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I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The committee is now sitting in hybrid format, meaning that members can participate either in person or by video conference. Witnesses must participate by video conference. All members are counted for the purposes of quorum regardless of their method of participation.
Today's proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. I will remind you that the webcast will only show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow for those participating virtually.
Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either the floor, English or French. To speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your own mike—something I forgot at the beginning of this meeting already today. We'll always give you a reminder if needed. When you are done speaking, please put your mike on mute to minimize any interference; it's not done automatically.
All comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. Members, should you need to request the floor outside of your designated time for questions, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If you wish to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, you should use the “raise hand” function. This will signal to me your interest to speak. However, if you are appearing in person, please raise your hand, and the clerk will inform me of the order. We will try to keep a consolidated list.
I also remind you to speak slowly, especially all of the witnesses. Please speak as slowly and clearly as possible. Interpretation services need to be able to follow along.
For everyone participating, it is mandatory to wear a headset with a boom mike. Please let me know if there is any difficulty with regard to your having one right now. If you are on the precinct premises, we could probably arrange for you to get one. Let us know if there are any problems. If any technical issues arise, please try to contact the clerk or the chair as soon as possible via email or phone so that we can look after that technical difficulty and suspend if needed in the meantime so that everyone can participate fully.
With that said, we can begin this meeting. We do have a three-hour meeting planned for today, so this is just a reminder right at the onset that we have two panels of witnesses and then we will consider the draft report in camera. There was also a question raised last time during the discussion of our report, and I will have a ruling on that question. That will be provided during draft report section, the third hour of our meeting today.
Let's begin with our amazing witnesses, who have been to PROC before. We have, from Open Democracy Project, Sabreena Delhon; and from CIVIX, we have Taylor Gunn.
Welcome to today's meeting.
We can start with Ms. Delhon.
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Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. This is my first time at PROC, so it's a real privilege.
The pandemic has re-engaged Canadians. During this extended emergency, 36% are now more confident in Canada’s institutions. Trust in one another and the government has also gone up. This positivity during a tremendously difficult time indicates that Canadians can be asked to take on a challenge, and should be given a more central role in designing the post-pandemic society. To do so, they will need more mechanisms to contribute. Strengthened community ties, clear messaging and flexibility with election administration can make the difference.
My name is Sabreena Delhon, I am the open democracy fellow with the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Open Democracy Project and Massey College. I'm here on behalf of DemocracyXChange, which is Canada’s annual democracy summit.
The following recommendations have been informed by the DemocracyXChange community, current research about democratic engagement and the understanding that the health and safety of Canadians exercising their right to vote is paramount to a strong democracy. This material has also been shaped by the fact that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on low-income and racialized communities, long-term care home residents, front-line workers and incarcerated individuals. Across these categories, women are bearing the brunt of adverse outcomes. These groups are also most likely to face barriers to casting a ballot.
I'd like to acknowledge the recent “Special Report of the Chief Electoral Officer”. It presents a range of measures to effectively administer an election during a pandemic. These include increasing the number of voting days, holding the election over a weekend and preparing for a major increase in mail-in ballots. We enthusiastically support approaches that will provide a safe and efficient experience for voters.
Now, our recommendations. First, work with a range of community-based organizations that focus on engaging voters over specific issues or demographic variables. The work of groups like Future Majority and The Canadian Muslim Vote are of note here. These groups can help to prepare people for the experience of voting and the process of obtaining and submitting a mail-in ballot and can also help to manage expectations related to the counting process. These groups can also reinforce messaging related to physical distancing and other precautions.
We know that the pandemic has affected different groups in different ways. For instance, students may not be able to vote on campus, so they will require targeted outreach to clarify where to vote and how. Coordinating with community groups, non-profits and other entities will be key to disseminating crucial information about process and precaution to distinct populations.
Throughout the pandemic, community organizers have demonstrated incredible ingenuity. Their knowledge and relationships are key to connecting people in a manner that makes voting relevant and appealing. Organizations like Apathy is Boring and Democratic Engagement Exchange can serve as a bridge between innovative community groups and the electoral process.
We understand that Elections Canada hires community relations officers for this outreach function. We advise that officers be hired well in advance of the writ period so that outreach to stakeholders can be actioned quickly. We feel this is foundational to ensuring engagement and that it would be worth making legislative adjustments to accommodate.
Second, ensure that key messages acknowledge realistic fears and emphasize that voting is easy and safe. It is critical to counter the American narrative that registering to vote and voting are onerous. Research shows that first-time and frequent voters overestimate how difficult and time consuming the voting process is. The fact is, for the vast majority of eligible voters, it is very easy. This needs to be conveyed clearly, along with the fact that there are different ways to vote to suit your needs and circumstances. Another point is to emphasize the identity of being a voter above the act of voting. Research has shown that this has a positive effect on engagement. This can be built upon by calling or texting individuals to support the creation of a voting plan.
