Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 27th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Mr. Blaikie.

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

I respect that, obviously, neither of you is involved in any partisan campaigning yourselves, but as close observers of the elections and as people who have had a lot of interaction with partisan actors during the election campaign.... The other part of this study that we haven't talked a lot about so far is what kinds of practices campaigners could adopt that would be useful in limiting the spread of the virus.

I'm just wondering if, in the conduct of your elections, you noticed any intentional forums where the partisan political actors were convening to discuss these matters, or if they adopted any kind of conventions or practices to reach some agreement on what acceptable and unacceptable campaigning methods are.

[Tim Garrity]

Here in P.E.I. it's very split. We have four candidates running, four different parties. We have two parties that decided to do door-to-door campaigning, and we have two parties that opted not to do that, but to offer some more virtual platforms and more campaigning via telephone. The two parties that decided to do door-to-door campaigning did have to submit a plan to our chief public health officer to ensure that it met with their standards and guidelines, and it had to be approved before they were able to proceed.

[Kimberly Poffenroth]

In New Brunswick, the chief medical officer of health prepared a document that she asked that I circulate to the political parties about guidelines around acceptable and unacceptable or recommended and not recommended practices. I wouldn't say that there was an agreement among the parties about what they would or would not do. Much like Mr. Garrity said, certain parties made it very clear that they were not going to do door-to-door campaigning.

I think some started doing door-to-door campaigning but received a negative reaction from householders. I cannot recall whether they stopped or dialed it back somewhat, but there was an initial negative reaction. When the premier called the election, he indicated that his party would not be doing door-to-door campaigning, and I think there was a misconception that that was a rule we had implemented that applied to everyone. We did get some calls about that, and we said, “No, that's up to individual candidates and parties to determine.”

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

Would you say—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thanks.

Mr. Lukiwski, for five minutes.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you Mr. Garrity and Madam Poffenroth for being here.

I have question for both of you.

Is there either a formal or informal association or alliance of electoral offices across Canada?

Let me tell you the reason for my question. Both of you have given some recommendations for best practices, as Mr. Blaikie has already mentioned. Mr. Garrity, you said you have a COVID-19 document. It would be helpful for the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Ottawa and all provincial electoral offices if there were a compendium of best practices manuals that each province could put together that could be shared. Each province could take a look at some of the best practices being employed by their provincial counterparts.

The question goes directly to you, Mr. Garrity, to start off.

Are you aware of any kind of alliance or an association of electoral offices, province to province?

[Tim Garrity]

Yes, we do meet as a group. Now of course, we're doing it virtually.

We do come together on certain projects across the country. Elections Canada is part of that group as well.

We have been sharing since this process began. We have been actively sharing any type of documentation, best practices and challenges that we've had. We have been actively sharing that information amongst ourselves.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Excellent. That's good to hear. Thank you for that.

I want to turn now to a question that was asked before by one of my colleagues about voter turnout. Madam Poffenroth, I believe you said that in New Brunswick it was roughly 67%. Mr. Garrity, I'm not quite sure what it will be in your district in P.E.I.

Even though you employed a bit of a media campaign to get out the vote, Madam Poffenroth, it would appear to me that an extensive get-out-the-vote awareness campaign would probably help or at least assist in driving up the voter turnout.

I look south of the border as an example. I see massive advertising imploring people to vote, utilizing well-known celebrities and athletes. They're not giving a partisan message; they are asking people to just get out and vote. What I've seen—at least what I've read—is that the early turnout of registered voters is significantly higher than it has been in past years. Of course, there are probably many reasons for that.

Nonetheless, have you done any extensive media in the past in your respective provinces to try to encourage people to get out and vote? If not, would you at least consider perhaps adding that to your budgets, provincially, for the future?

Madam Poffenroth, perhaps we'll start with you first.

[Kimberly Poffenroth]

In our campaign during this last election, it wasn't a get-out-the-vote effort precisely. It was about encouraging people to take advantage of early and alternative voting opportunities to flatten the election curve. Our campaigns in the past have been about informing people about the when, where and how they can vote.

Where it gets into issues with quite large get-out-the-vote campaigns is that election management bodies have to be very careful in what they do, particularly when they enlist, say, celebrities or athletes. Even if it's a non-partisan campaign, those individuals always come with some partisan leanings of their own. Then it tends to get the election management body into some sort of trouble.

We take our role in encouraging individuals to vote very seriously, and making sure they know there are opportunities. We do have to be very careful trying to thread that needle of non-partisanship. Enlisting others to be involved in that messaging can be very difficult for an election management body and often ends up putting them in a difficult position.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you.

I would appreciate it if, in your best practices manual that I hope you both will be developing, you might include some mechanisms by which you would recommend that voter turnout increase. I take your comments very seriously. I appreciate those about the challenges you would face by employing celebrities or others because of the blowback that might occur to your offices.

