Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

There are two minutes left in that round, if any of your colleagues want to absorb the two minutes.

Mr. Preston.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'll take a good one.

Mr. Minister, I know you've got a lot of studies in front of you, and I will try to throw in some anecdotes from a straight business point of view of what's happened to Sundays over the last decade or couple of decades.

From a business point of view, Sunday used to be the seventh day of volume, the slowest day of the week, if you will, in most of the restaurant business.

[An hon. member]

Not Boston Pizza.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'll tell you where it's gone today. It's now, in most cases, the second or third busiest—from the seventh to the second or third busiest.

This simply shows us that people are now taking your Sundays as a much more common day, whether it's work—and obviously if it's a commercial enterprise they are working—or just a normal day, whether it's shopping or banking or whatever else they can possibly do. So I commend you for putting Sunday back in there, because it didn't make sense that it was left out of the advance poll chain on the Friday, Saturday, Monday. Using that Sunday before and making it more of a community thing I think works far better.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I might add that those of us who have been involved in campaigns—and I've been involved in many, and everybody around the table will relate to this. I always found that Friday, Saturday, Monday thing so awkward to explain to voters. By taking one day out of that chain of four, people tuned out and didn't know what days the advance polls were. By making it four consecutive days, it's easier for the brain to accept.

A large chunk of people say they missed, they didn't know it was voting day, and so on. A significant chunk of people cite that as a reason. So I certainly think it'll make it a lot easier for candidates to communicate when advance polls are and for voters to understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

There's not enough time left. I think we'll move to our next questioner.

Mr. Dewar, five minutes, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you again, Minister.

Just to pick up where I left off, I'm looking at the documentation from the consultation with the Frontier Institute. Is that consultation done?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I believe the bulk of the work is done. The consultations with the 12 consultation groups across the country have been done. I haven't seen any results from them yet. There was a public opinion component, and I do not know if that is fully completed yet. Their mandate is to finish it and have it deposited with the government by the end of this month.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

This month. That is my understanding.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

That is the expectation. I have not had an update if they're on schedule for that or not, but time is rapidly running out.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes.

You contracted these folks to do the work, so maybe there could be a phone call to find out how it's going.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

These folks might know.

[David Anderson]

They're still working on the survey aspect of it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay.

I think it would be helpful for this committee, because it was fairly extensive. Obviously, it will be tabled.

It's to be tabled in Parliament. Is that the idea?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I think it's to be filed with the Library of Parliament.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

We'll have access to it. It will be helpful for the committee to see the results, because in it there are some of the issues you've referenced on volunteer and civic organizations.

I have to say that I'm not convinced yet on this issue. As I mentioned in my comments and questions—I'm from Missouri, if you will, on this—show me some evidence, notwithstanding that we've mentioned we can look to other countries. In terms of the countries you've mentioned, I could easily put forward, and I will, the study that was done in Canada by the Law Commission on democratic reform. The most extensive overview on democratic reform in this country would suggest that it's not an extra day of voting that will increase voter participation. Making sure every vote counts is what Canadians want. They would be looking at some form of proportionality.

In fact, I could argue in terms of the list of countries—and you mention the OECD—that maybe it's because they have a fairer voting system and not the fact that they vote on Sundays. I think most political scientists might look at that and say, what's in the window, if you will, as opposed to, when do I get to buy it.

I put that forward because if we're going to have serious debate on increasing voter participation, we need to look at the whole picture here. When I was questioning you about your vision of democratic reform, I have to say I was a little concerned. I'm seeing these piecemeal—I don't think it's intentional. I really don't. But when we see the Senate bills, we see Bill C-56, which popped up and then went away—It didn't go away. Okay. It just went off the order paper radar, just for awhile, until we could talk to Mr. Tory.

Seriously. If we look at it, I'm concerned that there isn't a vision. A vision of democratic reform, for what it's worth, to me, is if you look at institutions like the Senate—Put up the question. It's the elephant in the room. Maybe it's time to phase the Senate out and look at an institution that's more representative, not tinkering with it. Where do we want to be in ten years? In 1865 they were looking at 1841. They were dealing with the Durham report. It's time we looked at our institutions and asked, are they required?

Anyhow, my question to you is regarding Sunday. I go to church. I've mentioned this in passing. Some people think it's okay and others are really not happy with it, I have to tell you that. I think the lack of consultation on this bill might be a problem not just for you but for us if we're supporting it. I would ask that part of our witness list be faith groups. They need to be heard from. They're going to let us know if we don't. I think it would be smart to do that.

I have to say that for some people it seemed like an opportunity to be able to vote on it. For others, you've got politicians in your face for an extra day. That's the other side of the coin.

The other thing I have to ask you is this. Are you aware that in Manitoba they just recently had an election and they actually upped the voter turnout? They did that not with an extra day of voting but through some other innovative things. Has anyone looked at that in your shop, or have you?

What they did, very quickly, is they put voting stations, advance polls, not in churches or schools, like we usually do—you might have a conflict with this plan with churches because not everyone goes to church before noon—but they put them in malls. This is the third consecutive majority government for the Doer government, and voter turnout went up. That's very unusual. They allowed people to vote in unusual places, for many of us, such as in malls. Young people might not go to church as much as they used to, but they sure go to malls. Have you considered that as an idea?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

There is so much material there and so little time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You know what I think I'm going to do? Mr. Dewar has taken his entire five minutes to ask the question.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I can't even say anything about the change from citizen to consumer?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You know, I don't mind. We have two speakers left on the list. I'm going to automatically put Mr. Dewar back on the list, because I think he has more that he needs to ask.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Can I just answer him when he comes back on the list?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Minister, I'm going to give you a minute, if you need to respond to that right now while it's fresh in your mind. Please take the extra minute and respond.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I've already forgotten half of what he ran through.

Certainly in terms of the issue of changing where you have your polling stations to a more commercial nature, the joke I was making was about the change from citizen into consumer. And that's one of the things that's been happening here. If you look through some of the research and some of the comments, there is this whole concern that people are changing to be more consumers and less citizens with a duty. Duty and obligation are big parts of voting.

Some people say we need to have better education to get people to vote. Some people point to political efficacy as a reason why people don't vote. They think their vote doesn't matter, and so on. And there are some studies, as Mr. Dewar acknowledged, that indicated that a different voting system results in a higher turnout. There are others who say that it's a competitive election that results in a higher turnout. If they think it's a foregone conclusion, they don't vote. There's cynicism. All these things are different factors, and we can go through them all.

I simply think you can't solve all those problems all at once, and there are all kinds of good debates about why you may or may not want to do that, but the reality is, whether you go with a proportional system or stick with our first-past-the-post system, whether it's a close election or not, the fact that we will be making this change I think will have a positive impact regardless of what other changes you do make.

I don't think it's a sin to look at it in isolation. I think it's fine to look at it, and I don't think it's a sin to give someone the opportunity to vote on Sunday, as long as you're not obliging them to vote on Sunday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Proulx, please.

This is our third round. I think we'll stay with five minutes, but if you don't need the full five, that's great.

Mr. Proulx, and then Mr. Hill.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, minister. Welcome to the committee.

Minister, I'm surprised you are here this morning, because I don't remember having discussed your appearance before this committee, or the planning committee. In any case, you are here. We welcome you.

Minister, I'm trying to understand every aspect of what you are doing. First, you are adding one advanced polling day. That means there will be a full weekend of advanced polling: the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election, one week before the election date. This would mean advanced polling as we have known it for several years now.

Second, instead of there being only one voting day, there will be two voting days, since you are decreeing that the Sunday immediately preceding election day Monday will become just like election day itself. Is that correct?