Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2014

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

What I'm really asking you to do is just to tell me what motivates someone to vote, in your opinion. What's the motivation?

[Taylor Gunn]

Sure. I also would like to take this moment to talk for a quick second, because that's probably all I have, Mr. Preston. I may be either wrong or a total outlier on this—and I brought this up with you personally—but I don't believe so much in the access or information barriers. I actually think that those.... I put them in a category called—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to be very brief and—

[Taylor Gunn]

Sure.

I call those excuses. Those are excuses that people use if they are not going to vote or if they didn't vote in an election. The real barrier is I think interest, knowledge, a sense of civic duty.... If you're interested in something, you're going to make it a priority, right?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay. Thank you. I'll have to stop you there, because I want to allow Ms. Loat to speak, and I do have one follow-up question for both of you.

Very briefly, please.

[Alison Loat]

It's a terrific question.

We run a program called Democracy Talks that works with young people and newcomers to Canada. We run focus group work with them. There are three things that come up on the motivation side that I think are deeper than what you can get at from some of the statistics that you've probably been presented. One is that there's an overwhelming sentiment—these are people who don't participate—that voting—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

May I remind you to be very brief? I want to get a follow-up question.

[Alison Loat]

They don't see voting as something that Canadians value. It's not introduced to people in citizenship. Often it's not taught well in schools, with the exception of Student Vote, and many people say their friends and family have never encouraged them to do it. That's one.

Second, voting is not the first step for most people. Most people who have to engage—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I'm sorry, but I—

[Alison Loat]

Third, it has to come from a trusted intermediary.

Those are the three further barriers on motivation.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay. Thank you. I need to get to my second question.

Talking about motivation, I look at that really being a role for us as political parties and politicians: to encourage people and to motivate them to get out and vote. I've looked at the last couple of elections in the United States, for example—and I think you would probably both agree with me—and at what motivated people to get out to vote there. It was being inspired by a politician, being inspired to get out and vote, being a part of issues, being inspired by someone. Would that be something that you would agree with? Yes or no, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Again, we have a two-second kind of framework.

[Alison Loat]

There is research done on this. These are great questions. The candidate and the party absolutely matter. A secondary thing, though, where voter turnout went up where it hadn't before, was work that was done with intermediary organizations that had trusted relationships with people in communities. I think it's not just candidates or just schools; it's the two together. That's what is so critical about section 18. Hopefully I've made some good suggestions on that dimension that would allow both multi-partisan and non-partisan efforts to be made to encourage greater participation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Christopherson, you're starting off the four-minute round, which apparently you're sharing with Madam Latendresse.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I am. Thank you, Chair. That saves me from having to say it.

I would also like to use my time to advise you of a notice of motion.

Earlier today, the government attempted a drive-by smear and, in addition, tried to find a political diversion from the train wreck that is these hearings in terms of their shredded bill C-23. This is a referral from the House. Given the fact that it attacks my party and my leader, we feel that it should be dealt with immediately.

Not only are we in compliance with all of the rules, but we're proud of the outreach work that we're doing, and therefore, I move the following motion:

That, pursuant to the motion adopted by the House of Commons on Thursday, March 27, 2014 relating to the Official Opposition, the Committee invite the Honourable Leader of the Opposition, and also invite the Right Honourable Prime Minister to appear before the Committee to address the many partisan activities undertaken by his government, specifically by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and by the Conservative Research Group (CRG), and that furthermore, the current study on C-23 be extended by the same number of days as those scheduled for the study on the referred motion.

With that, I turn the floor over to my colleague, Madam Latendresse.

[An hon. member]

If I could be on the order paper for that motion...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm not going to the motion today. He's given us notice of motion.

Madam Latendresse, there are two minutes left. Well, it's a minute and a half, or two and a half, or some combination thereof.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for their presentations, but also for the work they do in general to improve our electoral system.

My question is addressed to all of the witnesses.

In your opinion, what will be the effect—on electoral participation particularly—of the fact that we will be abolishing both the use of vouchers and the use of the voter information card, which until now allowed people to vote on election day?

[Nathalie Des Rosiers]

The problem is that we do not really know what the impact of those decisions will be. In a way, the approach consists here in saying that it is very dangerous to do things that could shrink and restrict the pool of electors. To the extent that those two factors could have the effect of restricting anyone's access to voting, this represents a loss for our democracy. Even if one person is prevented from voting, we would consider that unacceptable. According to the precautionary principle, we have to make sure that all of those who have the right to vote have the right and the privilege to exercise their franchise easily.

[Graham Fox]

For my part, I agree entirely with Ms. Des Rosiers. My first concern is that we do not know what impact this is going to have. We don't know who will be the most affected, nor whether there will be differences from region to region or according to demographic groups. I think that at the very least we have to know more about this measure before it is applied across the board.

[Alison Loat]

As a general policy and principle, the more that can be done to increase and encourage access to voting, I think is good. The evidence I've seen presented suggests that vouching will harm that principle.

[Taylor Gunn]

I'll leave these three and the previous CEOs to be the experts on vouching. I can only offer my personal experience with my health card.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you for finishing right on time, Madame Latendresse.

Mr. Reid, you have four minutes to finish this off, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Anybody can answer my question but I wanted to direct it to Taylor Gunn. Taylor phoned me and I suspect some other members of the committee beforehand, and we had a good discussion and it was very helpful. I appreciate that. I also like your multicoloured presentation, which I'll show to my webmaster as to how we could goose up our own presentation.

Finally before I ask this serious question I can't help but notice in your helpful compendium on participation in different schools where you've listed all members of the committee. In my riding, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, in 2011, I won the student vote. There were 31 schools registered and 2,884 ballots cast and just for the record that is more votes cast than in the chair's and two vice-chairs' ridings put together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

The decision was too easy in the chair's riding.