Third, consider lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, and making voting part of the secondary school curriculum. This demographic is highly engaged in social issues but feels disconnected from traditional forms of democratic engagement. As the pandemic will have a considerable impact on future generations, their input going forward should be harnessed.
We are willing to partner to help support a safe, effective and inclusive election should the committee see a role for us.
Thank you very much for your attention, and I’m pleased to answer any questions you might have.
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I've heard it's a global pandemic, so you never know what power you have in your hands right now.
I will be flying through these slides. I've apologized in advance to the translators.
CIVIX is a national non-partisan, charitable organization working to develop the habits and skills of citizenship within students under the voting age. As it is probably most relevant today, I'll really focus on Student Vote. You'll see in the slides why I think that program is relevant for our discussions.
Turning to the second slide, just as quick background, Student Vote is a parallel election for students under the voting age that parallels official election periods. We've conducted that now for 18 years, for somewhere in the range of 50 levels of elections across Canada—municipal, provincial, territorial and federal. In the recent federal election, we had, I think it's fair to round, just under 10,000 schools register across Canada, with about 30 votes shy of 1.2 million student ballots cast. We use the currency of direct participation, not reach, because if I used reach, I could inform you, with tallied media hits and all that stuff, that we supposedly reached 350 million Canadians in the last election—of which there aren't—so let's go with direct participants.
In the third slide you'll see our geographic spread. I point this out because it's interesting to note that if we include all provinces and territories, we were in 63% of all schools across Canada. If we exclude our lowest jurisdiction, which is Quebec—I can talk about that later, if someone is interested—our average would increase to 70% of all schools in the country. I believe we are on par with matching or surpassing the number of schools that take part in the Terry Fox Run across Canada. I don't know of anyone else who's in more schools. That's fantastic for our democracy.
If you look at the map, you will see a visual display of the lovely democratic pressure we're putting from the north on the United States. Then there's something that anyone who's into politics likes—the results of our federal election in 2019. In terms of the turnout results, it's interesting to note the similarities and the differences on a national level. I'm happy to take questions on that.
In the next slide, you'll see something that you might very interesting—that is, how you fared in Student Vote in 2019. The member of the committee with the most number of schools registered in their jurisdiction is Mr. Lukiwski, who had 47 schools register. I don't know if he's here today.
Actually, you know what? I'm sorry; it was Mr. Doherty. I don't think he's here today either. He had 55 schools registered.
You'll see that in some of your jurisdictions, you'll have as many as just under 8,000 kids participate.
In the next slide you can see the national voting trends of the Student Vote participants over the last number of years. I put this out as valuable just because a lot of groups that are working on what you may call “youth civic engagement” are generalized as being on either the centre or the left. What's interesting to point out here is that other than one election of the last six federal elections, the Conservative Party of Canada obtains the most student votes in the raw ballot count across the country. It's just an interesting thing to point out. We're a non-partisan organization, and I don't like us to be generalized as centre or left or anywhere on the political spectrum.
If you were in our position, and you could reach 1.2 million students under the voting age from nearly 10,000 schools across Canada in the last federal election, I think you'd want to have an understanding of what you were actually aiming for, right? A couple of clues were given to us from previous reports put out by Elections Canada—at least, in this case, the 2011 and 2015 federal elections—from the national youth survey. What it did was draw a picture of what characteristics a young voter has. They have characteristics of being interested in the democratic or political process; being knowledgeable; thinking that voting and participating is a civic duty; talking with their family and friends, or being influenced by their family and friends, or having friends that could even influence them in the political process....
Ruby, I see your hand up. I might as well try to respond there.
What you also find that those who participate are more likely to have learned about democracy in school and to have participated in a parallel or mock election. You'll see in the following slides those characteristics of young voters; we cause those among our student participants during federal elections and, we presume, at the other levels of elections as well.
Then, very interestingly, from the third evaluation that was conducted on Student Vote by Elections Canada, we found that 28% of parents reported that their children's participation in Student Vote positively impacted their decision to vote in the election.
Finally, just out of interest, because I hope that all or most of us are proud Canadians, we have now expanded this outside of Canada to Colombia, where in last year's municipal elections in five different regions, we had 76,000 kids participate.
I put all this information out because that sets the stage for me to be able respond to questions that I hope can make us useful at today's appearance.
Thank you very much, everybody.
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Thank you very much, and thank you, Ruby.
I really want to focus on civics. Thank you very much for coming here, Taylor. I really appreciate your goals and what you're trying to do within the communities and their high schools.
I am a proud mother of five. I remember my son coming home last year after Student Vote, which they did for the 2019 election at his high school, so I know that it was done there as well.
I'm just wondering about this. What are some of the techniques you use to get into the high schools? Also, on the information that is received, when it comes to the curriculum and things, who do you work with and where does that get approved? Can you give me a bit more background on that?
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Absolutely, I can relate to this conversation. I do get invited in. I find it's the teachers who want us in, but the board has a lot of barriers and makes it quite difficult.
