Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2020

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Ms. Vecchio, for those questions. I really appreciate them.

I think we're all concerned about voter turnout should there be an election during a pandemic. Many figures throughout society have been echoing the statement “Stay home. Wear a mask. Socially distance. Stay safe.” Essentially, we're saying, “isolate”. Physically coming out to vote will certainly make many people in our population uneasy, specifically the immunocompromised and potentially seniors and individuals with disabilities. We know that racialized and low-income communities and indigenous communities have been impacted disproportionately by COVID-19.

My question is this: How do we ensure confidence in electors during an election, such that we can counteract some of the messages that we've been putting out there for a long time, to ensure a high voter turnout?

Mr. Perrault, I want to ask you whether you have a campaign strategy that encourages that level of confidence that I think we need to sustain the level of voter turnout, which we all want to see in our democracy.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Absolutely. You raise very valid points.

We will have a campaign, and that's an additional element. Normally, we have a voter information campaign about the basis of where and how to register and vote. In addition to that, we will have a separate campaign to explain the safety measures at the polls and also to invite voters who have concerns to contact us to get more detail. In those campaigns, you need to send out some basic, clean and simple messages about health and safety, and at the same time inform people that there's more information and what the different ways are to reach us for additional information. That's a major part of our efforts as we plan for this election.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I would just say from my perspective that it seems to be a little bit more than information that we need to provide. We need to instill that confidence and to ensure that people feel motivated to come out to vote.

Anyway, maybe we can dig into that some other time, but I have another question about campus voting.

Although many classes have transitioned to online learning, there are still many students living on campus and in residence. I'm wondering why we wouldn't also have for students a similar strategy to what you're recommending around long-term care to ensure that students across the country can have the same opportunities to vote.

[Stéphane Perrault]

I want to make an important distinction here. We've said that for this election, in a pandemic, we would not offer on-campus voting. By that we mean on-campus voting for out-of-home electors, students who reside away from the campus who would be voting in their home riding.

Now, there are, as you say, residences. There are students who live on campus. To the extent that there are significant numbers, that's the work of returning officers in preparing for the election. There can absolutely be some local polling. In the same way if there's an apartment building with people who reside there, we will have polling or voting services that are of a regular nature. They're not out-of-district voting services. These are students who reside there and we'll offer them services.

So it's not correct to say there will be no voting on campus. There will be no services for out-of-district electors on campus.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay.

I want to ask you about patterns of voting behaviour based on what we're learning from the two by-elections. To my understanding, those by-elections officially happen on Monday, October 26. Leading up to election day, what have we seen in terms of voting behaviour? Can you give us any statistics or any insight into the differences we're seeing during this pandemic?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I can. I'll ask Mr. Roussel to add information, if he feels that's useful.

They're low-turnout elections. It is not unusual for by-elections to be low-turnout. It's hard to make predictions. We are seeing, for example, in the two electoral districts, roughly 2,000 vote-by-mail requests, but half of them are from outside Canada. These are people who are away from the country but are resident in the districts. That's about 1,000 for both districts, which is, I would say, a relatively low uptake of voting by mail.

I draw no lessons from that for a general election. It's very, very difficult to make those connections. In the same way, we don't have any recruitment challenges, but that's because of the district we're recruiting from, which is Toronto. We can't draw lessons from that.

I think we have to be very careful before we draw lessons from by-elections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Mr. Perrault.

I think there is still some interest. Would you like to go into another round or deal with committee business at this time?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You'd like to go into another round?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. Perfect.

Next up is Mr. Doherty for five minutes, please.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Perrault, has there been any modelling of how many cases might be impacted in places like Ontario or Quebec, where things have gotten really bad?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I'm not sure I understand the question.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

In Ontario and Quebec, the COVID epidemic is increasing. The numbers are increasing, correct? Have you done any modelling of how you would conduct an election there? Is there a threshold for the number of cases or deaths, where...? Have you done any of that estimation or modelling?

[Stéphane Perrault]

No. It's a good question, but that's not the way we would operate. The question for us—it's a proxy for your indicator—is do we have poll workers? Do we have locations? If health authorities are allowing people to go out of their home to attend things like grocery shopping and work activities, then I expect that we will have voters and we will have workers—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

But my point, Mr. Perrault, is this: If the numbers are skyrocketing and there's the threat of a snap election.... That's why we're here, as there's a concern that we could be in an election phase. We had a confidence vote yesterday. We seem to be getting these confidence votes more and more. How many deaths would be acceptable to the government if...? Would it be 30, 50, 200, or in the thousands?

I would think that, if the threat were in the thousands, perhaps the government wouldn't be so quick to threaten an election, and the communication between you, obviously, and the PMO wouldn't be so quick. But if the threats are in the dozens, if the numbers are at a certain point, does that go into your consideration of Canadians' safety and security, or are your concerns purely with the safety of the poll workers and the ability for them to conduct an election?

[Stéphane Perrault]

No. I want to make sure that I'm clear here. My concerns about safety are for all Canadians, voters and poll workers. The point I was trying to make is that the rates of infection will impact public health authorities' directions, and it's those directions that will impact our decisions, so indirectly, you're quite correct, in that rates of infection, as they climb, could trigger situations where we are not in a position to run an election—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Are you in a position to advise? Do you have that threshold where you're in a position to advise the PM that it's not a time for—

[Stéphane Perrault]

That is the role of public health authorities. That is not the role of Elections Canada. They will advise on what behaviours are acceptable or advisable—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Right.

[Stéphane Perrault]

—during the pandemic, based on the rates, and those behaviours will inform our ability to safely conduct an election. It's indirectly related, of course, but it is not a model in which we use numbers to declare our ability to run an election.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay. I'm not asking you to comment on this. Rather, it's my comment, then, that it would be safe to say it was fairly reckless for the Prime Minister to suggest a confidence vote yesterday and possibly throw our country into the middle of an election during a pandemic if he hasn't consulted with our chief health officer, Dr. Tam. Do you get the sense that the Prime Minister has a threshold for cases and deaths that he would be prepared to risk?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I cannot speak for any prime minister, minister or MP.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay.

In the case of the foreign elections that have taken place, such as in New Zealand, you said that you haven't consulted broadly, but what were some of the concerns in, say, New Zealand over the course of their election? Are you able to provide some of those concerns they had, the challenges they faced?

[Stéphane Perrault]

As you may know, there was a decision in New Zealand to postpone the election. I don't know the details of the legal mechanism they have there; that's unique to their circumstances. New Zealand has a population of just under five million, so it's not unlike British Columbia, for example, in terms of population size. They had a very, very, very low rate of infection, I think lower than any jurisdiction's in Canada, perhaps, except for P.E.I.—I'm not sure about that—but there were very, very few cases.

The circumstances there were favourable, but they had extensive health and safety measures in place to ensure the safety of the workers and the voters, so they ensured that they could deliver the election.