Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Jean Ouellet]

There are a lot of things in play.

The reason why we have the same problems we might talk about in terms of election workers is that we have fewer and fewer workers available to do this work, particularly in the West. In the past, we had a lot of seniors or people who had a sense of civic duty and wanted to do it. Now, we very often have to make appeals on the radio to get workers, who ultimately weren't there. It is difficult, particularly in urban areas, where people are much busier.

In terms of increasing the number of places to vote, would that help? Certainly. We can reach people more easily. However, rather than increase the number of places, there are other options. For example, why not have a mobile polling station for advance polls, which would be in one rural community one day, in another community the next day, and so on? You could have that kind of mobility for advance polls.

In terms of communications, in the last election in Saskatchewan we used the radio for the first time. We had not used radio before that, but this made it possible for us to reach people on voting day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to our next questioner. Mr. Preston, please, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much for coming today. If it's not too late, I'd like to congratulate you on the Grey Cup victory.

[A voice]

Hear, hear!

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

I did that for my friend from Saskatchewan.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

It was a lousy game, though.

[A voice]

It was a terrible game.

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

Sorry, did we stray from the topic, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

No, no.

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

You mentioned rural areas in your comments, and my friend Mr. Proulx also mentioned them. I'd like to go a little further on that.

I come from a rural area in Ontario. Federal elections have advance polls for a number of days the week before, but there are four or five in an area that's very large. I know people drive for up to an hour to get to an advance poll, or half an hour, depending on where they live. They may choose to vote at an advance poll, but because of inconvenience they cannot.

You mentioned the possibility of mobilizing those over the course of that four-day period, which might help a little. What we're asking for, and what this bill has, is that on the Sunday before, an advance poll be held in the station where they would normally vote on the day of election. This would make it fairly convenient. In their own small community, as Mr. Proulx said, the polling station then is much closer to home. We have a very close situation, so we're looking for that turnout to be better.

You also mentioned that the busyness of rural voters is causing you some concern in finding workers. Well, the same thing happens here. The closer to home we can work, the better off we are too.

We also mentioned during the discussion that in rural Canada there are still some Sunday family activities, whether it's going to church or..... With the previous witnesses we talked about university and youth. Not everybody is away at a school. Many are away at a school during the week, but they are home on the weekend. This would give that youth the opportunity to vote close to home, because they're home on the Sunday.

I'd like to have your thought process on any of that.

If there's any time left, I know Mr. Epp would love some time.

[Jean Ouellet]

With respect to the length of travel, one of the problems with the advance poll federally is that you have advance districts. So x number of polls would go to a particular advance poll versus something that may be closer to home, particularly in rural areas.

Because there's a registered elector, there's no great difficulty with doing that. We would have a copy of the whole list for the entire electoral district. That would certainly be one option that could assist the process. In Saskatchewan we have advance polls and we can go to whichever one we want within the constituency.

I have proposed super polls in my last three annual reports. We would set up polls in shopping malls, in grocery stores. In Manitoba, we would set up polls in airports. We could bring the vote to the people versus the people to the vote. That's one of the proposals I have recommended.

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

Can anybody from any poll go through one of these? That's the plan? Okay.

[Jean Ouellet]

Absolutely. You vote with a write-in ballot or you can have some of those kiosk vote-ins where you have electronic voting. You select your constituency or your electoral district and then your list of candidates comes up versus the next person with the next list.

Sunday is somewhat of a convenience. In Saskatchewan, parents tend to be slaves to their children, and they go to soccer games and whatever. We have done some very informal looks at our advance polls on Sunday. We have found it doesn't change. It's just about the same as any other day. There's no greater turnout.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mr. Preston, you have about thirty seconds left. I don't think you can do it.

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

I know Ken is good, but I'm not sure if he's that good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

We'll just end up in another round where there will be opportunities for more questions.

Madame Picard, please.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Ouellet, Mr. Wilkie.

The Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec has provided us with his comments, because he could not be here to meet with us. He is of the same mind as you.

He said that moving election day to Sunday would solve certain problems, including the availability of premises. He pointed out some consequences that can be foreseen if Bill C-16 is enacted: the costs of this new measure, problems with recruiting election personnel for the hours that the advance polls on the day before election day are open, the availability of premises, custody of the ballots and the difficulty for personnel of clearly understanding the differences between the rules that apply the day before and the rules that apply on election day.

The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada also told us about these problems, and I note that you have made the same comments.

My question is this. Have you thought about the question of how to encourage young people to vote?

