Evidence of meeting #35 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 young.
Director, Quebec Community Groups Network
I think you are right to say that the electoral map is not perfect. I don't know whether the solution is to redraw the electoral map or to make the election of the prime minister a little more difficult, for instance.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Could a system—my colleague Alexandre Boulerice referred to it earlier—of proportional representation that, without taking linguistic pockets into account, would allow for ridings with several members, an anglophone among them, be a possible solution? I want to hear your point of view because you stated that it is the responsibility of elected representatives to present a precise voting model.
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
I think that English-speaking voters federally are equitably represented under the current system and, as Mr. Dobie said, have a very strong connection to their local member of Parliament. That is what we're trying to maintain.
I think the fear of all minorities, ours included, is either lost in a bigger riding or a bigger district with multiple members, or worse, compartmentalized: oh, that's the minorities' MP; that's the minorities' representative. As soon as that happens, it's fairly simple to identify who the minorities' MPs are and say, “We'll just put them over here.”
The system that encourages a minority to work with the majority helps the minority. I'll give you an example. The Sherbrooke and Lennoxville communities in the Eastern Townships have very close relationships with both their provincial members of the National Assembly and their federal MPs. They are a minority community—and there's no question about it—but they feel very connected to their MNA and to their MPs, and very supported by them.
Liberal
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a few questions. I'll start with you, Ms. Loutfi.
You made a comment in your opening remarks, and I think this is a direct quote or very close, “Legitimacy is a product of participation.” I certainly would agree that it's important to ensuring legitimacy that we give as many people as possible the opportunity to participate and that as many people as possible actually do participate in that.
What do you think about consultation around any changes on electoral reform, and about us trying to be as broad and inclusive as possible in those consultations? Is that important in terms of legitimizing any proposed change coming out of this?
Executive Director, Apathy is Boring
Are you asking for consultations prior to the committee's recommendation?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I meant prior to any changes being made. Actually, we should have consultations both prior to and following a recommendation. The bottom line for me would be prior to a recommendation being implemented. Is it important to have broad consultation to make it legitimate?
Executive Director, Apathy is Boring
Yes. The quote was Jean-Pierre's, actually, that participation is tied to legitimacy. That's what I've been kind of harping about the whole time I've been here. I think we do need to consult, and we need to go out to hard-to-reach groups of young people that we haven't spoken to.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
As for trying to make sure that the opportunity to participate is as broad as possible, you made a comment about using this opportunity to better educate and to rebrand government for young people. In my mind, if you were to conduct a campaign following a recommendation, where there was a lot of opportunity for public education and participation, I would see a referendum as being one of the options that would give a great opportunity to educate and include young people in the process. If it was done properly, it would also give the broadest possible ability to participate.
What would your thoughts be on that? Would that be something you would see as enabling broad participation?
Executive Director, Apathy is Boring
Yes, the question for us isn't whether there should or shouldn't be a referendum on this. Our concern is, if there is a referendum, will a lot of young people show up and vote? Right now, people aren't even showing up for elections. If we're going to go down that route, for instance, the idea of actually getting very high rates of participation should be the priority, and for us that will only happen if we create non-partisan and accessible resources, and if we actually go out and bring it to these diverse populations of youth.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Okay, great. That was the follow-up I was going to ask and you've answered it, so thank you.
Mr. Dobie or Mr. Thompson, either one of you is welcome to respond to this. You made the comment in response to the last set of questions that you feel English-speaking, so in this case minority language voters are adequately represented under the current system. You made several other comments about moving away from a geographically represented electorate, the idea of multi-member larger districts. One of the concerns you raised was the idea of shying away from systems that would give more power to political parties.
I think I can assume from that that you would be reluctant to make any change to the current system. It doesn't sound as though you're opposed to the idea of something that would be better than the current system. It sounds like based on some of those comments that you'd certainly be reluctant to change, because you think that currently the system is fairly adequately representing minority language rights. You have concerns about the geographics and political parties gaining more power. Would that be a fair assessment of your position, or am I mischaracterizing it?
