Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Preston.

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

I would like to move that we see the minister on Tuesday, and that we see further witnesses on Bill C-16 on Thursday. That will give the steering committee a chance to meet.

So let's so move, and move along with this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm going to just go back to Madam Picard, because I sensed a motion there that we just move the agenda around. We have two witnesses here now, so we can get our witnesses to the table, deal with it, and come back to this.

So do I have the agreement of the committee to leave 15 or 20 minutes at the end of the meeting, regardless of where we are, so we can deal with this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Perfect. Thank you very much, colleagues.

We have two witnesses. We did intend to have one group speak for one hour and the other group speak for another hour. Members of the committee will probably realize why that is as the witnesses introduce themselves. There is a bit of a separation in the expertise of the witnesses. However, I'm sure—as Madam Redman says—we can juggle a couple of stones at the same time.

Friends, I appreciate your coming out today. I certainly appreciate the fact that you're here in such foul weather. The committee appreciates the work you've done in preparation for this meeting today. What I would like to do is offer you a few minutes to introduce yourselves, and then if you have an opening statement we'll come back to that. So if you would, just introduce yourselves first, and then we'll proceed after.

Mr. Archer, please.

[Keith Archer, Professor, Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Good morning.

My name is Keith Archer. I'm a professor in the department of political science at the University of Calgary, and I'm the director of research at the Banff Centre.

[Peter John Loewen, Research Associate, Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies, Université de Montréal, As an Individual]

I am Peter Loewen, a graduate student at the Université de Montréal in the department of political science and a research associate with the Canada research chair in electoral studies.

[Agnieszka Dobrzynska, Research Associate, Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies, Université de Montréal, As an Individual]

My name is Agnieszka Dobrzynska, and I am a research associate in the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal. I hold a doctorate in political science.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

What we will do now is ask each witness for an opening statement. Normally we try to keep it around two to three minutes.

If you could please start again for us, Mr. Archer, you have the floor for three to five minutes. Thank you.

[Keith Archer]

Thank you. My opening statement is very brief.

From the end of World War II until 1988 voter turnout in Canada was in the order of about 75%. In the five elections since 1993 turnout has sharply declined and now ranges between about 61% and 65%. The intent of Bill C-16 is to reverse this trend and to do so largely by increasing the number of advanced polling opportunities. I believe the intent to increase voter turnout is non-controversial. It's widely held that higher turnout is better than lower turnout. There is some dispute, however, about whether this is the best or perhaps even a good way to increase voter turnout.

In a review of declaration voting—and declaration voting includes such things as absent voting, postal voting, and advanced voting, among others—undertaken by the Australian Electoral Commission in 2004, the following observations were made. First, there has been an increase in declaration voting from about 12.6% of all votes in 1993, to 15.9% in 2001. Second, one of the major reasons for this, according to the Australian Electoral Commission, is societal change. The nature of societal changes that were identified in that study included things such as changing work patterns, changing retail shopping hours, increased mobility, and changed family and living arrangements. Third, this has led to increases in so-called convenience declaration voting. I think the trends that were experienced in Australia are very similar to trends in Canada.

In its report the Australian Electoral Commission also concluded that declaration voting presents difficulties to electoral administrators. They concluded that declaration voting results in increased costs of elections and increased or perhaps more complicated challenges facing electoral administrators in the processing of votes.

In his presentation to this committee, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer was reported to have identified these administrative costs for Canada. The additional costs and administrative challenges need to be considered carefully and weighed against the prospect of the effect of this legislation on increased turnout.

To make this assessment, I believe it would be useful to see some additional research on a variety of reform alternatives to compare the relative costs and effectiveness.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Perhaps I could ask Mr. Loewen if he has an opening statement. I know you have submitted something. Thank you very much. We'll offer you some time for an opening statement anyway.

[Peter John Loewen]

I do, and if I may, I would like to share my time with Madam Dobrzynska, because we've jointly prepared a statement.

I do thank you very much and I thank the members of this committee very much for the opportunity to come and talk about the report that we drafted for Elections Canada entitled Potential Impacts of Extended Advance Voting on Voter Turnout. We certainly want to answer whatever questions we have as clearly and as comprehensively as we can. We thank you very much for the opportunity to speak about this and for your interest in electoral participation.

We do regret that Professor Blais can't be with us here today. He's out of the country, but as we prepared this report together, he has prepared these remarks with us.

In the short time we have here we want to provide you with answers to the questions that we think are most prominent in our report and that perhaps are weighing most heavily for you on this legislation. First, what's the cross-national evidence on the effects of increasing convenience for voting on turnout? Secondly, what evidence do we have in Canadian federal elections about the relationship between increased advanced voting and overall turnout? Finally, who is it that votes in advance?

