got two questions. My first question is on–I believe it's on page 56. No.

      I want to kind of just explore. We recently learned that the PCs–there was a candidate that submitted an invoice from an intimacy coach. And now it's saying that it was for a car rental. So, of course, I know that everybody–I know that your office would know that. I think that there's been a complaint lodged about that parti­cular expense, if I can say that.

      I am curious how that process works.

* (18:50)

      Like, how does it work for parties? And I guess we'll go for parties, or maybe it's both individuals as well. When they're–how does Elections Manitoba do a review of all of the party expenses for an election? Because–so that's the question. And in respect of this invoice that was submitted from an intimacy coach–well, actually it was from a company advertising sex and intimacy coaching but, again, was for a car rental. How does that–how can one do that, and how–is there con­se­quences to that? When will we know about that?

      So I'm kind of curious overall about the accounting in respect of elections for parties.

Ms. Verma: Election returns and–so–a registered political party has to file two returns with our office. One is an annual return which talks–which gives us their annual activities infor­ma­tion–their income and expenses including con­tri­bu­tions, and that is filed three months–the filing deadline is three months after the end of the calendar year.

      The other return they file is an election return, which is filed four months after election day. The election return has an account of all election income and expenses. Unlike a candidate return where all sup­porting docu­men­ta­tion is filed with the return, parties are not required to provide all supporting docu­men­ta­tion for all their expenses.

      At the time of the review, we assess where we would request more–additional infor­ma­tion for us to have the–for us to complete a compliance review. All returns: party returns, annual, election and for candidate election returns; they all are audited by an in­de­pen­dent auditor, and we receive the return with an audit report which talks about if they have found any material misstatements or if there are any non-compliance issues which have come through the review–through the audit of the in­de­pen­dent auditor.

      Our process for reviewing the returns: we see–we look at the return, assess, compare it to the previous election returns or the previous annual returns, because returns for the parties are also a bit cyclical. As per the election cycle, you will see a higher amount of con­tri­bu­tion close to the election year, and then the con­tri­bu­tion amounts also go down as post-election.

      So there is a cycle to the expenses too: our polling expenses, which will be more in the year leading up to the election, or there'll be more advertising expenses.

      So we review the returns based on the cycle in which they are filed, assess, and the audit report pro­vides us with the assurance that the return is complete, subject to–it's always–it comes with a quali­fi­ca­tion because of potential of cash transactions. Every audit report is qualified for that purpose.

      We can request infor­ma­tion as to if there are any specific line items which we find are high in number or sometimes even too low in number. We do a variance analysis. We do a comparison across the parties to see the reasonableness of these expenses, and we can ask for additional infor­ma­tion based on this review.

      The additional infor­ma­tion may include copies of the invoices, may include a copy of their ledger, may include bank receipts or copies of the cheques too. That depends on what the review process–how detailed it is and how much infor­ma­tion is being asked. Mostly, parties and candidates provide us with the infor­ma­tion in a timely manner.

      I can't talk about the specifics of the–of any parti­cular party review, because that is con­fi­dential, and as you stated, the matter has been referred to the com­mis­sioner, so it is being–it's under the com­mis­sioner's review, currently.

      But as a general process, when the invoices are delivered or provided to us, we see the invoices match–the total matches to the amount reported. If there is any major variances, further questions may be asked.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

Mr. Balcaen: Just going on staffing and the chal­lenges that came about as a result of this election, and I'm just wondering how the staffing challenges compared to the previous election and what we can look at or what can be looked at to improve this, parti­cularly acquiring training for staff.

      I did have a few con­stit­uents, I guess, reach out to me with concerns when the advance polling was hap­pening, getting a blank sheet with no name or any­thing on it and they had to put the proper spelling of the candidate on there; so it wasn't provided for them. They weren't sure of that sort of stuff.

      So just some of those areas, if you could speak to how that can be improved.

Ms. Verma: I'll–for this election, we had–so training happens in for–training happens in a couple of ways. First we start an election cycle by hiring a returning officer and assist­ant returning officer. Usually, that–the retention rate is between 30 to 50 per cent, and that's been the average that we have seen over the past elections.

      The training, the hiring of all the returning officers and assist­ant returning officers was completed a year ago, but there are always turnovers which happen, change in circum­stances. We provide in-person training. There are three in-person trainings which are provided over a period of seven days, and we also have a learning manage­ment system now, an online learning manage­ment system, which they can take the courses. There are some prerequisites and then they can take their courses. They can take refresher courses as the time progresses.

      We used–we delivered quite a few webinars this time on smaller topics, just because we understand learning–people learn in different ways and there are different options that we provided for learning.

