Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2020

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much for that.

Mr. Blais, I want to come back to your initial comment about the advisability of having an election during the pandemic.

One of the challenges here in Parliament is that our confidence convention is very loosely defined. Do you think it would be salutary for Parliament to do a little work in terms of getting more clarity on which kinds of votes in the House could trigger an election?

[Prof. André Blais]

I'm not sure that this could be easily done. I guess I'm just reminding all of you that there is a law which says that elections are fixed date. Of course it's possible to have a snap election despite that law, but there is the expectation, I think, that usually there should be an election only every four years, and citizens prefer to have elections only every four years.

I hope you take that into account when you decide how you will behave and what kinds of decisions you will make. This is for all the parties, I think.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. Tochor for five minutes, please.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today. It has been an eye-opener on what our country may look like potentially in the future.

Ms. Blumczynska, as are many on this panel, I was an immigrant as well. My family came from Hungary. I think you have some history that gives you a little insight on the makeup of other countries and how that might affect Canada. I applaud you for the work you are doing with, hopefully, increasing the number of new Canadians who vote.

I believe you come from Poland. I would like to hear a little of your back story, about why your family left Poland.

[Dorota Blumczynska]

Very briefly, I arrived in Canada in October 1989 as a privately sponsored refugee. My family and I left Soviet-occupied Poland in about mid-1988 because of the civil unrest. We spent just over 14 months in a refugee camp in Germany before being resettled here.

In the seven and a half years that my mother lived in Canada before she passed away, she was only able to vote once in a federal election. In fact, it was the one and only time she had voted in a free democracy. For her, that democratic participation was the height of civic duty which she imparted to us, because that was the ability to exercise our voice and shape the future of our country.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

It's interesting you bring up free democracies because there was voting in Poland in the 1980s. Did your parents share what that experience was like, that democracy?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

That was not exactly a free democracy and those were not exactly free elections. I think it had the facade of elections, but certainly at that point there was suppression of the media, suppression of civil rights and the ability to gather and to disseminate information that ran contrary to the government's narrative.

There was obviously a significant movement, Solidarnosc, which was fighting for a democratic and free Poland. It was not entirely viewed that one participated safely in an electoral process with the knowledge that whichever way one voted would remain confidential, so an act of voting was considered an act of defiance and civil disobedience.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Wow. You talked about the media being state controlled or paid for back then. The government would release the list of approved candidates or platforms, I suspect, and you got to pick which one it was. That's not a direction, I think, that is good for democracy at all.

Would you say the goals of communism were right back then, but the implementation was obviously wrong?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I'm not sure I can comment on the goals of communism, because I was born about six months before martial law was introduced. In my most formative years, I grew up in a country that was fraught with poverty, food stamps and insufficient freedom, so I don't know that I can speak well of communism from my own lived experience.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

The variation that people talk about is like a democratic socialism that wasn't done right. Would you agree with that statement?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I would agree with that I think the role of government is to be centred on the best interests of the people, and especially the people who are left behind, so the 1% that certainly isn't at the top, but the 1% that is silenced and forgotten and neglected. I think everything built in government, that structure has to serve those who are the most kept from power and from privilege and from voice.

In the country in which I grew up there was, again, the appearance of solidarity among communities, but there certainly wasn't equality and there certainly wasn't the ability to author one's own life or have self-determination.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Yes. It's stories we hear like that, of being very fearful of drifting back to a time when government controlled everything, and democracy is out of there.

I'll switch gears and quickly turn to Professor Blais on the role of government and responsible government.

You talked about having elections during a pandemic and how that's a bad idea. Does that go against your view of responsible government? Is that where those thoughts come from, and what is your view on responsible government?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Unfortunately, we're over time, and we only have one more questioner. Maybe you can get the answer in somehow.

Mr. Gerretsen, you're next.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Unfortunately, I won't have enough time to do that.

I want to ask each of you a question, so I'm going to have to ask you to be as brief as possible.

Mr. Blais, you indicated there's an expectation that a government will last four years. I agree that parties in minority parliaments should be able to work together, but when you say there's an expectation, who's expecting it?

[Prof. André Blais]

I should specify that the expectation is in the law. When you have an election, basically, there is a norm there. That's all.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It's in the law. That's what I wanted to clarify.

Ms. Blumczynska, you indicated that you believe there should be the longest writ period possible, but I actually interpret your comments to mean there should be the longest voting period possible. Is that correct?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

Both the writ and the voting process are critical. All timelines need to be extended to increase participation.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Going back to the exchanges you had with Ms. Vecchio and Mr. Therrien, you talked about permanent residents voting. I realize this is outside the scope of what we're studying right now, because we're talking about an election during a pandemic. I must admit that I was also concerned that....

Many immigrants who have come to my community relish the democratic process and want to be part of it and are probably more active than a lot of people I know who have been in Canada for generations.

Ms. Vecchio asked for data. Was your comment an anecdotal observation or is there actual data out there to support that?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I just looked it up. I would need more time to find the research, but there is data with respect to past elections and participation by place of birth, yes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I would really love to see that.

I do admit I'm very reluctant, because I think that becoming a Canadian citizen comes with certain rights, and the right to vote is one of those. Based on my observations, both my parents immigrated from Holland and Italy back in the 1950s, and they were very eager to make sure that everybody became a Canadian citizen as quickly as possible so that they could participate in the democratic process.

Do you think that might diminish the desire to become a citizen, if you were to give permanent residents the right to vote?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

No. I think people obtain citizenship for a number of reasons and also do not obtain citizenship for a number of reasons. There are many jurisdictions globally that do not allow someone to have dual citizenship. It is at the cost of their identity that they would give up one in order to have the other. Sometimes people simply choose that they cannot do it, in which case they live in Canada for decades and are not able to participate.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I hope we study this in some other capacity in order to explore this more thoroughly with you, because I'd really like to understand that better.

Finally, Ms. Brayiannis, I want to ask you about the voter turnout among students. In 2015, it was up. I think it was about 57%, and then it dropped down in 2019. It went from 57% to just under 54%.

Do you have any sense as to why more people in that age group of 18 to 24 voted in 2015 versus in 2019?

[Nicole Brayiannis]

I don't have exact reasons, but I can provide speculations as to why.

In speaking with students during the last election, there was a great deal of frustration in terms of interactions with the candidates who were present. Students felt a disconnect between what they were talking about and what candidates were actually putting forward. There was that element. There was a lack of investment in the causes that were being talked about.

During the last election, climate justice wasn't even deemed to be a topic of conversation that could be broached within the election, because it was deemed to be political, rather than being addressed as an actual issue.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Do you have any suggestions on what could be done by Elections Canada to improve that, and to continue to get an upward trend on that number?