We think that by answering these questions we can better understand what the short-term and the long-term effects of greater advance voting on overall turnout will be.

[Agnieszka Dobrzynska]

Bill C-16 proposes a number of measures to increase the convenience of voting in Canada. These provisions are: increased advanced polling opportunities, the existence of two consecutive regular polling days rather than only one, and the possibility of voting on a Sunday. The combination of the three measures provided for in Bill C-16 would make Canada's electoral legislation very unique. Only Sweden offers a similar combination of convenience measures to encourage greater voter participation. The case of Italy seems to resemble that of Canada. A period of two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday, was recently established in Italy for voting. However, advanced polling is not permitted in that country.

In the past, several studies considered whether administrative measures to increase the convenience of voting would have an impact on voter turnout. However, existing empirical research has yielded conflicting results. Certain studies indicate that measures such as increased advanced polling opportunities or the possibility of voting on a holiday can increase voter turnout; others observed no impact.

With regard to the existence of two regular polling days, certain studies report a negative impact, which seems hard to believe. Although these studies are rigorous, all have their limitations. That is why we have conducted a new empirical transnational study including elections held in all democratic countries between 1990 and 2001. Our sample included 151 elections in 61 democratic countries. Our objective was to examine the impact that administrative measures to increase the convenience of voting would have on overall voter turnout.

The findings of our analyses indicate that, in countries in which electoral legislation facilitates voting by allowing advanced polling, voter turnout is approximately four percentage points higher than in countries in which this option is not available. However, the possibility of voting on holidays and the availability of two consecutive regular polling days had no significant statistical impact.

We have three comments to make. First, the three measures we examined had a positive impact on voter turnout; however, the correlations were not that strong. Second, the availability of two consecutive regular polling days was found in only six elections in our sample, which may explain why it is so difficult to identify a significant statistical trend. Lastly, our findings suggest that, although all of these measures could have a positive impact on voter turnout, the real impact is limited.

[Peter John Loewen]

We addressed two more questions. First, does increased advance voting increase overall turnout? Second, who takes advantage of the opportunity to vote in advance?

On the first question, we think the evidence is rather clear. Increased advance voting opportunities give time-pressed individuals more opportunities to vote, and they give parties more opportunities to mobilize voters into these voting opportunities.

The American evidence, which we think is the most well developed, suggests that liberal voting laws and multiple opportunities to cast a ballot increase turnout, but there is a caveat. Increasing turnout often depends on an effort by parties to mobilize voters into these opportunities. In other words, increasing voter opportunities alone may not be enough; it may also require parties encouraging voters to take advantage of these opportunities.

Our objective then was to determine whether or not increased advance voting in Canada was increasing overall voter turnout. When we compared the increase in advance voting in federal constituencies between the 2004 and 2006 federal elections, we found overall turnout increased as well. In concrete terms, we found that for every ten additional voters who decided to vote in advance in 2006, nearly six of those individuals would not have voted otherwise.

In terms of the 2006 election, the 1.3% increase in advance voting resulted in a 0.7% increase in overall turnout. It had a modest effect, but it was a real one.

We concluded from this that further increasing advance voting opportunities in Canada is likely to increase overall turnout. It's extremely difficult for us to quantify the actual magnitude of the impact, but we are confident in saying we do not imagine the impact being greater than 2% or 3%.

Who is likely to take advantage of these greater opportunities to vote in advance? To ascertain this we considered evidence from the 2006 edition of the Canadian election study, which is a long-running survey of thousands of Canadians during each federal election. Through a statistical model we located the factors that differentiated those who voted in advance from those who did not.

To whit, older citizens were more likely to vote in advance than younger citizens. Those interested in politics were more likely to vote in advance than those who were not interested. Those who identified with a political party and/or were contacted by political parties were more likely to vote in advance.

We think these findings suggest two things. First, increased advance voting opportunities are likely to do little to close the turnout gap between the young and the old. Indeed, while also increasing overall participation, it will likely widen the gap in turnout between the young and the old.

Second, political parties will play an important role in determining whether extended voting opportunities lead to a significant increase in voter turnout. If the proposed changes are enacted, much of their effect will likely depend on whether parties can contact voters, inform them of these opportunities, and encourage them to take advantage of them.

We thank the committee very much for its attention to this report and questions of participation more generally, and we look forward to questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we have our final witness at the table.

Thank you very much, Mr. Franks. We all had a little trouble getting here this morning, and those of us who got here were having trouble getting started.

I will offer you the floor to introduce yourself, please, and if you have an opening statement please feel free to go right into it.

Thank you, Mr. Franks.

[Ned Franks, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Queen's University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could have gotten here earlier, but I went to see a former student of mine, Peter Milliken, and had a coffee with him before coming, so my excuses and apology for being late.

