Evidence of meeting #22 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was schools.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
What you are suggesting is that we need a more thorough consultation process than we currently have—
Conservative
President, Civix
I am saying that if you don't have a more thorough consultation process, which really means you just need more time, which is one of my recommendations in my initial remarks—
Liberal
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
I am like a kid in a candy store right now, having spent the last 15 years of my career in higher education. This is the panel I have been waiting for.
First, Ms. Hilderman, I highly recommend that anyone contemplating running for office read Tragedy in the Commons before they do. I did.
Executive Director, Samara
Oh, great, and you still did it. That is wonderful.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Yes.
In terms of civics, I did participate. I have to say that the five schools that participated in my riding were pretty much bang on, so good for them. In fact, as my colleague, John, mentioned, the best questions I got during the campaign were from the 16- to 18-year-olds. They probably are more aware. The great thing is that they have no filter, so they don't mind telling you exactly what they think, which is sometimes refreshing.
One thing you talked about was lowering the voting age to 16. My question is this. We all know that education is a provincial jurisdiction. I am from Quebec. I am very much aware of the fact that we are not going to be getting into the nitty-gritty of that. However, if we contemplate changing the voting age to 16, I don't think educating folks at the age of 14 will be soon enough. I would like to get your ideas on the corresponding change in education that will be required, because you need to get them a little earlier, in my opinion. First of all, I would like to get your opinion on that, and then I have some follow-up questions.
My question is for all three witnesses.
Executive Director, Samara
I don't know specifically about each province, how they treat their civic education program. I think there is a lot of variability. I believe there is actually some work being done at Elections Canada to try to understand how each province approaches its work. You are probably right that if you are going to vote at 16, you should be learning earlier. I think some teachers do some education.
It is actually really interesting. The few studies that exist around young people and political beliefs suggest that political socialization happens very early. Kids are picking up on signals all the time: what is on the news, what their parents say about politics. Surprisingly, they can generally point out that politics isn't that popular of a thing at a very young age. They are seeing these signals, so I think you are right that there could be room for education earlier.
In Samara's work, I would say that we try to think about the non-traditional classroom, the classroom that often happens outside of school, whether in after-school programs, community groups, or other places where youth—or, as was said, other adults, newcomers—may congregate. We think this is an important space, too, that often gets left out of the conversation around civic education. Schools are powerful because they are institutional. It is easy to roll out something across them, but we have been very keen to try to develop tools for these more entrepreneurial community groups, such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada and the Girl Guides of Canada, that are working with young people outside of school systems as well to be equipped to support civic education.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Before we go on, I am just going to add to that, and then you can both answer.
What about leveraging technology? For instance, you hear about the two-year-old who can manoeuvre an iPad. Is there an app for that? Are there plans to create technology that will.... We hear about gaming. That generation loves gaming. Is there something in the cooker that we could be thinking about in terms of zeroing in on the fun aspect of elections?
President, Civix
We use technology in different ways to supply content. I'm expecting Ruby at some point to ask a question about online voting because she did so in the first few meetings, pretty seriously.
To go back to what the real thing is, what's important—Marc Mayrand brought this up as well—is that there is a trend among election agencies across the country to gather information on students, usually from ministries of education, to put on the permanent electors list before they reach 18. That's great, but it's useless to a kid if they have no idea what that is and no idea what the permanent electors list is.
What we would suggest, and what we're investigating, is how do you create a teachable moment out of that? We're working on similar programs so that at the end of this school year we can trial citizenship ceremonies in schools and forecast where the kids do different things. Part of that would be then informing them and educating them that they're on the voters list.
I would go back to the point about who is in the classroom delivering that information in a way that makes it matter. We do monitor what education systems are doing across the country in their curriculum. What matters the most is whether you have a passionate, enthusiastic teacher.
I don't know if the following would be the case among this group, but we've asked people before why they got into politics. They would tell us, “I got into politics because I had this great history teacher in grade 11.” It's this classic thing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We're going to have to go to Mr. Cullen, who's passionate and enthusiastic as well.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes, still passionate.
I have a question about Samara's report, Tragedy in the Commons, and some others. You paint a picture, or my colleagues who have since retired paint a picture, that the political culture stinks. It's aggressive. It's antagonistic. There seem to be a lot of incentives in our current system to yell at one another and make things personal. People, upon leaving politics, reflect on that.
Am I overstating the case from what you've found in your research?
Executive Director, Samara
No, I think you're right. With the 80 former members of Parliament we interviewed, they broadly felt that they got into it all for the right reasons, but they felt that the system chewed them up a bit and spit them out at the end.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
A system that incentivizes that bad behaviour is bad, and systems that incentivize other types of behaviour would be good, in terms of electoral systems. We've heard testimony that suggests that when you get into systems that are more proportional or that allow more co-operation or consultation between parties, the amount of vitriol goes down. Would less vitriol in our system be a good thing in attracting people to politics and keeping them engaged and interested?
Executive Director, Samara
On the question of whether less vitriol is a good thing, I say yes. On your point of proportional systems delivering that, I think they may nudge you toward it, but a big part of it also comes to the decisions that you as political leaders make about how you want to execute your office.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Those political leaders make self-serving decisions to advance their parties, or decisions for the country as well. If they are required to work with others in the system, then one would imagine that the incentive to be mean and vicious and to tear each other down, would be less.
President, Civix
When I read the testimony of the two gentlemen from Dublin, third or fourth, I thought they said to not expect that. Am I...?