      Because of the scale of changes and the modern­ization which we were going through, we also had training sessions with the tech­no­lo­gy, with the tools, so that they can become familiar with how the pro­cesses will be working. And the same concept was used for training and hiring of voting officials.

      So election is very decentralized. So we have a central­ized office. We identify all the processes, we provide all the material, we provide all the equip­ment for each and every office, right from a pencil to a photocopier machine and all the tech­no­lo­gy. So there are around 15 pallets which goes out to each returning office. Every­thing is done; the centralized pallet.

      But all the training, all of the processes are all centralized because we want to be sure that the con­sistent election ex­per­ience is done for all voters across the province. And as you have said, you know, Manitoba has a huge geographical size and the popu­la­tion, 75 per cent popu­la­tion is Winnipeg, but 25 per cent of the popu­la­tion is all across Manitoba, and different learning styles and learning options are provided.

      We made use of tech­no­lo­gy, especially post-COVID. We've also seen a high number of spares that they've needed to recruit. So earlier, the spare require­ment was 10 persons. The selection of spares which we hired and trained were around 20 per cent on an average across the province.

      We also had to close offices, a couple of them, because of COVID outbreaks and re-shift the training to adjoining electoral divisions, using tech­nology but also using in-person. With the 6,000 staff that we hire to deliver elections across the province, we had, again, using learning manage­ment system prerequisites and we had online and in-person sessions with the tech­no­lo­gy too.

      There were some areas that we feel, you know, that at times, because of the turnover and COVID outbreaks and a continuous changing, that we had to adapt the training session. An ideal training class was about 10 to 12 people, but we were going for training classes, as close to the election day, with around 20  people. So of course, the timeline that they had with the tech­no­lo­gy, the in-person was also reducing.

      We increased the training hours from two hours to three hours for in-person. We also had training supervisor positions that we hired across the province, so every electoral division had a training supervisor position. We added the in-support for technical sup­port people for advance voting and for election day across the province for each electoral division, in addition to vote counting machine technical support.

      Out of the 700 vote counting machines, 600 and plus the ones that we used, we had three vote counting machines that had to be replaced. If we look at the whole number across the province, three vote counting machines to be changed on voting day with the spares was not a poor statistic.

* (19:00)

      There were some challenges with regard to the ballot-on-demand printer, the connection, but we were rolling out a huge–a province-wide tech­no­lo­gy. So, if you look at the actual instances, it was within the contingency that we had planned for. And we had spare and–enough spare machines and vote-counting machines to replace the downtime which was hap­pening, and the contingency plan that the voting never got interrupted with the auxiliary ballot boxes and the paper voting machines which were available.

Mr. Wiebe: Perfect, thank you, hon­our­able Chair.

      I wanted to thank you, Ms. Verma, for your recom­­men­dation on false and misleading infor­ma­tion and I just wanted to ask a couple of questions with regards to that.

      That's certainly been an idea that has been–certainly been a focus of our gov­ern­ment. Manitobans know that in our Throne Speech, we committed to intro­ducing legis­lation to protect our elections demo­cracy from third-party and foreign inter­ference. And as I said at the outset, this is really an issue that we're seeing in many places around the world and so it's im­por­tant that we take steps here to address those. And so, I ap­pre­ciate the infor­ma­tion that you've laid out.

      And, I guess, maybe I should also just, you know, also add–in terms of my concerns around this and why I ap­pre­ciate your recom­men­dations so much–as I said at the outset, we are asking citizens, volunteers or folks who have agreed to work for Elections Manitoba for a short period of time, we put a lot of pressure on them to do this im­por­tant work. And so, we want to make sure that we're protecting them and protecting the work that they do, and protecting them from this kind of misinformation that might lead to concerns around their safety or any kind of questioning of their integrity when it comes to the work that they're doing.

      So, with that being said, what I wanted to under­stand a little bit better from you, if you could, is with regards to that interplay between what's sometimes called dark money or third-party actors–maybe foreign, maybe not–under­standing how that influence in our elections is playing itself out.

      I know you mention here about AI, about these deep-fakes and sort of the ease of–at which this tech­no­lo­gy can facilitate some of this disinformation. But I wanted to understand how you see the pressures going forward on Elections Manitoba manifesting them­­selves at the direction or the behest of these third parties, or foreign inter­ference or foreign influence, or third parties.

      Do you see that as being the main concern going forward? Or do you see that as being only one of many concerns when it comes to the imple­men­ta­tion or the use of this kind of tech­no­lo­gy and how it might impact our elections?

The Chairperson: Just before, I just want to remind everyone to please direct your questions through the Chair.

      Thank you.

Ms. Verma: False or misleading infor­ma­tion; the recom­men­dation which we have put together–put forward in our annual report was after careful con­sid­era­tion and reviewing what's happening nationally and inter­nationally.