I can see from the numbers.... Mr. Alghabra and I, being from the Peel region, have the same board, and we do have fewer schools participating, it seems, in the program. However, I did find that, during election periods in the past, those students who had participated in your student vote program were really interested in the election process and couldn't wait to vote when they got older. It's very motivating for them.
Mr. Turnbull, you have six minutes.
Thanks to the witnesses. I really just want to say thank you for the work you do. I think it's essential to a thriving democracy, and I really appreciate both of your organizations and the incredible work that you're doing to engage all types of voters.
Ms. Delhon, I'm going to start with you. I'm really going to try to focus the discussion on a pandemic election, which, of course, we hope doesn't actually become a reality but is always a possibility in a minority setting.
I know that your organization is doing incredible work, and you made some recommendations in your opening remarks that I thought were quite good. I really appreciate the point you made at the very beginning about voters or members of the public being more engaged in designing the post-pandemic society. I really appreciate that point.
In terms of community-based organizations like yourself—and you listed quite a few others—how can they help? You listed a few ways in which they can help. Maybe you could go a little bit more in depth there, but I'm more interested in a pandemic setting. How do we essentially coordinate with organizations like yourself, like The Canadian Muslim Vote? I think you mentioned Apathy is Boring, which is a great organization as well. Can you tell us about what that would ideally look like in a pandemic setting? Obviously, that creates some challenges.
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What I would recommend is looking at other regions, and I understand the committee is doing this for case studies. I spoke with Elections BC in preparing for this meeting, and they noted that stakeholder outreach in preparing for the huge volume of mail-in ballots was a critical part of their pandemic election strategy. Fortunately, there are some case studies to draw key lessons from.
In terms of operationalizing this highly coordinated approach with community groups and non-profits, I mentioned Apathy is Boring and the Democratic Engagement Exchange as bridge organizations. At DemocracyXChange, we are a coalition of different groups, academic, non-profit and community groups, including the Toronto Public Library, which is part of our group as well. We are all well positioned to help connect with these bridge organizations and then also to help to raise or amplify the connection that is available through groups like libraries and community organizations in particular.
I just want to note that at DemocracyXChange, we held our third annual summit in October. Normally we meet in person, but just like everybody else, we had to shift to an all-virtual undertaking this year during the pandemic. We had over 700 people participate in our three-day, virtual summit, and I don't think we could have imagined anybody doing that a year ago or eight months ago, so I understand your point about that coordination and connection piece being a really critical one and needing to operationalize that.
I just want to highlight the interest and appetite for that democratic engagement and also to highlight that, among those 700 participants, we had people who simply identified as citizens, so it wasn't necessarily people who do democracy for a living, but that we were open to the general public.
Among our registrants we also had academics, community organizers, students and members of the corporate, government and non-profit sectors. It's across those arenas that this outreach function needs to be mobilized. I mentioned the point that outreach officers are also available, but these non-profit groups and community groups such as The Canadian Muslim Vote, for instance, have mobilized during the pandemic to support their communities in different ways. That infrastructure is already in place to disseminate messages about how to effectively participate in a pandemic election. Again, we'll note that we're happy to assist with that stakeholder planning piece too.
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Yes, definitely. During the pandemic, we've seen a huge shift to digital engagement, but we know that the digital divide is still a significant issue for voters in Canada, so having that pandemic-proof way of having in-person engagement with social distancing and all the relevant precautions is still relevant.
I just want to highlight a piece of research from a few years ago that I did with public libraries. It found that when people have a legal problem and they receive some form of official documentation in the mail, they take it to their librarian because they don't quite know where to start, and they are looking for a local connection, someone in their community who can help point them to the right official channel. Also, it doesn't cost any money.
Libraries are physical spaces that aren't as accessible as they normally would be during a pandemic, but they are still highly relevant to engaging communities in the way we're talking about. It's definitely worth the investment in those outreach officers to boost the digital engagement, but also that in-person outreach function as well.
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I'd be happy to expand on that.
Identity is that inner sense, that sense of responsibility, that duty. Manifesting that and emphasizing that in the messaging around the election is key to boosting engagement.
Going to vote is a thing you do; it's an action. That should be significant as well, but the sense of internalized duty, that I must do this, it's my identity, I am a voter, is more compelling psychologically for individuals to act on than something on the list that says I have to go vote today.
I can't explain the psychological part of that. I know there's some research on that and the paper that I cited in my statement is from the Mowat Centre, so we can dig a little deeper into that. However, it is significant, and that's the type of strategy that is very successful in the private sector for getting people to buy things, that you're selling a certain identity. It's drawing on that.
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We can draw parallels to the pandemic. For the most part, we have everybody wearing a mask. Canadians are and voters are willing and able. We just need to engage them.
At the top of my statement, I cited research from The Samara Centre for Democracy, where they measured attitudes in connection to public institutions and civic engagement at this time, and it's really high.
The pandemic is giving us a really important opportunity. Canadians are ready to be engaged and we just have to tell them what we need. They're ready to do it.
If we can get people wearing a mask during a pandemic, we can definitely harness this moment to get them to be more engaged as a citizen, as a voter.
