RPP 2003-2004
Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

2003-2004 ESTIMATES
A REPORT ON PLANS AND PRIORITIES

This Report on Plans and Priorities describes the three strategic outcomes that we plan to achieve during 2003-2004, focusing on our most significant priorities and the benefits that Elections Canada provides to Canadians.

First, we are committed to delivering federal elections that maintain the integrity of the electoral process – providing an electoral system that is fair, transparent and accessible to electors. In my November 2001 report on Modernizing the Electoral Process, I recommended that Parliament enhance the transparency of electoral financing: the public has the right to know who has given money to whom and how much.

Second, we must always be ready to deliver electoral events whenever they may be called, and to improve their delivery. Our comprehensive evaluations of the November 2000 general election indicated that four areas should be improved: the lists of electors, the voter information cards sent to all registered electors, communications with electors and enquiries from the public. We will continue to improve the quality of the National Register of Electors – a co operative effort that involves not just Elections Canada and our numerous partners, but also political parties, members of Parliament, candidates and returning officers. Another priority in this fiscal year will be implementing the final recommendations of the 10 independent federal electoral boundaries commissions. This means we must be ready to deliver electoral events either using the current boundaries (before July 2004) or with the new boundaries (for a general election called after July 2004).

And finally, we are responsible for providing public education and information programs, and support on electoral matters to the public, parliamentarians, Cabinet, political parties, federal electoral boundaries commissions, our partners and other stakeholders. In 2003-2004, we will complete our planned improvements in our communications with electors and in how we respond to enquiries from the public, so that Canadians will be better informed about electoral events and will have faster and easier access to essential electoral information.

Our aim is to remain the most modern and innovative electoral agency in the world, and I am personally committed to the continuing process of electoral reform that has earned Canada its reputation around the world as a model of electoral democracy.

It is a privilege for me to serve Parliament and the Canadian people, and to lead a dynamic, multi-talented team whose dedication to strengthening and upholding Canada's democratic system is exceptional.

Jean-Pierre Kingsley
Chief Electoral Officer of Canada

Management Representation Statement

I submit, for tabling in Parliament, the 2003-2004 Report on Plans and Priorities for the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer.

We have prepared this document based on the reporting principles and disclosure requirements contained in the Guide to the Preparation of the 2003-2004 Report on Plans and Priorities:

• it accurately portrays the agency's plans and priorities
• the planned spending information is consistent with the directions provided in the Minister of Finance's Budget and by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
• it is comprehensive and accurate, and
• it is based on sound underlying agency information and management systems.

The reporting structure on which this document is based has been approved by Treasury Board Ministers and is the basis for accountability for the results achieved with the resources and authorities provided.

Janice Vézina
Senior Financial Officer

February, 2003

Elections Canada is dedicated to helping Canadians exercise their democratic right to vote. We want to make voting as accessible as possible, by reaching out to all potential voters and by using modern technology creatively.

As an independent agency of Parliament, Elections Canada is funded by an annual appropriation (which essentially provides for the salaries of permanent full-time staff) and the statutory authority (which provides for all other expenditures, including the costs of electoral events and continuing public education programs).

Challenges

Under our parliamentary system of representative democracy, the length of time between federal electoral events is not a set period (the Constitution Act, 1982 provides only that the maximum time between general elections is five years, except in time of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection). This means that the length of our business cycle varies – uncertainty that makes planning a challenge, since we must be ready at all times to deliver an electoral event, whether it be a by-election, general election or referendum. Consequently, we must continually monitor parliamentary and political events and trends, so that we can take into account contingencies that might affect our electoral readiness and preparations for electoral events.

The sheer size of the country, and our responsibility to provide more than 20 million registered electors with timely information and an opportunity to vote conveniently, dramatically affects the size of the agency from time to time. As an electoral event approaches, the staff at Elections Canada may grow from 200 to more than 800 people. Returning officers hire an additional 160 000 temporary workers to support the electoral process in more than 17 000 polling places across the country, and we must plan to provide all of these people with training, supervision, supplies and administrative support. To respond to these issues, our team must be multi-skilled and flexible.

The redistribution of electoral districts in 2003-2004 will have a significant effect on our existing computer systems, documentation and training programs. Other factors that influence our planning include high mobility rates (about half of all Canadians change their addresses every five years), increased social diversity, legislative amendments and judicial decisions that change the interpretation or application of the Canada Elections Act.

Returning officers are appointed by the Governor in Council, not by the Chief Electoral Officer, and have the responsibility of recruiting enough temporary workers to conduct an event in their electoral districts. Nevertheless, we are responsible for the overall performance of returning officers, a challenge that we manage by providing them with appropriate training, tools and support.

Trends

A trend affecting our planning is the declining proportion of Canadians who cast their ballots in federal general elections. The November 27, 2000 general election had the lowest national voter turnout in recent Canadian history – 61.2 percent, compared to the 1997 turnout of approximately 67 percent (itself the lowest proportion since the general election of 1925). By-elections usually have a lower turnout than general elections, but the trend is not as clear. Turnout for the eight by-elections held in 1999 and 2000 ranged from 28.1 percent to 44.7 percent, and averaged 35.8 percent. In the nine by elections held in 2002, turnout ranged from 22.9 percent to 43 percent, averaging 31.4 percent.

