Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 31st, 2016

[Jane Hilderman]

It's an interesting point.

I think you're right. It's an entry point for people to avoid getting lost in the mechanics and details of different electoral systems, which can happen quickly. We do an exercise with groups called “Democracy Talks”. Part of it is asking what sorts of values you prioritize in a democracy. Democracy has many values, as you probably have heard. There's no right shade of democracy, so there can be transparency, accountability, responsiveness, inclusiveness. We have a list that we use. It is interesting because different conversations, different groups, bring out different emphases.

I think by and large, though, you're always going to have Canadians recognizing that a lot of these are all important, or some mix of them. That's where there's still going to be in this process of electoral reform some need to actually translate the values into system design choices. You can get a sense from Canadians of some of those values, such as whether they want more proportionality or less, or greater accountability lines. I still think it's not going to necessarily give you the perfect compass mark for what direction you need to go in terms of choice.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Yes, I absolutely agree with you that it is not going to point us in the only direction we could go, but I think it is important. I was looking at your report and hoping that maybe there would be a section on values. There wasn't.

I will go to Mr. Vézina. Do you have any comments on values?

[Dominic Vézina]

It's hard to really take a stance on this.

Generally speaking, when you lead civic engagement activities for young people, certain key words come up over and over: transparency, dialogue, respect and listening. Those are the usual things.

The INM is currently developing a program with Quebec's Department of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion. It's a project on living together. The same values keep coming up. A parliament must embody the same values of inclusion, equality, dialogue and listening.

I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate here by simply telling you what often comes up in conversations with young people, but that's essentially it. It's interesting. We might need to consult them further on this and get back to you.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I was going to say that in our motion that created this committee, we have five principles that I think reflect values. What I have been struggling with is whether this is a comprehensive list, or whether there are other things.

Anyway, I appreciate all of your comments on that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Richards, go ahead.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Seeing that we have about 12 minutes left, and I know you have numerous speakers, I am hoping I'll bank some goodwill for the future by keeping myself brief here.

I just have one two-part question, which you should be able to respond fairly briefly.

Mr. Vézina, I don't think I have heard you discuss this today, whether in your opening or in response to any other questions—unless I missed something—but I believe your organization is supportive of the idea of mandatory voting as part of the reform. Because I haven't heard you discuss it, I just want to hear your reasons for supporting mandatory voting and how you would see it being applied. Obviously, there are different ways. There could be the carrot or the stick approach to encourage the vote. What would you see as being the correct way to apply it?

[Dominic Vézina]

I have to humbly say that I have only been with INM for three and a half months. Thus, I have not participated in all the exchanges we have had with youth over the past seven or eight years. I would like to emphasize that, with respect to mandatory voting, young people are telling us that what is important is to get out the vote. Although we do not want to repeat the same thing over and over, mandatory voting is always associated with blank ballots. It is important for young people to be able to choose whether or not to support all the options provided.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay, thank you.

I will close with that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Well, that was very brief. You have many goodwill points there.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

As I said, I hope I've banked some goodwill for a future opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have indeed, yes.

Mrs. Romanado, please go ahead.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

My colleague brought up youth who are interested in presenting themselves as candidates. I know that in the last federal election, in the riding next to mine, there was a Green Party candidate who was turning 18 on October 19. I have to say kudos to her for having the bravery to do that. Not every woman of the young age of 18 would put herself out there. Most 30-year-olds wouldn't. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Mr. Vézina you mentioned that young voter turnout has been declining for years, but that it increased in the last election.

In your view, what concrete action can we take to maintain this momentum and even increase voter turnout in three years? Are there things we can do in that regard? As was mentioned, it is unfortunate that we talk about democracy only every four years when there is an election.

What can we do in the next three years to continue engaging youth on these issues?

[Dominic Vézina]

I would like to tell you about an initiative that we are developing.

A few years ago, there was a program in Quebec called Électeurs en herbe, which was modelled after the game show Génies en herbe. Together with the youth forums, Quebec's Chief Electoral Officer travelled around Quebec. In 2014 or 2015—I don't remember the exact year—more than 70,000 youth from 265 secondary schools participated in the program.

This type of measure, which is becoming popular again in Quebec with the new youth policy, will lead to these types of exchanges throughout the year. When there is a municipal, provincial or federal election, young people will be able to experience a voting simulation. That is one of the practices that will bear fruit in the next election and those that follow.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

There is an organization that has a program called “Bring your MP to school”.

Are you familiar with anything similar to that? We have often been invited to schools, but is there an opportunity for a student to shadow us for a day and for us to do the same thing for that student? That would show that we are willing to spend the day with the student at school.

[Dominic Vézina]

If I have understood correctly, you are referring to a buddy system.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Yes, exactly.

[Dominic Vézina]

That doesn't exist, but it is a very good idea. We could pair up people.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Gunn.

[Taylor Gunn]

Yes, there are several programs like that across the country. Some of them are based provincially and are meant to bring in MLAs or MHAs. Usually those are run by the teachers' unions, from what we've seen in Alberta and Nova Scotia, and I think Newfoundland and Labrador. They're meant to teach their provincial politicians about the state of schools.

UNICEF does something in the week of November about child rights day, and then we run our rep day where we try to help facilitate that.

One thing that's interesting is that when we surveyed MPs and schools that participated in a rep day, there's this really funny disconnect. MPs said they wished they could get more invites to schools, and teachers said they wished that MPs would want to come to schools. They just didn't know that they actually both wanted each other, but there's a layer of what can be fear in the system.

I think it's healthy to talk about politics in a classroom. I think it's a great thing. I actually think that's the way you engage kids the quickest, to go in, be yourself, be your partisan self. That's fine. If you as an MP mess up in a classroom, parents will hear. There are teachers who are there to help the kids interpret: what is partisanship, why is she giving out pins, why is she saying she doesn't like Stephen Harper, all this sort of stuff? But there is some fear in the system that you could abuse your privilege as an MP, and part of what we need to do and what you need to do is to change that because where else...? Do you think you're going to put up a website and all the kids will go to it? Right. Let's use things like these instruments, like schools and the education system, to try to inculcate them into our democracy.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I just want to mention that I have reached out to all my schools. I am visiting them, so I'm out there. I wish my schedule would allow me to spend more time there, but we're here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll go to Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

On Mr. Gunn's last point, that politicians are wanting to get in but are saying they can't get in, and schools are saying they want politicians to visit, you're like a political matchmaker. You're out there helping people get together to find each other in this mad, crazy world of ours.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I've tried to grab a couple of questions from Twitter, which I posed earlier today, about the voting age being lowered, for which we had cross-partisan support to do in my first year in Parliament.

One fellow writes, “You can easily influence more 16-year-olds with lies than truth. Lies are easy.” I'm taking a quote from Twitter that's not particularly supportive of my own position, a quote implying that we cannot trust young people. Yet, I think that in this country, with a letter, you can be brought into the army at the age 17—which goes to Mr. Reid's point about the history of the United States—yet we don't allow them to vote until they're 18. So young people in Canada could actually be in a war that they had no say in whatsoever, never mind the sacrifice they may have to pay.

This tweet says that young people are easily influenced at 16, that we shouldn't do it and shouldn't ask them.

[Taylor Gunn]

In our experience, this is probably the data I can actually speak about. It's right here; I could pass it around. It's just not translated, so I think I should translate it before I submit it. You can see the chart. If young people are so easily soaking up these lies, then they're doing so just like the adults are.