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

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I think a great deal can be done through the ethnocultural community. I think there is a tremendously strong web of communities across the country who are interconnected, who are very invested in everyone having participation in the democratic process and who can be utilized in order to help direct community members to accurate sources of information. The more information that gets out to communities, the earlier it gets out and the more language accessible it is, including plain English and plain French translation, it will increase people's participation and their understanding.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I don't know if there's time for Ms. Brayiannis.

Ms. Brayiannis, do you have any thoughts on how Elections Canada can combat the rise of misinformation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You have 30 seconds.

[Nicole Brayiannis]

I would just say that it's in disseminating information to different groups. We can then further disseminate that information to our members, and it's super helpful and super great in how we navigate conversations with folks. As well, then, if there are questions that come to us, we have clear and concise answers that we can provide on those measures, as well as having a space we can direct folks to if we do not have those answers.

Just making sure that process is very clear, concise and easy to follow I think is extremely helpful in ensuring folks are receiving the correct information.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thanks, all of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Mr. Therrien, go ahead.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Good morning to all three of you.

I have a feeling I'll have one hour of questions for each of you.

So let me start right away.

Mr. Blais, I find your idea of an express line with advance reservations to make voting faster really interesting.

Is this being done or has it already been done in other countries?

[Prof. André Blais]

No, it has not been done to my knowledge.

When I read the proposals from Elections Canada, I was trying to find ways to make it as easy as possible. That is actually the objective: it has to be easy and quick for as many people as possible.

You have to start thinking about all sorts of options and those are the ones that came to mind. I think they are probably feasible and should be considered.

We want everyone who wants to vote to be able to do so easily and safely.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

I think it's really very interesting.

Since it is your idea, you will have the rights for it. That's very good.

I think it's really interesting. It remains to be seen how difficult it might be to manage. Perhaps we should talk to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).

Have you ever approached the CEO to see if it would be complicated to implement those measures?

[Prof. André Blais]

Honestly, I have just had these ideas for a few days when I found out I was going to appear before the committee. So I didn't have the opportunity to talk about it with other people.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Okay, duly noted, Mr. Blais.

I have one last question about long-term care. The CEO has been asked about it. All parties are concerned about the potential fraud because of remote voting and the fact that workers could have more influence on the vote.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that in a few seconds.

[Prof. André Blais]

That is already being done. If I understood the proposal correctly, the intent is to have even more flexibility. I assumed that this meant that election day could be different. So it would be easier to have it on a Wednesday in a centre or a residence, for example. We would have the same safeguards that we have now. That's what I assumed, and I think it's quite legitimate.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Thank you for the information.

Good morning, Ms. Blumczynska.

I am very pleased to hear what you have to say. You have pointed out some very interesting things about immigrants who come here and find that their vote doesn't always count. Their experience is not necessarily positive. I thought that was very interesting, but it contradicts what I have heard before.

I used to be a member of the Quebec National Assembly. It was noted that immigrants voted in greater numbers because they did not always have the opportunity to do so in their country of origin. They cherished the idea of being able to vote and they used that right extensively, which we thought was great.

Ms. Vecchio asked about turnout. It would have been interesting to see which of these two trends was more significant.

I dare say that if we had had longitudinal data on turnout in terms of whether immigrants vote at the first opportunity and whether their turnout improves over time would have been helpful.

I would like to hear your views on these two opposite movements and the turnout. Perhaps we should take a closer look.

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I agree with you that there is a profound desire to participate. Among some newcomer communities, immigrant and refugee communities, there certainly is high participation. I don't want to discount that.

I think we would need to look very carefully at disaggregated data, specifically data from countries where there has been an absence of democracy for decades and generations. The level of apathy in some of the communities is significant. I do believe that those are often the communities that have an intersectionality of disenfranchisement where we have to put a special concentration and focus to ensure that they do participate.

On the whole, I do believe that newcomers to Canada and new citizens are very eager to participate, but when we take the numbers apart and look at individualized ethnocultural communities, we will see that we can do a better job of engaging those who really felt very, very far from this act of freedom.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

That's very interesting. We could talk about it at length. Thank you very much for your comments, Ms. Blumczynska.

Ms. Brayiannis, thank you for joining us.