Recent research studies point to a value shift in many democracies that is causing citizens to reduce their participation in various forms of political activity. Research commissioned by Elections Canada and other studies indicate that the decline in the voting rate of younger Canadians has been stronger than for the population as a whole. We make special efforts to reach out to electors whose participation rate has been historically lower than that of the electorate generally - especially youth, Aboriginal electors, members of ethnocultural groups and electors with special needs. While a higher participation rate is not necessarily a direct outcome of our efforts alone, we have a clear responsibility for making sure that electors are aware of the voting process, and that there are no administrative barriers to the exercise of the franchise.

Strategic Relationships

The co-operation of many partners is important to achieving our strategic outcomes successfully. In our discussion of each strategic outcome in section IV, we identify our specific relationships with federal departments and agencies, community partners, international organizations, provincial, territorial and municipal governments and electoral agencies, and academics and research organizations.

Summary

Following the November 2000 general election, we undertook extensive evaluations of every facet of our work, including external surveys of electors, candidates, registered political parties, registered third parties, academics specializing in electoral matters, returning officers, youth, Aboriginal peoples, and representatives of special-needs and ethnocultural associations. Discussions of several areas of possible improvement appear in the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada on the 37th General Election Held on November 27, 2000 (March 2001), in Modernizing the Electoral Process: Recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada following the 37th General Election (November 2001), in our Performance Reports for 2000-2001 and 2001-2002, and in our 2000 General Election Post-event Overview (November 2001).

Our priorities in this Report on Plans and Priorities are essentially unchanged from those in our previous report for 2002-2003. Four of our five priorities – the National Register of Electors, voter information cards, informing electors and enquiries from the public – continue to be directed to improvements highlighted by our experience in the 2000 general election. We will change the focus of the fifth priority from supporting redistribution to implementing redistribution, following the proclamation of the Representation Order. We have changed our method of monitoring progress on each priority: from monthly reports to biweekly reviews of each priority's timeline by senior management.

Corporate Initiatives

We will continue the modernization of management practices in 2003-2004. We will complete the implementation of the business continuity plan in 2003-2004, to provide for the continued availability of critical services and facilities to support ongoing and election delivery activities.

This symbol of a computer mouse indicates that more detailed information is available at www.elections.ca or in one of our printed publications.

The Chief Electoral Officer's March 2001 and November 2001 reports are available on our Web site (CLICK: General Information -> Official Reports -> Elections Canada's Official Reports), and are also available in print form. For the Performance Reports and our previous Report on Plans and Priorities, CLICK: General Information -> Official Reports -> Estimates Documents. For the 2000 General Election Post-event Overview, CLICK: Electoral Law & Policy.

1. Event Delivery

The Commissioner of Canada Elections will continue to investigate and rule on complaints concerning contraventions of the Canada Elections Act related to the November 2000 general election and the by-elections held in 2002. We will continue to publish comprehensive electoral information concerning current and past electoral events on our Web site.

Our relationships with several federal government organizations are important to us when we deliver electoral events: the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, by helping overseas electors; the Department of National Defence, by aiding Canadian Forces electors; the Correctional Service of Canada and provincial Corrections authorities, by assisting incarcerated electors; and Canada Post Corporation, by delivering election material.

	Details of convictions and summaries of the terms of compliance agreements appear on our Web site (CLICK: Electoral Law & Policy -> Commissioner of Canada Elections' Initiatives).
	For links to searchable databases of candidates' and political parties' financial returns and statements, and to third parties' election advertising reports, CLICK: Election Financing. Print versions of the annual Registered Political Parties' Fiscal Period Returns are available for sale.

2. Event Readiness and Improvements

Maintaining a constant state of readiness is vital to our ability to conduct elections, by-elections and referendums. Our first priority – continuing to improve the coverage and currency of the lists generated by the National Register of Electors – will involve three interrelated plans: incorporating updated information from data suppliers and from returning officers in each electoral district, in consultation with political parties and members of Parliament; improving our use of administrative data sources; and increasing our co operation with electoral agencies in other jurisdictions. These plans will result in more accurate addresses and lists of electors, and in fewer electors having to revise their information during an electoral event.

Our second priority is to improve the accuracy of voter information cards sent to each registered elector before polling day. We will introduce a new computer application for returning offices that will integrate existing systems for handling the information used to produce the cards. In conjunction with improved data from the National Register of Electors, the system will result in more accurate cards being mailed to electors. We will also finish evaluating a pilot project undertaken in the December 2002 by-elections, involving a redesigned voter information card and a new reminder card.

We will measure the effectiveness of our action on these two priorities by comparing the revision results and the lists of electors from the next general election with the results and lists from the 2000 general election. On October 15 of each year, we provide members of Parliament and political parties with lists of electors produced from the Register as mandated by the Act. We also provide measures of Register coverage and currency compared to our published reliability targets: to have 92 percent of all electors listed in the Register, and 77 percent of all electors listed at the correct addresses. To improve our models for managing and measuring the quality of information in the Register, we will incorporate statistical data from the 2001 Census as it becomes available. We will complete a demographic study of the Register's coverage, using the latest census data, to identify areas and demographic groups that may be underserved by the Register, so that we can take corrective action if needed.

