Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I teach political science and have general research interests in Canadian democracy, as well as a particular interest in voter participation among young Canadians. I’d like to address two aspects of Bill C-23 that have some connection to my research: the proposal to restrict the role of Elections Canada in promoting voter participation, and the increase in the annual political donation limit to $1,500.
My research focus on voter participation was triggered by the sharp drop in turnout at the 2000 federal election to just over 60%. Around that same time, Elections Canada also turned its attention to the issue in a significant way, conducting its own work and facilitating research by others. The result has been the development of a network of researchers doing focused work on this important issue.
Fourteen years on, we know a lot more and are in a better position to tackle the problem of declining turnout among young Canadians. There is some general consensus that the problem is rooted in deep-seated changes of a generational nature. An erosion in the sense of civic duty and a more individualized society are background cultural changes working against voter participation.
Relatively low levels of political knowledge and interest among younger generations are also key barriers. An important point is that many young people today are habitual non-voters. They do not just miss voting in the occasional election but instead vote in no elections. Much of this suggests that the problem runs deeper than simple administrative barriers, though these can be an additional obstacle for some.
Out of this research, various initiatives have been introduced to try to address the problem of low voter turnout. The criticism that’s been directed at these programs is that the bottom line has not budged since 2000. Turnout has not increased. It’s remained around the 60% mark with some minor variations since 2000.
I’m not persuaded by this criticism. First, it’s impossible to isolate the effect of any given initiative to increase turnout, because unless it has truly dramatic effects, its impact will likely be washed out by a multitude of other factors. These would include some that would tend to drive turnout down.
For example, attack ads by political parties have become more common in the past 10 years, now running for extended periods outside election campaigns. Some would suggest this is likely to have a negative effect on turnout. So as Elections Canada has been trying to increase turnout through its promotional efforts, parties have been engaging in activities that may discourage people from voting.
I’m not suggesting there are easy solutions to this issue. The pattern of turnout decline is deeply entrenched and will be difficult to reverse. But I believe Elections Canada has been taking many steps in the right direction. One of these is simply raising public awareness about the issue, something it could not do under the provisions of this bill.
It has tried to address administrative barriers where they exist, encouraged voter participation through advertising campaigns, and sponsored civic education initiatives such as the student vote program. It will require sustained and more intensive efforts along these same lines to generate robust democratic engagement among younger citizens.
One further idea, for example, would be to allow or perhaps even require young people to pre-register to vote at age 16, as happens in some other countries. An annual registration drive could then be coordinated through high schools, which would be a very effective way of registering new voters as well as providing a further civic learning opportunity.
Seeking to abolish Elections Canada's educational mandate is clearly counterproductive and unacceptable.
The other issue I would like to address is one that has not received as much attention in debate around Bill C-23. That is the increase in the amount an individual can donate to a political party on an annual basis, from $1,200 to $1,500. I recently carried out a study relevant to this issue with some of my students at the University of New Brunswick.
The study was prompted by concerns about changes to the rules around the financing of political parties, in particular the phasing out of per-vote subsidies. I think there is a perception on the part of some that this was a reasonable move because the rules around party donations create a fairly level playing field. All parties must depend on relatively small donations from many thousands of individuals rather than being bankrolled by a few large donors.
But a couple of findings from our study suggest there are significant inequalities in patterns of political donations that should be of concern. First, donors of amounts over $200 account for only one-quarter of all donors, but their contributions represent nearly two-thirds of all donation dollars. So larger donations, not surprisingly, count for a lot more.
Second, among these donors of amounts over $200, there is a strong skew towards wealthier individuals. There are nearly four times as many people donating that amount in the top 20% of household incomes as there are among people in the bottom 20%. In short, political donating is not as widely spread as we might think and is instead significantly dominated by smaller numbers of relatively wealthy Canadians.
Our conclusion in the study is that raising the donation limit to $1,500 is a move in the wrong direction. The limit should instead be decreased and probably quite substantially.
In raising this issue that has received little attention, my more general conclusion is that there are so many provisions in this omnibus elections bill that there is not adequate time to give proper attention to all of them and their potential ramifications. So finally, I would echo the sentiments of those who have said the bill needs to be substantially rethought and rewritten.
Thank you.