Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 5th, 2020

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay, great.

I know your electoral advisory group was meeting quite regularly and was quite effective. Would you say that's kind of a best practice?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

I think that is very important, to look at scenarios that may unfold and how we would continue, both in the pre-election activities and in polling.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Great, thank you.

In terms of ideal site selection for polling stations, were you involved in developing any criteria for that?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

Yes. When we did the mock-up, I think there was a good discussion to the effect that, instead of having six lines in a room, for example, you may have just two voting lines to spread everything out. That leads to more polling locations. We had discussions about whether they could be in schools, because schools have also started, and we thought, yes, you could separate out the school from the actual voting process. I think that if they were in schools, the school would not be in session that day, but that also generated the selection of many non-school-based polling locations as well.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Would you be able to table anything for this committee in relation to site selection from a public health standpoint at some point?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

I could work with Elections Saskatchewan, because we worked on that together. Obviously, there were recommendations—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, yes.

My last question is about communications. You mentioned reassuring the public, and there's definitely a perceived risk out there. We can make these sites secure and safe, but we also have to let the public know that they can have confidence. Would you say that public health has a lot of experience in raising public awareness in terms of campaigning, yes or no?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Answer very quickly, please.

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

Yes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Great.

Should they be involved in informing, messaging and the communications strategy?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

I think we can assist in promoting safe pre-elections and election activities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Madame Normandin, you have two and a half minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

The chief electoral officers told us that, this year, election workers were much younger and that there were fewer people from the at-risk population.

Did you recommend to the chief electoral officers that they specifically seek out election workers who were less at risk?

I want to hear from Dr. Russell first, and then from Dr. Shahab.

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

I don't have any information on this. I don't know whether we recommended that people be younger or less at risk. I think that people made their own choice about whether to participate.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Dr. Shahab, is your answer the same?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You're on mute, Dr. Shahab. If you could start over, I'll add those seconds back on.

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

We wanted to make sure the protocols are safe for anyone, whether they're older, with underlying risk factors, or younger. We also realized—and Elections Saskatchewan, I think, also realized—that there may be less interest for some traditional staff and volunteers who were older. Then I think they also reached out to younger people.

The process is.... We wanted to make sure that, irrespective of age or underlying risk factors, it is safe.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

You spoke of the importance of staggering the number of voting days so that fewer people physically show up to vote at the same time.

Could we recommend that people who have last names starting with the letters A to F go to the polls on Saturday, for example, in order to spread out the turnout? Could this idea be considered?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

I would say so. However, I think that we also want to encourage people to use the vote—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think we're not getting.... Okay, the interpretation was just delayed.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm watching Omar and I, too, am having some issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Dr. Russell, could give that response once again? We'll see how it works.