I think we all agree that the higher the voter turnout, the better for democracy. If you can come up with some recommendations or thoughts—whether it be an educational campaign or a media campaign—I think that would be helpful for all of us across Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

Mr. Cormier.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you everyone. It's good to be with you.

Madam Poffenroth, thanks a lot for organizing this election. Coming from New Brunswick, I appreciate your work. I know it was not easy for you.

Going back to remote voting for a little bit, I've been a candidate in two elections and have organized some others, and I never realized it was so complex and difficult to vote remotely. On top of that, you had a pandemic to deal with.

Looking at this, I see it was four round trips by mail, and the election was for 28 days, as you said, during a pandemic when Canada Post was also operating at a slow pace. Is there any other way of voting that you know of? In your mandate, and your vision also, it said that you were trying to look at new models of voting. In 2020, we have a lot of new technologies. We have some iPhones or other devices with face recognition. Is there some way that you're looking at so that we can have safe voting for electors on their phones or any other way?

[Kimberly Poffenroth]

Elections New Brunswick is not currently exploring those options. I guess that's the short answer, and I know you don't have a lot of time.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Okay.

In your mandate, again, it's written that you're looking for innovation. That is something that Elections New Brunswick will probably need to look at, as well as maybe in other jurisdictions. Having a pandemic like this will probably force us to look at other ways of voting. Are you saying that you will certainly look at that and other ways of voting remotely?

[Kimberly Poffenroth]

It's definitely something that needs to be explored, but at Elections New Brunswick, we don't feel confident that those.... I guess, if you're looking at things like Internet voting and that sort of thing, we don't feel confident that the technology is where it needs to be. Those are the sorts of systems that, in addition to the process, are taking a long time to develop. It's a longer-term process. Unfortunately at Elections New Brunswick, we've been so constantly running elections over the last three or four years that looking at those longer-term visions is just not something that we've had an opportunity to do. We are looking at other technological improvements but nothing of that manner.

For our next election, we are looking at doing voting over the phone for long-term care facilities. That's taking someone's vote over the phone and still having a paper ballot.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Okay.

During elections now, we all know that we can vote almost every day when polling offices open. In my riding, we have six provincial ridings. Some of those offices were not even open nine days after the election was called. Some people were turned away at offices. I know it's not your fault. You're having to deal with a pandemic. However, we all know that the service providers across the country, for phones or internet, for example, are operating at a slow pace.

Were there a lot of polling offices throughout New Brunswick that were faced with that challenge? Nine days after an election is called, I think it's time that we look at it. I'm sure that some people were not able to vote, or were just turned away at the door, or had to go out to work somewhere and didn't have time to vote. Were there a lot of offices that experienced that problem?

[Kimberly Poffenroth]

Yes, absolutely. With our telecommunication service provider, the election started on Monday, August 17. The first office didn't have phone and internet until that Friday. The very last office to receive phone and internet was the following Friday, so it was almost two full weeks. They were able to process some voters, but that was a significant problem for us.

It was exacerbated by the pandemic, I understand from the service provider. We are looking at other alternatives than our current operation so that if there are unscheduled elections we can be up and running more quickly. It's simply not an issue when you're looking at a fixed-date election.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Okay.

You said that Dr. Russell consulted you regarding the election going forward, but you said that Premier Higgs didn't consult you. Would you have liked the premier to at least consult with you and get your feedback on calling an election in a pandemic like this? Would it have helped you to better prepare yourself?

[Kimberly Poffenroth]

In general, it's just not something we expect in general that the political arm will consult us on calling an election. From the time we started working from home, we were planning and preparing for a potential election during a pandemic because of the minority government situation and the fact that two sets of elections had been postponed. So we were making what plans and preparations we could make, but we didn't expect and don't ever operate from a place where the political arm would be consulting with us on—

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Really quickly, what will be—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's all the time you have, Mr. Cormier. Thank you.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Ms. Poffenroth, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Next we have Ms. Vecchio. I think we have enough time to go through the second round one more time and we will still have some minutes at the end to talk about some future meetings.

Ms. Vecchio, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much to the witnesses.

As a member of Parliament who resides in Ontario, I have listened to the information and data you've provided and am almost jealous when I hear that you're sitting with zero cases when I know that in this area we are closing in on numbers like a thousand per day, which is really concerning.

I want to look at this using two methods. I want to look at the fact of our population density. When I look at the city of Toronto, we're talking about 630 square kilometres compared to New Brunswick, which is over 73,000 square kilometres, so we know that social distancing is probably a little bit easier there but there are also the populations. In the city of Toronto there are approximately two million more people than there are in the entire population of New Brunswick.

Taking those two things into consideration, what are some things you would suggest? You've just gone through an election in New Brunswick in some of your main centres or larger city centres. What would you recommend in those highly populated areas that are densely populated?