      They're also based on discussions which we have with my counterparts, other election manage­ment bodies across Canada, and we are seeing that this topic is also of–has heightened interest given the national inquiry which is under way on foreign inter­ference and the potential impact it may have had on the–in the pre­vious federal election.

      So, there are–and we are also seeing in elections across the world, even in the United States–the use of misinformation, disinformation, the use of artificial intelligence and how deep-fakes and fake videos and infor­ma­tion can be circulated so easily that we need–we consider that we need more to make our legis­lation stronger to protect Manitobans against this so that the election integrity is not com­pro­mised by–through the use of disinformation, misinformation.

      So from a terminology perspective, just to have the record here, disinformation is infor­ma­tion which is deliberately placed which is incorrect and circulated. Misinformation would be infor­ma­tion which a person believes that is true, but is not true; they haven't done their fact check, and they spread that infor­ma­tion. Our recom­men­dation is more for disinformation, which is that there's an intent to circulate and spread infor­ma­tion.

      And then there are third parties. Third parties in the legis­lation are defined as individuals or organi­zations who are not candidates and parties or con­stit­uency associations, who are other than the political entities, who are wanting to share infor­ma­tion or have election com­muni­cation which directly or indirectly opposes or supports a parti­cular candidate, a party or a position, which means it is express advocacy and it's also issue advocacy.

      The principles of campaign finance have been on creating a level playing field. And I'm kind of coming to your question, but having the back­ground infor­ma­tion and it will all connect together. The principles of campaign finance is to have that level playing field so that the use of money or use of any tools does not create a bias for the voters, but does not create restrictions for the voters. And hence that level playing field creates con­tri­bu­tion limits and spending limits and has disclosure. So it is telling you where the money is coming from or where the infor­ma­tion is being generated, how the infor­ma­tion is being circulated.

      That takes us to the author­izations and the disclosures, which you have in your ads or the parties have in the ad. It's to tell the voter or tell the public this infor­ma­tion is coming from this source, and this is a valid infor­ma­tion. Our recom­men­dation is coming–like, that author­ization and the trans­par­ency in the infor­ma­tion should be there. So be it a third party or be it a political party or be it any person, they should have that–they should validate it, they should fact check it that this is–this infor­ma­tion is correct and that's–we are provi­ding, and the public can know where to verify this infor­ma­tion. Hence, the author­ization require­ment.

      When it comes to dark money or illegal money, there are lots of variances or–with that. First of all, cash can still be used in campaigns. So unless we want to completely get this–because all the audit reports are qualified because of the ability to use cash in your transactions, right. If the cash function can be com­pletely eliminated and all transactions must go through a financial in­sti­tution, then that dark money may have some more closures there.

      We have contribution limits. Con­tri­bu­tion limits are only there for candidates and parties and con­stit­uency associations and leadership contestants. Third parties don't have a con­tri­bu­tion limit; they have a spending limit. Third parties don't tell us–they can use their own funds. So out of the 14 third parties that have registered with us, only two third parties had two con­tri­bu­tions to disclose. The rest of them had their own money or they said–one third party said that they had staff donation in kind. So we don't know where the money's coming from.

      The final piece is, you know, is having that ability to do a fact check. And that comes through the broad­casters or the media platforms. They should also be many recom­men­dations which are coming in either through Elections Canada, Elections Ontario and Elections BC are placing an onus of responsibility on the media platforms also to ensure that there is proper disclosure as to who is provi­ding this ad. And in case they are aware of the infor­ma­tion is incorrect, they have a require­ment to pull that infor­ma­tion down.

      So this is not a–this is–this will need a more col­lab­o­rative and collective approach to handle misinformation and disinformation. And we need to–it is a serious issue because the ease at which–and artificial intel­ligence is a tool through which this infor­ma­tion and disinformation campaigns can be at–very easily avail­able to public and to media.

* (19:10)

      So we have to–we can't control the tech­no­lo­gy, but we can have safeguards in using tech­no­lo­gy and safeguards in our legis­lation so that the integrity and the correct infor­ma­tion is protected.

      The other piece is that we try to provide accurate infor­ma­tion as an election-manage­ment body. And that's our rule: that we want to be sure that we have the right infor­ma­tion to the right stake­holders. Hence, so much of work is done in ensuring the voter infor­ma­tion cards reach the right voter. We are able to provide them with the right infor­ma­tion as to when they can vote, how do they vote, where to vote.

      We encourage the political parti­ci­pants to send their infor­ma­tion to our website, and our website usually works, 99 per cent of the time, to use our website as the credible source of infor­ma­tion.

