Evidence of meeting #106 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
We are actually in eastern Ontario even as we speak.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Well, closer to home.
Anyway, just to perhaps assist with the logistical difficulties if we're running into issues where we're going to, let's say, Montreal or Quebec City, and we're having a difficult time finding those witnesses, it could just be converted into a town hall and we can accept the evidence. It doesn't necessarily have to be as formal as a public hearing like we have right now, and perhaps to assist with the travel across the country and to make this an easier plan it should be an option that would be out there.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you, Chair. I normally try not to speak, but it's just to add a little more clarity there.
Social media would work in that case. It's much simpler to get a roomful of people through social media than a small room of 10 people through methodical appointments working with and comparing calendars and finding the slots that are available and so forth. I'm wondering if the clerk would have an opinion on whether it is easier just to plan around town halls versus planning a trip around public hearings. Then I suppose if there was a fervent desire to have witness testimony on the record, maybe we take one of the days and have witnesses dial in via teleconference to the committee room here in Ottawa to nail some testimony on the record.
There are some other thoughts.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We did some combo days. We had days in the ERRE process where we had places that were a little less on the expert side of things because we only had an hour, and then people showed up to watch it. Then we just left the mike on and people came to the mike for two minutes each, and that was part of the witness testimony for electoral reform.
I don't think you'd get four or six hours of expert testimony if you're in Saskatoon...maybe, but you'd be digging deep.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
For some of the rural people, let's say you're in Saskatoon or Calgary, can you invite some particular rural people to come to that meeting as opposed to...?
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think we should be creative in this and even talk to people who have worked elections, people who have run the local rural election posts for the last 30 years. You can ask them, these are the proposed changes the government wants or that the government is proposing, how is it going to work in the real world? You can talk to a lot of professors, and they're all great and wonderful people, but....
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Yes, I would have some concerns about getting a rural aspect over if we're just going to land in somewhere like Regina and drive just outside. Maybe it's similar to the Leduc situation, but a suburb is different in many senses. If we're going to start talking about the rural impact of voter information cards, in my riding there are 130 or something towns, and the largest town is only 1,300 people. I'm not saying all my riding, don't get me wrong. I'm sure the Knights of Columbus is free, but nevertheless, I think maybe we should, if we're going somewhere like Regina or just outside of Regina, look to bring someone in from further away to get that rural part of it. I don't think we can actually go to a truly rural area given the time frame, but you can certainly call in people from outside. If it's Toronto, even somewhere around Mr. Shipley's area would be good too. If you call them into a central spot, that would be great.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
It's certainly cheaper to bring four people from some rural community into a big city than to take our whole committee and all the equipment that goes with it out there.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
If you land in Winnipeg and you go to Portage.... I'm just telling you what we did in the past. I sympathize with what Scott is saying, but really, we just jumped on a bus and we were there in an hour. Sometimes if you fly to into Toronto and you bus from the airport to wherever your meeting is, it will be an hour and a half. Now you're in Portage, which would probably call itself relatively rural....
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
I know what Scott is getting at. There really is a distinction. I'm using my riding as an example because I know it better. People living just outside of Carleton Place in the east end of my riding commute into Kanata to go to work during the day and are back in less than an hour's commute. When you go half an hour west of there, to the town of Perth, where I live, it's not so easy. I have to stay in Ottawa at times. To get to an event in the west end of my riding last weekend, it was another hour's drive.
Also, there are no local services there, and finding a public building in which to have a polling station is a significant issue. If there is an issue where Elections Canada can't use a building because it doesn't conform with rules about access for disabled people, they wind up not having an advance poll. It's the kind of problem you would only meet there, but as well, how would we have a meeting there and get enough people out so we could hear what they have to say? I don't know how to square that circle. I just know that Scott is raising a point that so far we don't have a solution to.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Yes, or maybe identifying people who have raised issues like this who could be contacted and asked to telephone in or something. Yes, maybe that would be the answer.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Perhaps this is a good time to ask the clerk about this. In terms of what we've outlined in regard to Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg or thereabouts, and Vancouver, is that something that can be put together in the timeline that's being proposed?
The Clerk
I think that if that's the desire of the committee we will make sure it works. We will put it together—
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
If I can, perhaps, since this is something that needs to get done and we have to get moving forward, are there any...?
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Perhaps as committee members start to look through their witness lists and realize that we're shy on Vancouver witnesses, that's also a way to slot your witnesses together. If you say that we're going to have a meeting in Halifax and it changes, and we're hoping to have at least a couple of witnesses from each party's suggestion list, that's something we can do. We just simply contact people in Halifax and ask who is great at this stuff.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I have a couple of things.
The first one goes back to this discussion about rural communities. I really think that what Nathan first suggested, wherever it might end up being—and I'll get to that in a second—whether it be in Regina, Winnipeg, or Calgary, wherever it is, you can land there and you can be somewhere pretty rural in an hour's drive.
I really do think that we should try to make sure to include a rural perspective in this somehow. I really think that bringing a few people into the city from some rural area is not necessarily going to accomplish that as well as going to the community itself. That's partly because if we start to talk about this idea of maybe going to more of a town hall situation and you bring in a few people, their voices just get swamped by the other things that are being brought up. I think we really should look at one of these stops, at least, being one where we visit a rural community.
The other thing I would say is that—I think this would make the clerk's job somewhat easier—other than our prescribing that it's going to be somewhere near Winnipeg or somewhere near Regina.... We have three provinces there—Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta—and we're going to skip over two of the three, which is unfortunate to say the least, but that's the decision that's being made here, apparently. In order to do this in the easiest way logistically for the clerk, why don't we say that we'd be comfortable with flying into any of the major cities in those three provinces? Based on a flight schedule—getting from Toronto, which is where we would be coming from, and then to Vancouver, where we would be leaving next—logistically that just gives him more possibilities that he can deal with in terms of the flight scheduling and all the rest, so that he has some flexibility. That makes it a little easier.
This is going to be a very difficult job for him as it is. I'd like to try to make it as easy for him as possible.
Frankly, we can get that perspective in any one of those three, four, or five places, however many there are that we can fly into directly. I would think that certainly Regina, Winnipeg, and Calgary would qualify, and probably Edmonton too, and maybe Saskatoon, but I don't know. Whatever they might be, though, I just think we should be giving him the flexibility to logistically deal with it that way. Then we could look at a community that would have a hall that would be sufficient for interpretive booths and all that, a community that is an hour outside one of those places. Some of us who are from those areas.... I know Alberta pretty well, and I know Saskatchewan to some degree too. I'm sure others know of some of these other places. You could draw on that as well for suggestions on communities that we could look at.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Do we have agreement for Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and one of—it's up to the clerk for travel, with flights and everything—Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, or Winnipeg, based on what's available?
Are you saying for every single province, have a rural...or is it just one?