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I'll comment in relation to what we've done rather than just a general commentary.
We agree with you. One of the philosophies of our approach is that an engaged teacher can engage their students.
Last year, we had the capacity, which is rare, which means money, to gather and physically train, typically over an afternoon and an evening and then a full day, somewhere in the range of 1,850 teachers through 17 different events across Canada. What we see in evidence there is an improvement in their ability and engagement to instruct the student vote program in their schools. Also what they do is seed the system with enthusiastic teachers.
Just so that everyone knows, if we don't have representatives from all political parties as candidates, we then have representatives who are political pundits or commentators, and teachers generally find this fairly surprising. Therefore, we agree with you wholeheartedly.
The other thing we would say is that it's not just about having this type of stuff in the curriculum. In Ontario, we have a half course that's civics, and it is either very loved by students, rarely, or generally hated and written off as a Bird course that you take in the summer. The difference is who's teaching it and how they're teaching it.
I will never be able to underline enough the power, not the political power, but the power of engagement that teachers have and how important they are for the health of our democracy.
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I would defer to public health officials for their best advice about whether elections should be conducted physically on a campus; it depends on how that can all be set up. In my statement, I presented the student experience as an example, as a case study, because there are lots of people right now who would normally be living in one location during this time, but are now living somewhere else because of the pandemic, which creates some confusion around where to vote, how to vote and how to indicate your official address. That's something that would need to be ironed out.
On the student side, I also want to mention, again, Apathy is Boring and the Democratic Engagement Exchange, because they recently conducted a student vote campaign that partnered with 700 different community organizations. That gives us a blueprint to make sure that certain populations, like students, can have the messaging and receive the information they need to vote and understand how to do it and where to go.
I think because campuses don't have as much activity and busyness right now, they might be able to be used for other people to come to vote in those spaces as well. The pandemic is giving us an opportunity to think in really creative ways and to try some new things. I know that in the lead-up to September with back to school, there was some exploration of classes being held in community centres that were otherwise closed, or using malls that could not be open in the normal kind of way. I would just note that campuses are huge; there's a lot of social-distancing opportunity on them, so maybe that's significant for this moment and that environment can be harnessed to increase voter engagement for the student community, but also potentially beyond as well.
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We just conducted parallel elections in the three elections that took place—in B.C., Saskatchewan, and the municipal elections in Nova Scotia. We missed New Brunswick because it was the first Friday and the return to school.
Here's an interesting comparison. In British Columbia—which, in the last federal election had over 200,000 kids participate and over 80% of all schools registered to participate—we had a smaller percentage of schools register. Remember, this was also a snap election. We ended up with just under 90,000 students participating. What's interesting is that in Saskatchewan we had 24,000 students participate in the municipal elections. That was higher than in our previous provincial election.
Probably one of the biggest things for us that will impact our turnout is whether the election falls within the school year calendar. There are some implications around that, with the length of the campaign and things like this. Beyond that, it is what is going on in the education system. All of us from different parts of the country would realize this is being affected differently by the pandemic.
DemocracyXChange is co-founded by the Open Democracy Project and the Ryerson Leadership Lab. The co-presenting partners with us are The Samara Centre for Democracy, Simon Fraser University's Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Toronto Public Library, OCAD University, and Ryerson University's Faculty of Arts. This was our third annual summit that we held in October.
Generally, our tickets are available for around $149. We have a special rate that's half that price as an early bird feature for students, seniors or lower-waged individuals. This year, because of the pandemic, we shifted to a “pay what you can” model in the interest of keeping the conversation as accessible as possible. The driving item for the program was how to strengthen democracy in the recovery from the pandemic.
We are definitely a lean organization, as most are that are operating in the democracy sector. We rely heavily on the networks of all the partners that I just noted. Also, we were able to harness a really important moment for our conversations about democracy this year, which is why we had a record turnout. Being virtual also meant that people from across the country could tune in in ways that otherwise would have required travel.
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To explain the relationship with Elections Canada—which we're grateful for—last year Elections Canada contributed around $2 million to the student vote program. That would put us somewhere in the range of under $2 per student. This is more than just active voting; in some cases this is a month-long learning experience.
Additional funds were raised to cover the cost of teacher training across Canada, other provincial elections and their work in Colombia. Last year was a terrific year, being somewhere in the range of $5.5 million. This year I think will be somewhere in the range of around $2 million. We're a project to project-based organization and very entrepreneurial. I'll just emphasize this: we don't receive funding, as in money to exist, from either Elections Canada or any election agencies or any government body. It's a mix of individual donors, community foundations, and on occasion election agencies and different levels of government.
I will also emphasize what Sabreena said, which is worth putting out there, especially to this committee. For the groups of organizations in this space, which are few—you could count them with the fingers of both hands, and a couple of them are affiliated with universities—there is no pot of money for them to excel at their work.