I have some comments and I'll simply read them. I hope you have them in French, too; I'm not sure.

The objective of Bill C-16, to increase voter participation by increasing the number of advance polling days, is a useful and in my view uncontroversial reform. The percentage of Canadians taking advantage of advance polling opportunities has risen from 5.4% in the 1997 general election to 10.5% in 2006. The use of advance polling is likely to increase. The only potentially controversial issue I find in the bill is the proposal to have all polling stations open on the last day of advance polling, the Sunday before elections. This risks creating two polling days with equal opportunities for voter participation, one on the formal day of the election, and the second on the previous day. It is for this committee to decide if this is truly the wish and intent of Parliament and advise the House on that.

I estimate that increasing the number of advance polling days from three to five will, at best, improve overall voter participation by 1% or 2%. This is worthwhile. It will add to the cost of elections, but the entire cost of Parliament and its agents, including Elections Canada, is only a fraction of 1% of the overall budget of the Government of Canada and is a small price to pay for democracy. The importance of the democratic processes, representation in Parliament, and public participation through voting and communicating with Parliament and parliamentarians far outweighs their costs.

However, an increase of 1% or 2% will not resolve the problem of voter apathy. In the past 20 years, participation in Canadian general elections has decreased from a respectable 75% or better to the much less satisfactory low sixties. That 40% of electors choose not to participate is cause for concern. Voter apathy has become an issue in many western democracies. Despite much research, it's still not clear what causes this decline or what can be done to reverse it. It's perhaps the most important problem facing our parliamentary system. The decline is not only in voting. Membership in political parties has also declined. Less than 1% of the Canadian electorate now belongs to recognized political parties.

Many explanations have been proposed for the declines in both voter participation and membership in political parties. First, political parties have become increasingly irrelevant. For example, opinion polls put environment and ecological issues high among the concerns of Canadians, while the environmental policies of the traditional parties consist largely of empty rhetoric contradicted by what they do when in power. Second, some identifiable groups have a low level of political participation. These include the young people, and especially the children of immigrants. I suspect that much of this derives from fundamental issues of how these groups view government and what government does to and for or fails to do about matters that affect them. Third, politicians and politics as a whole are in disrepute. Recent opinion polls put politicians at the bottom in terms of public trust. I think of the elderly English lady who told an opinion survey, “I never vote, it only encourages them.”

I believe that the lack of public trust in politicians is in large part a consequence of how politicians behave, including how they behave in Parliament. I began taking university classes to visit Parliament 40 years ago. The current Speaker, Peter Milliken, was in the first of these classes. The current level of debate is as low as I have seen, and the bad manners and incivility in question period the worst. I would not want to take a class to watch question period at present. It would risk destroying their faith in our Parliament and parliamentarians.

There are some bright lights. To mention another former student of mine, Rob Nicholson, the current Minister of Justice, is exemplary in his courtesy and the relevance of his answers. But in general, Parliament and its denizens seem bound and determined to bring both the institution and politicians into disrepute. There is no good reason for Bill C-16 to be treated as a partisan issue. All members have an interest in encouraging voter participation. I hope that this committee can achieve a consensus on this useful reform.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we have all our witnesses at the table now, so there will be no need to stop. We can continue until we're at that last 15 or 20 minutes. We'll go with our usual round of questioning and usual order, in seven-minute rounds, starting with Madam Redman, please.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank all the witnesses for coming.

I guess I can't help but react to Professor Franks by saying that I really don't think this has been a partisan issue, and I would tell you that I think that some of the widely held presumptions people have made have been dispelled by some of our witnesses. I found it very interesting.

My father was a wholesaler in fruit and vegetables for his whole working career, and he used to always look at retail and say it's the one job he'd never want to have, because there's only a certain amount of business: whether you're open eight hours a day or 12 hours a day or 24 hours a day, there's only so much business you can have.

I looked at this suggestion of having two election days, two polling days back-to-back, rather than simply another opportunity for an advanced poll. I would tell you that we have experts here saying that it may raise the voter turnout by 2%, and I think it was Mr. Loewen or Mr. Archer who talked about the fact that you have to look at sort of the cost-benefit analysis. Maybe it was Mr. Archer.

So this is going to cost us $34 million. What we've heard from Elections Canada and other people is that they're having trouble getting both volunteers and paid people—whether it was partisan reaction from our party representatives or Elections Canada—to come and work on the polling days and the advance polling days we now have.

Given the price tag of $34 million, my question would be: Are we simply going to spread out the voters who now come, so maybe we'll get 60% or 62%, but they will now say “Well, maybe I'll go Sunday or maybe I'll go Monday”? Or are we better off to look at different innovations, different ways to increase voter turnout that would appeal to the young people, the 18 to 36 age group, who seem to be vastly under-represented, as well as the children of new Canadians who don't seem to be coming out to vote?