Mr. Richard Perchotte (Selkirk): Ms. Verma, I like to say for–to Ms. Verma that I certainly ap­pre­ciate Elections Manitoba and every­thing they've done. This was my first time as a candidate. In 2016, I was a campaign manager, and every time we contacted Elections Manitoba, we got a prompt, concise answer every single time, in a timely fashion. And that says a lot about your leadership and what is happening at Elections Manitoba. So I'd like to personally thank you from Selkirk.

      My second question–other than my statement–is the night of the election in 2023, the results of–in Selkirk in parti­cular–were not official. You know, it seemed like for days it didn't become official, and I've been asked by several people as to what the delay was, and I don't have an answer I can pass along.

      I would like if this com­mit­tee could provide me some answer that I can bring that would reassure people that the election process is working and every­thing happens for a reason. Thank you.

Ms. Verma: Thank you, hon­our­able member, for your positive feedback on the response–that quick response that you would receive from my office.

      With regard to the election night result reporting: so, result reporting happens in two stages. One is the unofficial result on election night. They remain unofficial until the time the final results are done.

      The final result date is esta­blished by Elections Manitoba. For a general election it's usually seven days after the unofficial result. This time it was 10 days, given that there was a Thanksgiving weekend in between, and we did want to give that time to staff, to take the time off for Thanksgiving.

      This calendar is reviewed and discussed with the advisory com­mit­tee months ahead of the election. It was done with the advisory committee, reviewed and they didn't raise any issue or concerns about it. The calendar was finalized and circulated.

      Ninety-seven per cent the result across the pro­vince did come on election night. As I mentioned earlier, advance voting, you can vote anywhere in the  province. We had to make sure that all the 300 advance voting locations get a clear confirmation that all the results has been reported. As you can see, 90 per cent of the voters used–were struck off of the voters list through the real-time strike-off. The remaining 10 per cent was a manual count. Because of the storm situation and the fall and the tele­commu­nica­tion breakdown which happened in many places, we had to make sure that all the results are in.

      We were able to confirm the real-time strike-off results are there. The ones which were manual strike-off, we needed more time to do the confirmation, but the results would remain unofficial until the time the final tally is completed, which was on the 10th day after the election night. Hence, they're unofficial until the final tally is completed.

      But the results were all in, 97 per cent on election night within two hours. And within 24 hours, we were having all the results which can be counted. In­sti­tution votes are not counted–for the correctional facilities and hospitals–on election night. Not all in­sti­tution votes were used–were delivered or–where voting was conducted through a vote counting machine.

      That's the same process as was used in the previous election. You write in a certificate–write-in ballot–those certificate envelopes come to us and then we are able to circulate, distribute them back to the electoral division. That takes 48 hours to do so.

MLA Fontaine: I have two questions, just in case I don't get my questions in.

      One is I'm interested in the post‑secondary out­reach and what you found from that. So, you know, was there lots of folks voting? Did lots of folks come out and vote? So I'm interested in what that looked like and if there was anything that we can–or, that you're planning on doing to kind of do it maybe better or–whatever. Maybe it was really good. I don't know. So I am really curious about that.

      The second piece that I'm interested in is the complaints process. So I know that in your report, it says you received 274 election‑related complaints between August 19 and October 10. Many of us received complaints from con­stit­uents and from citizens in respect of the campaign that was waged by the PCs in which we saw–you know, I don't think that we've ever seen, potentially, in Manitoba in respect of the level of divisiveness and hate and, you know, anti‑LGBTQ2I+ sentiment, anti‑trans sentiment and not the least of a campaign that was centred on the murder of Indigenous women by a serial killer and the question posed to Manitobans, whether or not Indigenous women's lives were–or, not lives, but their lives, their bodies, their experiences–warranted to be searched in the landfill.

      Now, I know–I'm not asking you to comment on that. I'm certainly not asking you to comment on that. But I think that we could all agree that we haven't seen a campaign like that before, and even some of the advertising that was used–I know there was a parti­cular advertisement in the Free Press that had, like, cards of some sort and–

An Hon­our­able Member: Playing cards.

MLA Fontaine: –playing cards and, you know, the language that was used there.

      Parti­cularly, you know, I–you know, the way that it was constructed was to, you know, have fear and to construct, you know, someone who is now a member of our caucus as a threat to children, which is, you know, just so grotesque.

      We've heard it. You know, our colleagues have heard it at the time during the election and certainly heard it afterwards in–from citizens on how distraught, actually, many citizens were to see the campaign that was being lodged and rolling out every single day.

      And for the purposes of Hansard, I will share one parti­cular interaction. I knocked at a door, and nobody answered, and so I went to the next door, and I was knocking, and I was talking to somebody at the door. And the first house that I had gone out–the house right next door–they had come out, and they said: Can you come back? And I said: Yes, absolutely. I said: When I'm finished speaking, I'll come back.