You are saying that, because of financial and health problems, some voters have moved. Do you have any figures that show that this could have a significant impact on a future vote in the event of a pandemic?

[Nicole Brayiannis]

The financial difficulties I was more directly speaking to were that throughout the pandemic, students have been experiencing hardships in terms of receiving less support than other Canadians have been receiving. It has only exacerbated the pressures they feel by attending education as well having to uphold a liveable status.

When it comes to elections, oftentimes where we see students being barred from being able to participate is by not being able to access election polls during the hours that are provided because of the requirements of school as well as working on top of that. We also see that sometimes students can't afford to travel to the polls. That was why on-campus polling stations were so great, particularly for students living in residences. It empowered them to be able to participate in the process without having to further incur those financial issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you. That's all the time we have for that round.

Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie, please.

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

Thank you to all of our witnesses for appearing today.

Coming to you as well from Winnipeg, I just want to recognize the good work that IRCOM does here for new Canadians in Winnipeg. I'm very glad to hear testimony from you today.

I want to ask, Ms. Blumczynska, if you could give us a bit of an assessment. What I heard clearly from you when we talked specifically about some of the risks of disenfranchisement which the pandemic presents is that it's really important to be able to communicate with the people in the language they're most comfortable with. I'm wondering if you could give us a bit of an assessment of how Elections Canada did in that regard prior to the pandemic. How ready do you think they might be in order to do that well?

Then maybe let us know the extent to which you believe that settlement services organizations might be able to help Elections Canada. If it's a matter of Elections Canada not being able to do that in house, they could provide funding, for instance, for staff here or something within certain communities in order to be able to get those messages out.

[Dorota Blumczynska]

Thank you.

I want to specifically point out the wonderful work that was done by “Got Citizenship? Go Vote!” a number of years ago in Winnipeg, which was organized by the Ethnocultural Council of Manitoba.

Voting instructions and encouragement to participate were recorded in YouTube videos in over 20 different languages and then disseminated throughout the communities. It simply explained the role of every person in voting, when and how they would vote and the importance of democratic participation.

I do believe that Elections Canada has very strong allies and capacity within the ethnocultural community to work in collaboration to disseminate that information in first languages to others.

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

Is that the kind of thing that in your opinion should be happening when the writ drops? Or is it something that you think Elections Canada ought to be starting on now so that people have an idea of how they vote, what the process is and also what some of the measures might be that are related to the pandemic, if we do indeed have an election during the pandemic?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I think that as much as possible we need to start as early as possible. I also want to point out that a lot of these platforms were made available online. I don't want to lose sight of the fact that what the pandemic has revealed to us is an enormous digital divide between communities that don't have the social economic means to have reliable Internet or devices and the digital literacy to participate.

Although online tools are very important and pass on oral information that otherwise would struggle to get to some communities, we can't lose sight of the fact that we need additional time in order to engage communities and get that information, sometimes on a person-by-person basis.

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

One of the things we've heard in testimony over the course of this study from some is that, in their view, it would be important if there were an election called during the pandemic to have as long a writ period as possible. There's some flexibility within Canadian legislation.

Do you have an opinion in terms of whether a longer writ period or a shorter one would be salutary in terms of preventing or enabling people to get out the vote within the new Canadian communities?

[Dorota Blumczynska]

I would agree with my learned friend Professor Blais that the longest period possible would be the best service to all Canadians.

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

Thank you very much.

Ms. Brayiannis, we've heard there may be less opportunity to vote on campus if we were to have a pandemic election. I know that you've spoken to some of the real challenges that students face in terms of costs for transportation to get elsewhere. We know that many students are engaged in remote learning.

Do you think there continues to be value in making on-campus voting services available? Could you speak a bit to that point, please?

[Nicole Brayiannis]

Yes. Thank you.

On many campuses, although there have been transitions to online or remote learning, the residence centres are actually open for students who aren't able to access Internet in their home communities or who maybe are otherwise not able to access it outside of the area where they live. I think for those reasons specifically it would still be beneficial for on-campus polling stations, recognizing also that community members are able to access them too.

It's not only students who would benefit from this. If there are any workers on campus, they would be able to vote in those spaces, as well as the residence students. I do still see value in it, and I do still think that this should be an avenue that is pursued for advance polling stations.