Thank you for inviting the Leadnow community to testify before this committee.
My name is Adam Shedletzky and I'm a co-founder of Leadnow.ca.
Our mission is to help people across Canada deepen our democracy to create a more open, just, and sustainable society.
Canadians from all walks of life have expressed overwhelming opposition to the proposed changes to our elections law. From the 60,000-plus Canadians who have signed our petition, to current and past Chief Electoral Officers, to the Commissioner of Canada Elections, to the 160 Canadian and 19 international political science scholars, to journalists and editorial boards across the country, the response has been clear: the Fair Elections Act is fundamentally unfair. It stacks the deck in favour of the Conservative party and it cannot be fixed. The Leadnow community therefore calls on you to recommend that the House of Commons kill the bill and start over from scratch.
Unfortunately, this committee was unwilling to travel outside the Ottawa bubble to hear from Canadians across the country. I am grateful that through the Leadnow community, I am able to directly convey to this committee the wisdom and concerns of everyday Canadians who shared their perspective with us on Facebook and over email.
To start, we’re glad that the prohibition on vouching has received so much critical attention both in the media and here in committee, and that reports indicate that Minister Poilievre may be open to changing course. Yet, unfortunately, the issue of vouching is only one of numerous significant concerns Canadians have with this bill. In fact, Liane Tanguay expressed fear that the debate surrounding vouching is a red herring, that Mr. Poilievre will eventually concede to give the appearance that the final bill is a reasonable compromise.
Liane outlined several of our community’s other major concerns, stating that:
There is no good policy reason for the incumbent in a riding to appoint the polling supervisor, who among other things will have custody of advance ballots.... There is no reason to muzzle [Elections Canada] or to exempt fundraising costs from financing limits.
Also, “There is no reason for investigations and their outcomes to be kept from the public.”
Gail Silva was specifically concerned that because of this new law, Canadians will never find out what happened in the robocall fraud of 2011. This fear appears to be well founded, as Elections Canada recently decided to postpone their report on the robocall scandal until after the next election.
It is completely outrageous that three years after the robocall fraud of 2011, Canadians still do not know which political operatives played dirty tricks during the last election. In response to this attack on our democracy, Elections Canada requested that Parliament provide our elections watchdog with the power to compel witness testimony, just like the Competition Bureau can. This was partially because political operatives have refused to testify, significantly hampering the ability of Elections Canada to restore Canadians’ faith in the integrity of our democracy.
The robocall registry and new penalties for impersonating elections officials do not adequately empower Elections Canada to catch political operatives orchestrating election fraud. Mary Kolz wants to know why our elections watchdog was not given the specifically requested power to compel testimony.
One of Pattie Whitehouse's concerns is that “Removing the ability of Elections Canada to educate Canadians about voting and to encourage us is counterproductive to the goal of increasing voter engagement”.
While Minister Poilievre is correct that political parties are generally effective at encouraging Canadians to vote, that is only true insofar as in their interest to do so. Political parties have finite resources. They target those resources at those demographic groups most likely to vote. Youth are by far the least likely to vote, so they are largely ignored.
In fact, only 40% of youth said that political parties reached out to them, versus 75% of Canadians over 65 years old. Elections Canada has found that young people who take courses in government or democracy are 14% more likely to vote than those who do not.
The simple truth is that self-interested political parties are not adequately incentivized to conduct outreach to reverse the alarming trend of declining youth voter turnout. As Katie Omstead and Matthew Olewski state, the crisis in Canadian democracy is one of low voter turnout, especially amongst our youth. In this context, we need to be giving Elections Canada more power and capacity, not less.
Many Canadians have also sent in comments expressing outrage over the lack of consultation with experts, opposition parties, or Canadians before the introduction of a bill that is so fundamental to our democracy. One party ramming through such changes without widespread buy-in would cause Tim Thiessen, for example, to lose faith in our democratic process.
Lastly, people like Meghan Marentette and Holly Pender-Love wish that instead of fighting to protect our rights, we could be having a conversation around bold steps that could revitalize our democracy, such as moving towards online voting or making voting mandatory.
From The Globe and Mail editorial board to non-partisan chief electoral officers, to respected academics, to everyday Canadians, the message is clear. This bill is fundamentally flawed. It needs to be killed. Let’s start from scratch, together, to collaboratively draft a truly fair elections law that all Canadians can support.
Thank you. I look forward to hearing your questions.