      And so I went back to that original door, and it was a husband and a wife–a mom and a dad–and almost imme­diately, the mom started crying, right away. And she was saying–you know, she says: I'm so scared. She says: I'm so scared if they get in again–if the PCs get in again. She says: I have a trans child. And she says: My child hasn't gone to school because my child is so scared about the rhetoric that's out there.

      And while, you know, I think people think that there really truly wasn't any harm. And there was harm in the lives of Manitobans–the same Manitobans that folks–the PC caucus were trying to say: Hey, vote for us so that we can become gov­ern­ment again and, you know, have the administration of this Province.

      There was real harm. And I remember just crying with that mother and making a promise to that mother that we will continue to stand, and we will continue to fight for trans rights but in parti­cular for children.

* (19:20)

      And you know, the flip side of it is the harm that that narrative, like standing firm and, you know, all of this stuff that Heather Stefanson and all of her elk–her ilk had done in respect to the landfill, and what that did to the Indigenous com­mu­nity and in parti­cular, as Indigenous women.

      So, we had complaints–like, there were folks that came to us with complaints. And so I'm curious, you know, the–was there an impact on the–and you may not be able to–you maybe don't have that infor­ma­tion or you're not able to share it–but was there complaints in respect of, you know, this election–this last election that we saw, and the tactics that were used in this last election to really sow division and really have harm in the lives of Manitobans?

Ms. Verma: For the post-secondary outreach, we were at the five post-secondary in­sti­tutions. We were involved in the orientation, but we also had advance and election-day voting wherever we could. We do–we had a campaign this time which was directed for youth, which had a tagline of fit check, which had quite a positive reception and generated good publicity around voting and discussion.

      Of this post-secondary outreach, I would also like to say the members passed the legis­lation of having an in-service day for a fixed-date election, and that allowed us to hire high-school students to work for election so that was also–thank you for that legis­lation which was passed, because that helped us engage with youth and create that habit of partici­pation for them. Because once they're involved in the process, they see the election and they are a future voter, so that was quite well-received.

      But what we want to do, go forward, not just with post-secondary outreach. It's some­thing–it's what we are looking at, a pattern, is ways to have ongoing relationship with the different com­mu­nity members across Manitoba.

      So if you see, as an example, for vote registration, we do target registration and we did target registration–we hired around–approximately 20, 25 target registra­tion staff in every electoral division, but that two weeks gave us 8,000 votes–new–not votes; new voters.

      However, outreach campaigns and events that we did, starting from April until July, gave us much better results. So we are seeing, you know, being in the com­mu­nity, being visible in the com­mu­nity, having those outreach events, vote pop-up events where we can have a con­ver­sa­tion and have an ongoing relationship, gives us better success than just being present on election day. So that is an initiative that we want to explore further in this next election cycle.

      With regard to complaints, the complaints were more–there were fewer complaints received in this–for this election as compared to 2019. The complaints were more around voting day, having wait times of–most of them were on wait times for advance voting and voting day. There were some places which were very popular and we will be taking that into con­sid­era­tion as we plan for the next election cycle.

      From a candidates' perspective, it's the text mes­saging, it's the call–the robo-calls or the callings for getting the vote out. There are sometimes–they–the complaint comes as where do they get the telephone number. We should not be sharing the telephone number; that's part of the legis­lation. We have that infor­ma­tion; we are required to share that infor­ma­tion.

      On campaigning, I don't have a–specific campaigns for which they were for; this is more like a general overview of the complaints. Some around tech­no­lo­gy and we see around a dozen on that, a dozen on target registration. It's quite challenging having people knock at the door. There are safety concerns for our staff. There are safety concerns that Manitobans feel they don't want to open the door to the stranger, hence our approach to having more com­mu­nity events which are more visible.

      If people can come to us–and we are very happy to go to the door if they want us to be there–but it is a challenge having people, like, go door to door and having that access available.

The Chairperson: First, I just want to remind all the members present to continue to address questions to the Chair. I know Ms. Verma is provi­ding majority of the answers here, but please remember: address the Chair.

Mr. Jackson: Through you, to the CEO of Elections Manitoba, I'm referring spe­cific­ally to the recom­men­dation that starts on page 105 and moves to page 106.

      I understand the argument for harmonization of the timelines with regard to nominations so that it's the same for both scheduled elections and non-scheduled elections or by-elections. That makes a lot of sense. Confusion is ripe, especially when you're a first-time candidate. However, I'm just questioning the decision to recom­mend six days be uni­ver­sal across the board.