My question is to everyone who chooses to answer. For $34 million, I haven't seen demonstrated that this will necessarily increase voter participation. If that is really the thrust of this piece of legislation, can any of you give us input on other aspects of voting that we could look at that may indeed get us a greater return for that $34 million and the 2% it might possibly bring in?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is there any particular order of response, Madam Redman?

How about we start with Ms. Dobrzynska.

[Agnieszka Dobrzynska]

I think you have to consider what the real cost incurred would be. If it is a net expenditure of $34 million, you have to consider that a 1% increase in voter turnout would represent approximately 200,000 more voters, but that each additional vote would cost approximately $150. I don't think it's up to us to decide whether that is worth the trouble. It is up to you to make that decision. Are there any other solutions, particularly to attract young people? There are, but would they be more costly or, on the contrary, less costly? That's another question. In my view, you have to evaluate all aspects of the question and ask whether it's worth it to incur a cost of $150 per vote gained.

[Peter John Loewen]

I should like to say as well that it's clear to us from our research that it's not only the case that people who vote on election day vote in advance because it's more convenient and that it's only a movement back and forth of regular voters. Rather, what advanced voting has done in Canada, at least in 2006, was to give people who were at the margin—people who probably found voting inconvenient on the day of voting, who may have worked in retail or had other reasons to not vote—an opportunity to vote. So when we say that six out of ten voters who voted in the advance polls would not have voted otherwise, we feel this quite strongly.

The overall impact probably does ceiling out at 2% or 3%, but we should like to say there are a couple of other factors to take into consideration. The first is that voting is habitual, that when people vote for the first time it predicts very strongly that they will vote throughout their life. When people don't vote in the first one or two opportunities they have to vote, that gels into a pattern very quickly. So the knock-on effect of increasing voter turnout by two or three points can be higher in elections later on.

I should like to say finally that I think politicians, and certainly political scientists around the world, scratch their heads at what can be done to bring more youth into the voting process generally, at what can be done to close this widening and quite massive gap between young people and older people. This bill won't do it, but what it will do is to give some youth and some old folks and some people in the middle who are on the margin and who find voting inconvenient a reason to go and vote, because they'll have one extra day to do it, then one day of advanced voting at the back end as well.

The effect isn't large, and I think our own opinion would be that it's for parliamentarians to decide what the price of a vote should be in terms of actual participation. I don't know what a deal is.

[Keith Archer]

I think the evidence is pretty consistent that there has been an increased demand for voting alternatives outside one-day regular voting opportunities. We see that in an increased demand for postal voting; we see it in an increased demand for advance voting. And we see more people taking advantage of those opportunities.

That is clearly something I think election administration officials and parliamentarians need to be aware of and take into account.

The challenge for you, I guess, is to understand when those arrangements are sufficient to address that demand. Canada's advance voting arrangements strike me as fairly generous at the moment, and larger numbers of Canadians are taking advantage of those opportunities.

Will larger numbers continue to take advantage if these are extended even further? I don't think we know the answer to that. I think we're all speculating a bit.

I'm not surprised at the estimates people have been bringing forward that the growth would likely be on the order of 1% or 2%. A 1% or 2% increase in voter turnout at a cost of $34 million strikes many people as a lot of money, so I can understand the second thoughts people are having, given the cost projections that Elections Canada provided.

More generally, is this a good way to address declining voter turnout? I think that was part of the question.

In answer to that, it's important to recognize that most of the research that's been done over the last 15 years or so has suggested that the group that has been most likely to see its voter participation drop off in the last generation has been young people. This administrative change is not designed for that group.

Are there ways of addressing declining youth voter turnout? I think so. I think there are lessons we can learn from other democracies. One of the major innovations I've been struck by is taken from the Australian context, in which the Australian Electoral Commission has introduced a so-called provisional voter register. What a provisional voter register allows people to do is register to vote at 16 or 17 years of age, and that change has introduced the idea of voter registration at a time when people are still in high school.

Introducing that kind of innovation, in which civic education and voter registration information can be addressed at a time when there is a very high participation rate in social studies classes, strikes me as something worth considering as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

We're a little over on this round, but I think we're going to continue.

Mr. Franks, please.

[Ned Franks]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just be very brief.

I consider it worthwhile to spend that money. I would not be the one to tell 200,000 Canadians who take voting seriously enough to go to an advance poll that we don't consider their votes worth $150.

The marginal cost of something like this is always higher than the average. I think it is an effort to say that Parliament cares about the people who find difficulty in voting on polling day and is trying to make voting a more positive, convenient experience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Lukiwski for seven minutes, please.