Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

That's perfect.

I believe I asked this question the last time you were here. In terms of having students engaged, one of the most effective things in the democratic process and one of the most effective things that I saw happening was having the advance polls at the university located in my riding. Has there been a determination yet with respect to advance polling and having those polls at universities and colleges across the country?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Absolutely. The last election was the first time for that. We had some 38 campuses where we had a polling station using special ballots to serve students. Wherever they resided, they could vote at the campus. As well, people who work on campus could too. It was a significant success. We've decided to expand that. We've done a number of things to improve that. One is that we're going from 38 to 110 campuses.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

That's fantastic.

[Stéphane Perrault]

The criteria include the size of the campus, but also the regional diversity. We want to make sure that we cut across different areas of the country and also go to campuses where there is a concentration of indigenous voters, for example. We have a range of criteria. That's one thing.

We've also expanded the number of days. We went from four to five days. What we saw at the last election was that the number of students who voted kept on growing and had not peaked, so there's an untapped potential there. We're hoping that by expanding it we can better service young voters.

Finally, we've made some improvements to the process. It should be considerably faster. It was not a very quick process, and they were very patient. I was impressed by their patience, I must say, but the process is a complex one because it involves a special ballot. It's a more complex procedure. We're streamlining that procedure so as to make sure it does not unduly delay the vote.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I really commend you on that. I think that initiative is critical and important. I voted with my son on campus, and I did not have a timing problem. It was run very well.

[Stéphane Perrault]

It's great to hear that.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I think the awareness of your presence there makes great strides in terms of getting young people to vote.

You touched on this in terms of indigenous electors in your last answer, so that was good to hear as well. Page 5 of Elections Canada's departmental plan talks about making “voting more accessible to Indigenous electors” by working with local organizations. I wonder if you can give me an update as to what you've done there.

[Stéphane Perrault]

There are two aspects to this. One is general across the country. Right now what we're doing, well ahead of the election, is that we've begun as of this month to work locally with returning officers to ask them to identify potential polling locations. That's something that we used to do right at the beginning of the election. We're now doing that 18 months in advance. As they do that, they get to engage with the local community. Where there are indigenous communities, that's an opportunity to engage there.

Over and above that, we've identified 92 communities and 28 electoral districts, I believe, which were remote indigenous communities that were less properly serviced in the last election. There, we're going to ask returning officers to engage them not only this April but on a more sustained basis as we move towards the election, to try to make sure that we design the election in a way that meets the needs of their community and that we can hire more community members to work at the polls. There's going to be a more sustained effort in those areas.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much, and thank you for being here again. We really appreciate it. It's always very wise counsel.

I'll ask for the votes.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........30,768,921

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the votes on the main estimates of the House of Commons, Parliamentary Protective Service, and Chief Electoral Officer to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Just for committee members, on Thursday it's indigenous languages. As we agreed upon, in the next few meetings if there was a time slot where witnesses couldn't appear, we would do the petitions. Indeed, we have that slot now and it's on May 8, so if the parties could be ready on May 8 to discuss the recommendations that you receive from the clerk on the electronic petitions, it would be great.

Is there anything else, anyone?

We're adjourned.