[Jean Ouellet]

I would like to make one brief observation on the subject of election workers. In fact, we share our provincial workers, that is, they are the same people as the ones who do the work at the federal and municipal levels. However, they mix up the rules to be applied. They apply the rules for one to the other, and so on, because they forget. If we have two different rules, one for the Sunday and the other for the Monday, we have a problem. There is a lot of creativity in the system. We have to think of that.

In terms of encouraging young people to vote, in Saskatchewan we established two initiatives, this time around. We tried to reach them. We have publications designed for young people that talk about performances that are happening, and so on. We inserted a voting guide into that newspaper, so that we could reach them. We also used workers, what are called Community Relations Officers, who go out to connect with young people at university.

So these are initiatives that we have established. It is difficult to say what their effect will be, because in my province young people have a choice. If they are attending university, they can vote based on their place of permanent residence, where their parents live, based on their university residence or based on the apartment they are renting. So no statistics are typically kept on young people.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Merci.

Mr. Angus, please, for five minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you for your presentation this morning, Mr. Ouellet. It was very clear.

As the member for a very rural, isolated and enormous region, I am very familiar with the problem regional organizations have with finding the necessary resources and volunteers to campaign.

For example, in my region we have to run five separate campaigns with volunteers in every one of them. I know most of the other parties don't have any volunteers, except in one of the main communities, because the difficulty...and I'm not saying this to pat ourselves on the back. We have problems getting volunteers. But everyone is struck.

What I find with our discussion so far is that it's been very high-minded, very noble, and very disconnected from reality. Every one of us around here knows that if we simply counted on advance polling days, none of us would be here.

We get elected because we find our vote, we get our volunteers to pull that vote, and we phone our people who are strongly supportive of the vote. And at 6 o'clock, half of them haven't gone out to vote and we remind them to go out and vote. So getting the vote out is as much based on volunteers and trying to get people to come out. Every party is becoming increasingly challenged.

It raises the question: if at the end of the day we're turning to our volunteers and to our Elections Canada staff to do two full days of elections when we're already challenged to bring out enough volunteers for one day, are we actually going to see an increase in voting, or are we going to have a more difficult time pulling our vote because we are putting more strain on the staff who are being brought forward and the volunteer base?

[Jean Ouellet]

You're very correct that the candidate's representative, and the runners as well--those people who will go and get the vote out--are an element that is required in the system. That's the check and balance you have to have.

It is very difficult. Is it money that will get the people there? I don't know. More and more, all election administrators are facing the difficulty of finding workers. We beg, we borrow, we advertise on the radio to say we need workers here and there. And we use old lists drafted by returning officers of their former workers to see if we can entice them to work. So it is very difficult.

We have to find some opportunities to bring the votes closer to the individual, such as what I proposed before, those super polls.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I guess this is the question, and I think we are all generally agreed that advance polling works. It makes it easier. It's something that all the parties can work with to remind people they can go out for so many days.

The question, though, is the efficacy of choosing the extra full day of voting that would not be bound by the exact same rules but would be very close to the rules. It would no longer be an advance poll. It would actually be a full-out voting day, but not quite the same as the other voting days.

We've found that the churches are saying, “You can use our place on Monday, but we're not going to let you in on Sunday”.

From your experience in a province that has large rural representation.... It seems to me the further we get out from our urban areas into trying to maintain the volunteer base and the staff for elections in the isolated rural communities, it becomes more and more difficult. Are we simply adding a layer of impracticality onto our field workers for that Sunday?

[Jean Ouellet]

No. I believe there will be some benefits to be drawn from it, because many times if one intends to vote on election day one does not plan to be away on election day. But there could be instances where in fact they have a death in the family or whatever, so if they have that extra day closer to election day, we would capture this vote that would not be captured otherwise.

The workers--and you're correct, we sometimes have to bring them from communities within that large tract of land, and they have to do a lot of mileage to get to their poll on election day, and the same to return the box and the electoral material and so on.

But we have no choice. This is a reality that we have to deal with. We have to find the workers, and if we say there has to be a poll in a particular location, then there has to be a poll.

In our legislation we have access to schools. If we feel that a school is a convenience, the school boards do not have any choice. If we ask for it, they have to give it to us.

In rural areas as well, most large communities of voters would have a community hall, a community centre, or a multiplex or sportsplex. We have access to those locations as well.

Those are certainly advantages we can draw from the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Colleagues, we're going to start our second round now, and we're going to go down to three minutes per question and answer.

Mr. Epp, please, for three minutes.