You can go back and figure out who said this, but a couple of different speakers, some of them election officers, were asked about turnout. What they say about turnout is that worrying about turnout isn't something they want to be tasked with. They're comfortable being tasked with making voting and elections accessible. That's great, but here's the problem with that. If election agencies aren't the ones tasked with worrying about voter turnout, nobody else has the capacity to concern themselves with that.
I'm comfortable taking the massive risk if we have the capacity to focus on voter turnout. I imagine Sabreena's organizations and a few others would love to team up with us on that. But I worry that if we leave it in the hands of election agencies who are not taking on that responsibility, they won't be as creative, ambitious, as forward-looking or risk-taking as groups like us have been for the last number of years—but on nickels and dimes, it's important to point out.
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It wasn't a concern that we would go down that road, but rather countering the dominant images that we saw during the American election of people in long lineups and news reports from American outlets about how long they were waiting in line—taking hours to get to vote—and the onerous process of registering to vote.
It's very different in Canada. There is also a very different history in Canada, so it's important to have our own distinct narrative, because those images from the United States were just so rampant in our heads, especially during the pandemic. Between social media and news coverage, we mix up stories about what's happening in the States and what's happening in Canada.
So, clearly bounding the narrative of the election here in Canada in a pandemic, should that happen, is very important, to make sure that messaging is very clear. It doesn't have to be an obvious countering of the American images, but we know that is what's in minds right now.
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I'm sorry about that. Maybe you'll throw me in a couple seconds.
What I wanted to comment on, because I'm watching the time fly by—and I'm just going to put it out there, because I don't know if I'll be given the time following this—is that the recommendations of the CEO were framed around a lot of the weekend voting and on how we could better access poll workers.
One of the things that I wanted to emphasize and even offer to you as a potential suggestion within your interim report is the ability for a group like CIVIX and Student Vote to potentially capture the interest of 16- and 17-year-olds across the country to assist in weekend voting. We have access to literally hundreds of thousands of students, and we've never been empowered to do so—
The Chair: Your time is up.
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It's one of the recommendations, I guess, that Elections Canada would like to see to help them access voting stations.
I know Mr. Alghabra had some concerns initially about whether or not it should be on Monday or something like that. I think Canadians have no problem switching to Saturday and Sunday.
Elections Canada is allowed to employ poll workers who are 16 years old on election day. What I just wanted to offer is what we can do as an organization. We can contribute to public education and engagement at a geographic level and potentially by engaging younger poll workers to work on election day, I think, in an unparalleled manner. You could look at Sabreena's organizations as similar in those community networks.
Our organization has definitely found your interim reports very useful in the past for us to continue our work. One thing I would just suggest, potentially, in these reports is that Elections Canada be encouraged to look at groups such as CIVIX or the student vote program as ways to cultivate the poll workers who would be necessary on a potential week.
The other thing is that for 16- and 17-year olds, it's a good amount of money. They may feel less threatened by the pandemic and it's great for our democracy if we have younger poll workers who could continue to be poll workers as they age.
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Thank you, Mr. Gunn and Ms. Delhon. That's the end of our time today.
I really appreciate the interesting conversation, and I'm sure all of the members do as well. Perhaps, because it seemed like there was quite a lot of interest, if the members feel there are some follow-up questions they may have, could they submit those in writing and maybe get responses?
An hon. member: Absolutely.
The Chair: All right. To all the members, if there is anything you feel that you want to ask, just please send it along to me and we can try to get a response for our final report.
Thank you so much.
We will switch into our second panel now.
:
Welcome back. We're going to get started.
Can everyone please click on the right-hand side of their screens to ensure that they are in gallery view? With this view you should be able to see all of the participants in your grid view.
I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the new witnesses.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.
Also, interpretation in this video conference will work much like it does in a regular committee setting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of the floor, or French or English.
When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking your mike should be on mute. The use of headsets is strongly encouraged. Thank you for using those headsets.
I'd like to now welcome our witnesses. From Canada Post, we have Louise Chayer. From the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, we have Mr. Raymond Orb, the president.
Welcome to both of you.
I've mentioned that we're looking at the possibility of how to run a safe election within the context of this pandemic.
Both of you have five minutes for an opening statement.
We will start with Ms. Chayer.
:
Thank you to the chair and to the committee members for inviting me to join you today.
My name is Louise Chayer, and I'm the general manager of customer experience at Canada Post.
I'd like to start by outlining our long-standing commitment to delivering major mailings and the consultative approach that we take to ensure successful delivery. At Canada Post we're proud to serve every corner of the country, and we understand the importance of connecting Canadians in urban centres, rural towns, remote communities and the Far North.
We deliver on our mandate each day with a large, sophisticated, national network and a team of incredible people who are dedicated to serving Canadians. When it comes to securely delivering large, national and regional mailings, we have extensive experience. It means that we can support important public initiatives such as the census, national and provincial elections and, most recently, Health Canada's COVID-19 awareness efforts.