      By-elections and non-scheduled elections are entirely in control of the gov­ern­ment and, in parti­cular, the premier. Lots of elections–you know, there's lots of competing interests as to when gov­ern­ments call by‑elections or non-scheduled elections, and regard­less of which party is in gov­ern­ment, if they snap a by-election, op­posi­tion parties can certainly be caught off guard. And so, you know, they're certainly at a disadvantage with that.

      And I understand wanting to have candidates nominated well in advance of when advance voting starts. I'm just wondering how you came up with the decision to recom­mend six days, why there isn't maybe more of a middle ground–

The Chairperson: Sorry. Mr. Jackson, I'm–

An Hon­our­able Member: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not going through you.

The Chairperson: Thank–

An Hon­our­able Member: Through–sorry, hon­our­able Chair.

      Hon­our­able Chair, to the–to Ms. Verma, why Elections Manitoba is recommending six days in–you know, why didn't they come up with a recom­men­dation somewhere in between the six days and the 14  days, which is currently the difference right now, which would certainly allow political parties, in particular op­posi­tion political parties, to have a little bit more of a fair–

The Chairperson: Apologies. I'm re-recog­nizing you, Mr. Jackson.

Mr. Jackson: Oh, thank you–I'll try to make this brief.

      Just–so in recog­nition through you, hon­our­able Chair, where did the recom­men­dation come from to recommend six days universally, rather than finding somewhere towards the middle between six and 14? I think that would certainly make it more fair for op­posi­tion parties in the situation where a gov­ern­ment calls either a snap election or a snap by-election.

      So just where did the recom­men­dation come from for the six days? Would they consider, you know, somewhere more in the middle ground between six and 14?

      Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Verma: We took the recom­men­dation from the fixed-date election calendar, and the reason was a couple of things.

      So by-election: There is now a deadline within six months that the by-election must be called, so given that, there is a–that's an assumption at our end, that there is some level of under­standing or timeline for a call for a by-election.

      The number of signatures which are required on the nomination paper have been reduced from 100 to 50. There's also–there's no time–like, a candidate can collect signatures prior to the issue of the writ and have the nomination paper ready when the writ is issued. They should not be too stale, like, they're not, say, suggesting have the names a year ahead of time, but there's a six-month timeline for a by-election, so hence, we thought it would be feasible to have this recom­men­dation.

      With regard to other election, having again the con­sistent calendar, we are recog­nizing that a vote-counting machine, if they are used, pro­gram­ming 700 to 800 memory cards for each electoral division, vote anywhere, and the logic and accuracy testing which is required for each of these cards, we would need more than a week's time to do the pro­gram­ming and the logistic require­ment of having all the machines across the province, because there is a lead time which is needed to deliver the machines in remote locations, too; hence, this recom­men­dation.

* (19:30)

      But the current legis­lation restricts receiving a nomination paper before the issue of the writ. It doesn't restrict the candidates for completing a nomination before the writ is issued.

Mr. Wiebe: So I'm very interested in the answer that you gave with regards to third parties, and again, what I characterize as dark money, you know, and I–

The Chairperson: Excuse me, Hon­our­able Mr. Wiebe, address through the Chair, please.

An Hon­our­able Member: Ap­pre­ciate that to you, hon­our­able Chair. Thank you very much for the reminder.

The Chairperson: And I am re-recog­nizing Hon­our­able Mr. Wiebe.

Mr. Wiebe: Perfect. Thank you very much, hon­our­able Chair.

      So I–through the–through you, Chair, I do want to just thank the–to thank Ms. Verma for her answer on third parties. And certainly, that's been the focus in terms of trying to understand this idea of foreign influence or outside influence on our elections.

      What caught my ear, and what I think I'd like a little bit more infor­ma­tion on, is with regards to actions that Elections Manitoba is proposing to take with regards to identification of those third parties, require­ments about infor­ma­tion that they need to share. You know, I think I heard the–I heard Ms. Verma say that holding social media companies or other distributors of this infor­ma­tion to account.

      So I just wanted to give you an op­por­tun­ity to just, if you could, expand a little bit more on that, because I guess, a lot of the questions we had during the most recent election campaign was sort of the source of this infor­ma­tion. And as you said, for every candidate, you know, every piece of material, every sign that we put up says authorized by the official agent. It certainly is–you're able to track it right back to the registered political party.

      And I understand that there is, you know, some role for third–what we call third parties. But of course, that maybe wasn't–when it was originally contemplated it didn't think about, you know, other outside influences from outside of the province or outside of the country.

      And so I just wanted to just give you an oppor­tunity, if there's anything more that you wanted to add in terms of op­por­tun­ities for us as a gov­ern­ment moving forward to enhance some of the pro­tec­tions that are out there, because what you're talking about with regards to disinformation is, again, very real. We're seeing this, not only in other places but even in our own province.