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
I don't think you're mischaracterizing it. I think you might be colouring it a little bit. We don't have a position on any system. In response to a question, we said that our community is generally equitably represented. Our concerns are that we could lose the link between a geographically defined constituency and a member of Parliament. We are concerned about a system that would give more power to a political party, because minorities tend not to be...linguistic minorities anyway tend not to be well represented, or equitably represented, within political party systems. Those are our concerns in the current conversation we're having.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I was wondering why the microphone was off. I guess that's why.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Okay, I just wasn't sure what that was signifying.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
It's great to be back in ever-beautiful Montreal. We're at meeting 35, and I was just reflecting that this panel has given us new material, so that's a great way to start another week.
I want to go to Mr. Dobie and Mr. Thompson for what I hope will be a brief comment. My colleague, Ms. Sahota, was talking about mandatory voting. Do you have a position on mandatory registration? I don't think you touched on that.
Something else that's come up is the idea of having people register but being able to indicate that they won't be voting for whatever reasons. Would that be any more palatable, or is anything mandatory not a go?
Director, Quebec Community Groups Network
I like the way you summed it up at the end, “anything mandatory is not a go“.
It's the same principle of impositions on citizens. To us, it's contrary to the spirit of our democracy and our charter.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay.
Ms. Loutfi, I've really liked everything you've talked about, when you said that those in post-secondary tend to be more engaged and easier to access. When you were talking about doing some of the things like concerts and events, I think that gets into some of the strategies you've used to get to that audience that is maybe less engaged.
I'd love to know what else you've used as strategies to reach out to people. I haven't heard you talk about a lot of specifics. Can you share anything about where else you go to find both the post-secondary groups but particularly this elusive non-engaged group of youth who simply aren't at the universities and are maybe not at the concerts? What did you do in 2015? What's your strategy moving forward to identify and engage these young people?
Executive Director, Apathy is Boring
We consider ourselves an innovation organization, because we haven't found the silver bullet to find all of these disengaged youth as yet. But we're constantly testing and trying and figuring out new ways to do our work.
Right now we are working through other community organizations that offer front-line services and different resources. Whether we're talking youth shelters, employment centres, or food banks, there are different organizations out there that are providing services to young people who are more marginalized or harder to reach through the traditional current systems we have.
For us, it's partnerships with organizations like that. We've found that talking to them about the issues they're working on and how that's related to government and thus related to policies that affect them and the populations they serve, has been a really good way of building that relationship and trust with those organizations and the communities they serve.
Then, as a youth organization, we always try to find fun ways to bring these resources to them, whether it's video content, whether that's infographics or partnerships with artists, and finding interesting ways so that when we're actually with this population they're engaged in the conversation.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
You were talking about the marginalized, and I think that's one obviously unique and challenging group to get to. I don't know if you would see it the same way, but there is the not necessarily marginalized but disengaged group of youth. Do you try to reach that group as well? Are there different strategies you would use with them? We hear about the working poor, the youth who are finally beyond post-secondary education, or they've gone from high school into the workforce and in many cases they're in part of those working poor, minimum-wage kind of jobs, and trying to pay off student loan debt and save for rent for the next month.
They may not be out at the clubs and things, so how do you reach that disengaged group as opposed to the marginalized youth?
Executive Director, Apathy is Boring
We think about it often as a ladder of engagement. There are always different rungs on that ladder, so as much as possible you have different strategies for the level of engagement or disengagement that you're working with.
Going through a lot of creative centres, often we find artists and young people involved with different creative organizations, or agencies that are passionate about certain things, or use art to voice different concerns or ideas they have, but maybe they're not using the system—and by the system I mean our democratic process—to be heard as well.
They tend to be not necessarily marginalized but disengaged within the system. I think that's actually something we talk about quite a lot, because our name, Apathy is Boring, can be confusing. We're not saying that youth are apathetic, they're simply not choosing the current system to have their voices heard. They're using alternative forums. Going to those alternative places where they're voicing their concerns is how we reach them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
That concludes our round of questioning.
I have a couple of very short questions.
Ms. Loutfi, does your organization go into the schools? Have you been into any schools in my riding, which is on the western tip of the island? Have you been to those schools, and what do you do? Do you go into the classroom, or do you go to the auditorium and have a motivational speaker come in? How does it work exactly?