In each instance we work closely with officials at all levels to conduct extensive advance planning. With a dedicated project team, we work with the shared goal of effectively and thoughtfully executing all the mailing requirements. We meet regularly with organizers to provide logistical support and advice, proactively monitor mailings from receipt to delivery and develop mechanisms to quickly address any potential issues. This approach has helped us to successfully support elections of all kinds for years while building great working relationships with election officials across the country.
This year alone we have supported provincial elections in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, as well as numerous by-elections at the municipal, provincial, and federal level.
After the federal election that was held last fall, we received a letter from Stéphane Perrault, the Chief Electoral Officer. In it he recognized Canada Post's efforts in delivering 4,300 monotainers of election material and thousands of special ballot bags to run the election while at the same time ensuring that 27 million voter information cards and 15.4 million federal election guides were distributed to Canadians in a timely manner.
During every writ period, we're also proud to deliver a surge of personal mail and direct mail from candidates who are looking to quickly and effectively get their messages into the hands of the voters.
While there is often a surge of mail during any election period, I want to reassure the committee members that we are built to meet our responsibilities. With over 53,000 employees, Canada Post delivers close to eight billion pieces of mail and parcels to 16.5 million addresses across the country every year. Our network consists of 21 processing plants and 477 letter-carrier depots serving more than 22,000 urban, rural and mail service carrier routes. We have one of the largest fleets in Canada with over 13,000 vehicles. While much of the attention has shifted recently to the number of parcels that we process and deliver, we are also built to process and deliver a lot of mail.
Mail is processed on machines called multi-line optical character readers, or MLOCRs, as we call them. They're dedicated to sorting mail, and they do so at a very high rate of speed. We currently operate 150 MLOCRs located in 15 mail processing plants across the country that can each process on average 22,000 pieces of mail an hour. As you can see, we are able to support large mailings, and we're proud to do so.
I would like to close by saying that this year has been like no other. With COVID-19, our top priority from the beginning has been to ensure that we are putting the safety of our people first. To do so, we have closely followed the advice and guidance of the Public Health Agency of Canada throughout this period. We quickly and dramatically changed the way we work, the way we deliver, the way we operate our post offices and the way we clean our facilities right across the country.
We implemented physical distancing measures, and we ramped up the distribution of safety equipment and personal protective equipment to our people. Masks and face coverings are mandatory in all our facilities, including for customers visiting the post office. We've also implemented processes and contingencies to respond in the event of a positive or presumptive employee case.
These are just a few of the many measures we've put in place to keep employees and the people who we serve safe. Throughout it all, we have worked closely with our unions and bargaining agents at the national and local levels. By putting safety measures in place early and working regularly to improve them, we've been able to provide an essential service to Canadians throughout a very challenging year.
In summary, we have a long and established history of serving Canadians and supporting our democracy when called upon.
We're not just a delivery company. We are part of the national fabric, with a network built to serve all and a team of people proud to serve the many communities they call home.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering your questions.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Ray Orb. I am the president of SARM. I was born and raised and live in a small community northeast of Regina with a population of 625 people.
I'd like to thank the standing committee today.
SARM represents all the 296 rural municipalities in the province and has been the voice of rural municipal government for over 100 years. Today, I'll share some perspectives with you.
First, I would like to say that it would be essential to communicate the reasons why a federal election is needed now, during a pandemic. To encourage rural voters to start to participate in the federal election during a pandemic, those in government must ensure the voting public understands why it has to happen now and why it is not better to wait until after a vaccine is available for COVID-19. Rural voters will be weighing the risks to their health and safety against the reason for a federal election when they are deciding whether to participate or not.
Holding an election at the right time in the calendar year is also key to attracting rural-based voters to cast their ballots. Canadian agriculture is at the very heart of rural Canada and plays a significant role in our daily lives, from employing family and neighbours to feeding the globe. This means avoiding an election date that coincides with key agriculture activities such as seeding and harvest. It's imperative to ensure rural voter turnout. Farmers are not thinking about elections when they are taking off their year's income in a month-long period.
In Saskatchewan, we just came through fall municipal and provincial elections amidst the pandemic and recognized some trends we thought would be helpful to share. Municipal elections also took place in other provinces this fall, making them good points of reference.
Advance voting for Saskatchewan's provincial election recognized historic increases. In 2016, over 110,000 people voted at advance polls. This year, it increased to 185,000, which is 67%. Ensuring that opportunities for advance polls are easily accessible and well-promoted is imperative. Offering voters advance polling stations in their immediate area with extended operating hours would likely prove beneficial to voter participation.
In the New Brunswick municipal election, advance polling was stretched over three days. This spread out the in-person voter population over the span of days. Promoting these alternative methods of voting more widely, well in advance of election day, along with reminders of how using these alternative methods can help reduce potential exposures to COVID-19 would be encouraging.