      And so, you know, it's im­por­tant. It's im­por­tant for us to be held to account for the infor­ma­tion that we put out as a political party. It certainly should be for third parties as well.

      So if you could–if, through the Chair, the–Ms. Verma could spend some time just expanding a little bit on that specific piece.

Ms. Verma: When third-party legis­lation was first drafted, it was, I believe, in early 2000. And since the time then and now, there have been new means of com­muni­cation and tech­no­lo­gy which we have seen.

      So this–if the members are interested, it–this might be a good time to review the definitions of what con­stitutes an election com­muni­cation. Currently, the definition says: advertisement and anything which is sent over the Internet, but text messages and these sorts of com­muni­cation are currently not captured under the third-party election com­muni­cation.

      Other areas which may be of interest would be to–it's been done at a federal level, to create registry for foreign players who are interested, similar to a lobbyist registry; having–when the–if they're interested in amend­­ing, of having a role for the media platforms and media companies to ensure that the source of infor­ma­tion is properly documented and they have that in their record.

      And also, ability for Elections Manitoba to approach the media platforms in case we receive infor­ma­tion on it–on publications which are of misinformation or disinformation, for the media platforms to co‑operate with the election manage­ment body to promptly remove those–that misinformation.

      Ontario and Elections Canada has made recom­men­dations for some penal­ties. Elections BC, elections legis­lation there has penal­ties for non-compliance, and they're quite steep financial penal­ties for media plat­forms in case there is a violation.

      But the other piece would be having more edu­ca­tion campaigns around, and fact checks and tools. We know Meta and other digital platforms are looking into tools to do a fact check with regard to ads and identify deepfake videos.

      So having, again, a more collective, col­lab­o­rative approach with different stake­holders to work together on this initiative would be our recom­men­dation.

The Chairperson: Are there–just going to check–are there any further questions?

Mr. Wiebe: Well, and just very quickly then, hon­our­able Chair, we do hope to bring a motion forward to the com­mit­tee that we hope will have support from both sides with regards to the vote anywhere in your electoral district on election day adoption modifica­tion to the voting process proposal and the recom­men­dation.

      I think there's certainly a lot of interest in expanding access and enhancing access. I certainly ap­pre­ciate the answers that were given with regards to tech­no­lo­gy and the role that it can play and how we can continue to roll it out and develop it.

      So I do hope that we have support for that, and I just wanted to give Ms. Verma the op­por­tun­ity if there were any further comments or infor­ma­tion that she feels that the com­mit­tee might need in order to move forward with that parti­cular motion.

The Chairperson: Ms. Verma, anything to add?

Ms. Verma: Sure. I just want to assure the com­mit­tee the tech­no­lo­gy worked, the tech­no­lo­gy of vote-counting machines and the tech­no­lo­gy with all the related tools that we used to conduct voting. It was a free, fair, accessible election. All the aspects of election integrity were maintained and upheld.

      We did have an issue with our website on election night, but that is not connected to the tech­no­lo­gy which was used at the polls. Hence, we are making this recom­men­dation of expanding the use of tech­no­lo­gy to have vote anywhere in your province on election day at the returning office.

      And we are being very deliberate about it. We are not making a recom­men­dation to have vote anywhere across the province in all locations. We are doing it in a phased manner, which is a respon­si­ble manner, to have vote anywhere in the province at your returning offices on election day. It adds voting op­por­tun­ities.

      But just to assure the com­mit­tee, the tech­no­lo­gy didn't fail us. Our website did fail us.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

      So–oh. Another question?

Mr. Balcaen: Sorry about that. I want to make sure that I have this mic because I get lots of feedback on this with the hearing piece.

      So I'm just wondering again if, through the Chair, hon­our­able Chair, if we could look at talking about some of the funds that were put forward by maybe some of the union parties, and what sort of percentages that represents in the funding through­out this campaign.

Ms. Verma: I missed one part of the question. May I ask the member to repeat the question, please?

Mr. Balcaen: Sorry, so the question, hon­our­able Chair, was: I wonder if we could expand a little bit on unions and their donations through the campaign, and what percentage that represented in this 2023 election campaign.

Ms. Verma: In Manitoba there are limits on con­tri­bu­tions. Only individuals, residents of Manitoba, can con­tribute. So to the candidates, parties, con­stit­uency association or a leadership contestant, there are no union con­tri­bu­tions as per our records.

* (19:40)

      Third parties, there were 14 third parties which were registered with us. And none of them–only two third parties reported con­tri­bu­tions. One reported con­tri­bu­tion of donation in kind of their staff, and one reported two con­tri­bu­tions. The rest used their own funding for third party.

