Elections Canada needs a final electoral reform bill to get ready for 2019
Canada's former chief electoral officer says the government needs to pass its electoral reform legislation before Elections Canada can work on implementing it.
"We're running very short on time," Marc Mayrand told The House. "We're past midnight."
Last week, Scott Brison, the acting minister of democratic institutions, said he's confident it's possible to pass and implement changes to elections regulations before the 2019 federal vote.
The Trudeau government tabled legislation proposing to limit the length of federal election campaigns, restrict the amount of spending allowed in the period immediately before a campaign and introduce new rules to regulate third-party political activity.
Brison said work to prepare for the changes in the bill can begin before it's passed because a significant portion of the legislation is based on Elections Canada's past recommendations.
That may be true, but it doesn't make the timeline realistic, Mayrand said.
"They need the bill ASAP and they need the definite version of the bill."
Some of changes would require changes to IT systems, which requires extra time for integration and testing, he explained. Elections Canada is also likely hesitant to spend money now preparing for a bill that could morph if amendments are made.
Mayrand, who served as electoral officer from 2007 to 2016, isn't the only one calling attention to the government's timeline. Canada's acting chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault told a committee in April that major changes to election laws should have been enacted by April of this year if they were to apply in time for the next federal election.
If the government wants to stick to their timeline, Mayrand said some of the changes included in C-76 may have to wait until after the next federal election before they can be implemented.