There was also an increase in the uptake of those mail-in ballots to vote in Saskatchewan's provincial election. A record 56,000 mail-in ballots were returned and counted this year. This is in comparison to the mere 4,000 mail-in ballots that were counted in 2016. Ensuring the method for distributing and receiving back mail-in ballots is fine-tuned and promoting this mail-in option to voters well in advance of election day would also encourage participation. Consideration should be given to allow adequate time for mail-in ballots to arrive and be counted prior to election day. The time it takes for ballots to arrive via regular mail slowed the ability for election officials to be officially announced, in some situations, until days after the general election.
To ensure the health and safety of voters, ensuring that polling stations are equipped with adequate hand sanitizer, masks, disposable pencils for marking ballots, proper barriers and easily identifiable marks on the floor or signs to indicate proper social distancing, etc., are important. It would also be important to ensure that these protective measures are well-communicated before advance polls and election day, so voters know they can feel safe when they choose to cast their vote in person.
In the Nova Scotia fall general elections, the province encouraged all municipalities to use telephone or Internet voting. Some municipalities decided to use solely electronic voting, while others made use of a combination of paper and electronic voting options. Opting for in-person voting meant renting more polling stations, hiring more election staff and spending more on adequate cleaning. For voters concerned about attending a polling station in person, they allowed voters to cast a ballot via proxy.
In closing, on behalf of the Saskatchewan's rural municipalities and agricultural producers, we thank the standing committee for the opportunity to lend our voice to this important conversation. We look forward to continued dialogue as we all work together to protect the interests and the health and safety of Canadians.
Thank you.
:
Certainly. That's a good question.
As you mentioned, we supported the New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and British Columbia elections.
On the New Brunswick side, it was smaller in scope, and things were handled without any issues in terms of the mail-in ballots.
Saskatchewan was a little larger in scope and we were able to support there without any issues as well.
In the B.C. election as well, there is a larger population, and for sure, a larger number of voter mail-in ballots. Again there were no issues in terms of return, getting the kits out and getting people to vote by mail and getting those votes back in time for the election.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good afternoon to our witnesses. Thank you for being here.
I have some questions for you, Ms. Chayer, but first let me take a second to salute Canada Post and all its employees. At a time when we have witnessed a lot of disruptions throughout our economy and our society, I have yet to hear of a massive complaint about interruptions in the delivery of mail or parcels. Congratulations to you and the entire team at Canada Post.
I think the questions we all have about mail-in ballots are not because we have questions about the capacity of Canada Post to deliver what is predicted to be four million to five million ballots, because we know that the capacity exists. We just want to make sure that the process itself is secure and that the coordination between you and Elections Canada is at an optimum level.
Do you have any suggestions for us on what we should require or recommend to Elections Canada when it comes to the relationship with Canada Post about coordination for mail-in ballots?
:
Thank you very much for the kind words. Our people have been working very, very hard. I will pass on your comments to them, for sure. Thank you for that.
Yes, when it comes to mail-in ballots, I don't think we have any concerns with the capacity. Five million votes, when we have mechanized equipment to deal with that, will not be an issue. We continue to work daily with Elections Canada to work out some of the finer details.
One thing we all have to kind of understand is the way that Canada Post is built. We collect and deliver mail. When we collect mail, that collection is based on over 200,000 induction points. Every red mailbox, every post office, every Shoppers Drug Mart with a dealer in the back—all of those are the more than 200,000 induction points within our system. Those induction points are cleared Monday to Friday. They are cleared at different times of the day. We overlay on top of that our transportation network, which is built to deliver mail on a two-day standard for local to local mail, a three-day standard for regional mail, and a four-day standard for national mail.
We have to understand what that would look like to the voter who has a ballot they wish to cast. We need to understand what language we are talking about when we say “mail by” a certain date. If we say “mail by the close of the polls,” does that mean people will feel confident that they can drop off their ballot at 5 o'clock in the afternoon in the little red box by the corner of their street on their way home after work, when that box was perhaps cleared at 3 o'clock in the afternoon?
We have to understand what that means so that Elections Canada can take that advice and understand how best to communicate that to the voters and to give voters a very clear understanding of when they need to deposit their votes so that they can be collected on time and delivered on time to elections officials.
Those are all the details we are in constant communication with Elections Canada about to understand and to work out. Those are the things we need to clarify over the coming weeks as we go through this.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to acknowledge our two witnesses who have come to provide information today.
I'll start by asking Ms. Chayer some questions.
Ms. Chayer, you've experienced elections in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. It's fair to say that, if you could fulfill those mandates, you could fulfill the mandate of a federal election.
In your view, aside from the fact that the federal election is larger than the provincial elections, what other issues, which we don't know about, could make the federal election more challenging?
Are there any problems inherent to the federal election that could affect your work and make it more challenging?
:
In terms of problems, I wouldn't necessarily call them problems per se. There are challenges in delivering an election, challenges that we've been able to meet each and every time we deliver a provincial election or a federal election. We've been very successful in delivering them.
This particular election, we do have the added complexity of the increased vote by mail and understanding how that will work. We are working closely with Elections Canada to iron out those fine details so that things go smoothly on that side.