The Chairperson: Thank you.

      Are there any further questions?

Mr. Perchotte: Is there any record of the funds spent on a campaign by the unions indirectly by advertising or promoting a certain party?

Ms. Verma: Other than the third parties, none to my knowledge.

The Chairperson: I'll also offer another reminder to address through the Chair.

      Any other questions?

Mr. Balcaen: Sorry. So registered through the hon­our­able Chair, I'm wondering, registered third parties spent almost $500,000 last election.

      So I'm wondering if the com­mit­tee could learn what triggers a third-party registry?

Ms. Verma: A third party is an individual or organi­zation which is other than a political entity, a candidate, con­stit­uency association or a registered party. The registration require­ments are triggered if they spend $2,500 or more in election com­muni­cation expense.

      Election com­muni­cation would be any expense incurred to promote or oppose a candidate or a party or a position on an issue which the candidate or party may be aligned with.

Mr. Perchotte: Of the $500,000 that was reported by the third parties, what is the dollar value of that represented by the unions that was spent on the campaign?

Ms. Verma: I'll have to take a look at the listing of the third parties, who they were, and that's the percentage of the spending which they would have been assigned to a union.

      So there were 14 third parties, if I can just see if my colleagues have the listing of the third parties. I have the list of 14 third parties, and read it out: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba; Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions; Canada Growth Council; Canada Strong and Proud; CUPE Local 500; CUPE Manitoba; Make Poverty History Manitoba; Manitoba Association of Health Care Pro­fes­sionals; Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union; Manitoba Nurses Union; Manitoba Teachers' Society; Merit Contractors Association of Manitoba; Manitoba Federation of Labour; and Unifor.

      They all–in aggregate 500, average 40,000 election com­muni­cations. I'm not sure which one is a union or which one is not a union in this list, hence I'll be unable to answer the percentage calculation out of the whole spending.

The Chairperson: Are there any further questions?

      So seeing no further questions, I will now put the–oh. Okay. Okay.

      First, we will recog­nize Hon­our­able Mr. Wiebe.

Mr. Wiebe: Perfect. Thank you very much, hon­our­able Chair. I wish to move a motion. So I move,

THAT pursuant to subsections 28.1(4.2) and 21.1(5) of The Elections Act, the Standing Com­mit­tee on Legis­lative Affairs approve the proposal to modify the voting process tabled in the House on October 28, 2024, and recom­mend that the Chief Electoral Officer direct that the voting process be modified for upcoming by-elections and the next general election.

Motion presented.

The Chairperson: The motion is in order.

      The floor is open for questions.

      Are there any questions?

      Is the com­mit­tee ready for the question?

An Honourable Member: Question.

The Chairperson: The question before the com­mit­tee is as follows:

THAT pursuant to subsections 28.1(4.2) and 28.1(5) of The Elections Act, the Standing Com­mit­tee on Legis­lative Affairs approves the proposal to modify the voting process tabled in the House on October 28, 2024 and recom­mends the Chief Electoral Officer direct that the voting process be modified for upcoming by‑elections and the next general election.

      Shall the motion pass?

Some Honourable Members: Pass.

An Honourable Member: No.

The Chairperson: I hear a no.

Voice Vote

The Chairperson: All those in favour of the motion, please say aye.

Some Honourable Members: Aye.

The Chairperson: All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members: Nay.

The Chairperson: In my opinion, the Ayes have it.

      The motion is accordingly passed.

* * *

* (19:50)

The Chairperson: Okay. Moving on to the next part.

      Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2022–pass; Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2023–pass.

      The hour being 7:50, what is the will of the com­mit­tee?

Some Honourable Members: Com­mit­tee rise.

The Chairperson: Com­mit­tee will rise.

COMMITTEE ROSE AT: 7:50 p.m.


 

 

Legislative Affairs Vol. 1

TIME – 6 p.m.

LOCATION – Winnipeg, Manitoba

CHAIRPERSON –
MLA Carla Compton
(Tuxedo)

VICE-CHAIRPERSON –
MLA Billie Cross
(Seine River)

ATTENDANCE – 6
— QUORUM – 4

Members of the committee present:

Hon. Min. Fontaine,
Hon. Min. Wiebe

Mr. Balcaen,
MLAs Compton, Cross,
Mr. Perchotte

APPEARING:

Grant Jackson,
MLA for Spruce Woods

Shipra Verma,
Chief Electoral Officer,
Elections Manitoba

MATTERS UNDER CONSIDERATION:

Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2022

Annual Report of Elections Manitoba for the year ending December 31, 2023

Elections Manitoba Proposal: Vote Anywhere in Manitoba on Election Day at any Returning Office, dated October 2024

* * *