As part of our continuing readiness activities, we will keep enough material in stock to deliver electoral events, train newly appointed returning officers, upgrade the skills and knowledge of experienced returning officers, prepare returning officers for new electoral boundaries to be proclaimed in July 2003, and develop several tools to support candidates and official agents.

Our information technology infrastructure is critical to supporting the National Register of Electors, the geographic databases and other corporate systems. We will undertake improvements and maintenance activities during 2003-2004, especially for systems that will be affected by redistribution.

We will measure the effectiveness by surveying our clients during and after future events, and comparing the results to the 2000 general election.

We have several key partners who assist us in maintaining election readiness. We share the maintenance of the National Geographic Database with Statistics Canada. The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and Citizenship and Immigration Canada provide data to update the National Register of Electors as do provincial and territorial Drivers' License and Vital Statistics bureaus. Lists of electors, produced from the Register, may also be shared with provincial and municipal electoral agencies who in turn provide revised lists that are then used to update the Register.

Information on the Register appears on our Web site (CLICK: Registration of Electors).

3. Public Education, Information and Support

To improve communications with electors, a priority during 2003-2004, we will finish adapting our advertising campaign for Aboriginal and ethnocultural communities and youth, and complete the final production of all print, radio, television and Internet advertising necessary for a general election, based on the creative concepts that we tested in 2002-2003. With more effective advertising, Canadians will be better informed about electoral events and the importance of their participation.

Improving our public enquiries system is a priority identified in our evaluations of the 2000 general election: all the computer systems and training programs for enquiries officers were strained to their limits during the election. In 2003-2004, we will completely reshape the way we handle questions from the public, to provide a new focus on self-service answers on our Web site; a natural speech interactive voice-response telephone system, which can answer basic questions from electors 24 hours a day; and for more complex telephone questions, seamless routing to an enquiries officer or the returning offices. We will also have a dedicated 1 800 telephone line for candidates and political parties. The fully integrated system will be operational by October 2003, and will result in Canadians having faster and easier access to essential electoral information.

We will measure the effectiveness of our new approaches to advertising and public enquiries by surveys of electors during and after future events, compared to the effectiveness of advertising and the public enquiries system in the 2000 general election.

As part of our continuing public education activities, we will redesign our Web site with new technologies and content, particularly our Youth section and the modules for electoral events, election-night results, educators and the news media. We will expand our outreach programs and communications products for youth, first-time voters and members of ethnocultural and Aboriginal communities. We will measure the effectiveness of our public education activities by surveying our clients.

We maintain close relations with Aboriginal, educational, ethnocultural and special-needs associations, who help us to provide public education and information about the electoral process; with the Canadian International Development Agency, which assists us in furnishing technical and professional electoral assistance to other countries; with the United Nations, the International Foundation for Election Systems and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which provide resources for international electoral studies, conferences and research; and with a number of research organizations. For redistribution, Statistics Canada provides census information and certifies population counts, and Natural Resources Canada verifies boundary descriptions.

We will continue to provide professional, technical, financial and administrative support to the 10 independent federal electoral boundaries commissions, our third priority, until they finish their work in July 2003. The focus will then shift to implementing the Representation Order setting out electoral district boundaries, to be proclaimed in July 2003 and completed in July 2004. We will measure the effectiveness of our support by undertaking a post redistribution evaluation in September 2003, with input from the electoral boundaries commissions and members of Parliament.

	Our Web site's home page includes links to our features for youth (CLICK: Youth Site), explanations of Canada's voting system and a history of voting (CLICK: General Information), on-line and print publications (CLICK: Publications), and press releases and media information (CLICK: Media).
	For information on redistribution, CLICK: Federal Representation 2004 on the home page.

Elections Canada's Organization and Accountability

The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, commonly known as Elections Canada, is headed by the Chief Electoral Officer, who is appointed by resolution of the House of Commons. Reporting directly to Parliament, the Chief Electoral Officer is completely independent of the federal government and political parties.

The Chief Electoral Officer appoints the Commissioner of Canada Elections and the Broadcasting Arbitrator, and is supported by seven directorates. Returning officers, appointed by the Governor in Council, administer the electoral process in each of the 301 electoral districts. Elections Canada provides extensive technical expertise and services to the federal electoral boundaries commissions, and taxes all amounts required for the payment of commissions' expenditures.

This figure illustrates the agency's organizational structure and reporting relationships.

Strategic Outcomes and Funding Authorities

Elections Canada operates under two funding authorities: an annual appropriation (which essentially provides for the salaries of permanent full-time staff) and the statutory authority (which provides for all other expenditures, including the costs of electoral events and continuing public education programs). Because the authorities are interdependent, this report considers both together.

Agency Planned Spending

Net Cost of Program by Funding Authority for 2003-2004

Contacts for Further Information