Other challenges that this particular election could have, because we are in a COVID environment, are with how Elections Canada will identify and confirm the RO offices and polling stations. I don't know if they will have more challenges in doing that or not. We need that information in order to start our processes of delivering equipment to the RO offices, for the printers to start printing the VICs and the ballots and all of that kind of stuff. All of that information is required to coordinate that.
From Elections Canada's point of view, that would perhaps be a challenge meeting some of those requirements, and any delays then transfer to us.
We've been doing elections for a while. We do have a standard agreement with them, a memorandum of understanding. We have some set milestones and some set objectives that we are geared towards, and we manage to those objectives.
:
This is exactly the type of situation that I was thinking about.
Mr. Orb, when you speak to your members or to the people whom you represent and tell them that there may be a federal election, how do they react?
Do they say that it isn't a big deal, that they've been through an election in their province or in some cities and that it will be fine, or do they say that it would be better not to have one?
What's the reaction of people who have experienced this situation in other areas?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Orb, you spoke about advance polling.
From what I've seen, it has increased substantially. For example, in 2019, in my constituency, a huge influx of people voted in advance. If I were to apply your figures to the new pandemic reality, it would be disastrous in my constituency. We would have many public health issues, because people would really be crowded together.
Were there more advance polling days in Saskatchewan?
Would we need more hours and more days to avoid a situation like the one I'm talking about?
Ms. Chayer, when we heard from the CEO of Elections Canada, he said that he was very confident in Canada Post's ability to deliver the mail when it comes to mail-in ballots. He had said that the challenge of increased volume would be more so on the logistical side for Elections Canada in terms of sorting those and making sure they end up in the right place to be counted.
In the situation where somebody applies for their mail-in ballot, receives it and has a prepaid envelope to use to return the completed ballot, do you envision that going to an Elections Canada headquarters and then being mailed to local returning offices? Or is that something that, based on the postal code of the sender, can be sorted and then sent directly through local mail to local returning offices across the country?
Do you have a sense of how the logistics of that mail-in ballot would work and Canada Post's role in that, whether it's delivering to a centralized location, having Elections Canada do the sorting and then mailing again, or whether Canada Post would be involved in sorting in a more direct and immediate way and then deliver locally to the local returning office?
:
Yes, thank you very much, Madam Chair. I know time is tight.
I should probably initially say, in the spirit of full transparency, that I've known Ray Orb for well over 30 years. He has been completely professional and non-partisan in all of our dealings. I have also worked extensively on one or two political campaigns with his wife—just so that's out on the table.
Ray, it's good to see you again. I have one quick question for you and then one for Canada Post, should we have enough time.
Ray, you've talked about the challenges of elections during certain times of the calendar year for rural Canadians and rural Saskatchewanians. We've heard a lot of talk over the course of the last few weeks about the possibility of a spring election. Of course, spring in Saskatchewan means seeding.
What do you think would occur in terms of voter turnout if an election were called in the middle of seeding in Saskatchewan?
Quickly, then, to Madam Chayer, could you give me an approximate timeline for the return delivery by mail? The Elections Canada folks have told us that, in all probability for the five million or so ballots that might be mailed in if an election were held in a pandemic, there would have to be a deadline for Elections Canada to receive them. The talk has been that it would be the Monday—if there is a Monday election date—with a 5 p.m. delivery deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned.
How long does it normally take, if a ballot is put in the mail, for it to be received? Also, what advice would you give to Elections Canada about advising or giving a deadline for Canadians to put the ballots in the mail?
:
That's something we continue to work with Elections Canada on. For the local-to-local, we are looking at two days. That is our service standard around the “local locals”. In two days we should be able to turn that around with no problem.
The issue we do have is how voters will be informed of the deadline to drop it into the box. As I mentioned earlier, our collection system is based on a Monday-to-Friday pickup, and it's based on different hours. Not every little red mailbox has the mail picked up from it at 5 o'clock. For some it might be at 11 in the morning and for some it might be at two in the afternoon. Making sure that voters are well informed of when they should be putting that ballot in the mailbox will be key to making sure that the ballots get to where they need to go.
As an example, if somebody put something in a box, as I mentioned, at about five o'clock on a Friday, and that box got cleared at three, it's not going to be picked up on the Friday. It's going to be picked up on the Monday, and it will not be delivered on time to the regional office—to the RO—on the Monday.
Those are things and scenarios we are working through with Elections Canada so that they understand how things work and can take that information under advice to make sure voters are well informed and can make those decisions.
Those were very important questions, and I'm glad we got to them.
Thank you to the witnesses.
Ms. Chayer and Mr. Orb, you've been incredible. Thank you so much for coming out today and spending time with us.
To the rest of the committee members, we are going to suspend the meeting for a little while so that we can all go in camera. You have a separate link that was emailed to you for that, and a separate password that was emailed as well. The email for the link was in the original, the first one. As well, both passwords were in the password emails. I hope everyone has that information. I see nodding heads, so you all have that. Perfect.
We will log out of this meeting and I will see you in camera in a few minutes. Thank you.
[Proceedings continue in camera]