Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number seven of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I'd like to start the meeting by providing you with some information following the motion that was adopted in the House on Wednesday, September 23, 2020, on hybrid format sittings.

The committee is now sitting in a hybrid format, meaning that members can participate either in person or by video conference. Witnesses must appear by video conference. All members, regardless of their method of participation, will be counted for the purpose of quorum. The committee's power to sit is, however, limited by the priority use of the House of Commons resources, which is determined by the party whips. All questions must be decided by a recorded vote, unless the committee disposes of them with unanimous consent or on division. Finally, the committee may deliberate in camera, provided that it takes into account the potential risks to confidentiality inherent to such deliberations with remote participants.

Today's proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. As a reminder, I will say that the webcast will always show the person speaking, rather than the entirety of the committee.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I'd like to outline a few rules.

Most of you are familiar with these rules, but they are also for the benefit of the witnesses who appear. I know you might be wondering why I go through this each time, but it's important when we have new witnesses.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either “Floor”, “English” or “French”. Please make sure you select the appropriate language at this time.

Before speaking, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. Even with lots of experience, we all forget to do this sometimes. Please also mute yourself after you're done speaking so that there are no interruptions.

I will remind everyone that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. Should members need to request the floor outside of their designated time for questions, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order, they can raise their hand by clicking on it in the “Participants” section. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom mike is mandatory. Should any technical challenges arise, please notify the chair. We'll try to rectify the issue, but we may have to suspend for a few minutes while doing so.

For those participating in person, proceed as you usually would at a committee meeting. In order to get my attention, physically raise your hand, or you can give me a gesture or call out my name. If you have a point of order, wait for an appropriate time. The clerk and I will try to keep a consolidated list of those in the room and those raising their hand virtually.

To start with the formal part of our meeting today, I'd like to welcome Mr. Anton Boegman, the chief electoral officer from Elections British Columbia, and Dr. Michael Boda, the chief electoral officer from Elections Saskatchewan.

Welcome to our committee, and thank you for being here.

You each will have five minutes for opening remarks. Thank you for sending your opening remarks to us. They were circulated this morning to all the committee members, who can follow along if they wish to do so.

We will then proceed with formal questioning rounds. We generally go through two to three rounds of questions among the various parties. I'll let you know beforehand how many minutes you have so that there is no confusion.

Please go ahead, Mr. Boegman.

[Anton Boegman, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC]

Good morning. Thank you very much for the invitation to address the committee today.

As you know, my name is Anton Boegman. I am B.C.'s chief electoral officer, a position that I have held since 2018. Prior to this appointment, I was Elections BC's deputy chief electoral officer for operations for eight years. I have also served in a senior management capacity at Elections BC since 2004, administering five provincial general elections and four provincial referenda. Two of those referenda were held entirely by mail.

My remarks this morning are in relation to the administration of the 42nd provincial general election in B.C., which is still under way. General voting day was Saturday, October 24. While the campaign period and voting for the election are complete, we are still preparing for the final count of over 600,000 absentee and mail-in ballots, which will begin on November 6. This context will frame my remarks: They will reflect the B.C. electoral legislation and they will reflect the public health situation and rules in place in B.C. preceding and during the campaign period.

My understanding is that this committee intends to study the challenges posed to the normal conduct of federal elections by the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the measures to be taken to adapt the approach and conduct of a general election to preserve the health and safety of all Canadians. To address this objective, I will provide two broad comments and then speak to the top three challenges that we faced in administering a pandemic election in B.C.

To begin, everything associated with election administration in a pandemic is challenging, from retaining returning officers, finding office space and securing voting places to recruiting and training election officials and implementing voting processes. Each element is more complex and nuanced and requires many unique and targeted mitigation measures. For example, voting places usually include many close-contact interactions, shared spaces and shared materials, all of which create a virus transmission risk. To mitigate this, we had to re-engineer the voting place and voting processes to allow for physical distancing and only one election official per voting station. We placed acrylic barriers on voting tables and provided election officials with personal protective equipment. There was more frequent cleaning. We established sanitation stations at entry and exit points and we allowed voters to bring their own pens or pencils to mark their ballots.

The pandemic also made election planning and preparation significantly more challenging. Developing and implementing a pandemic election model that maintains accessibility and integrity while ensuring safety for voters, election officials and political participants was unheard of pre-COVID. Major elements that were crucial to our success included early and ongoing consultation with public health experts, our ability to vary from legislation in response to an emergency or extraordinary circumstance, and an ongoing access to necessary funding. I don't have time in my opening statement to speak in more detail on this theme, but I would be pleased to do so in response to members' questions.

Within the context of a pandemic election and a rapidly changing environment, three key challenges emerged that I believe are relevant to federal elections: providing safe and accessible voting opportunities to at-risk voters and communities so that they are not administratively disenfranchised; scaling capacity to meet significantly increased demand for voting by mail; and maintaining safety and business continuity at Elections BC headquarters, in district electoral offices and in voting places.

During our planning for a pandemic election, it became apparent that with effective safety plans and protocols in place and more in-person voting opportunities, as well as enhanced access to remote voting options, the vast majority of British Columbians would be able to vote safely. It was equally apparent, however, that at-risk or self-isolating voters, voters in care homes and voters in specific communities, such as first nations communities, would face significantly greater challenges to participating in the election. The use of tailored voting options and focused and ongoing communications, at times involving a much broader set of stakeholders than usual, was necessary to reduce barriers to voting. The tailored voting options included community-organized voting by mail, the hiring and training of community members to administer voting within their community, the use of mobile teams with full protective equipment and the expansion of operator-assisted telephone voting.

Administrative flexibility was also critical to effectively respond to changing circumstances and new outbreaks.

Scaling capacity to support major increases in voting by mail was identified early as a critical issue. We conducted voter surveys through the summer that indicated that 35% of British Columbians would prefer to vote by mail if an election were held during a pandemic. Greater use of this option was also an essential element in our strategy to spread voters across multiple voting options to reduce lineups and congestion at voting places and to allow for effective physical distancing at in-person voting opportunities.

We were able to leverage existing processes, systems and partnerships that had been in place previously for provincial referenda that were conducted entirely by mail. Further, legislation was adapted, vote-by-mail packages were modified to support automated production, and inbound voting request channels were streamlined to support high-volume efficiency. During the campaign period, we received and fulfilled over 720,000 requests for vote-by-mail packages, which was an increase of more than 7,200% over the last provincial election in British Columbia in 2017.

Last, the issue of maintaining safe spaces and business continuity across all work locations was a key challenge, particularly within the tight timelines established in law. We had to mitigate the risks to staff and voter safety and the risk of potentially having to close a district electoral office or voting place because of an outbreak. We worked with the provincial health officer, WorkSafeBC and regional health authorities to develop safe electoral offices and voting place plans and to emphasize their implementation and monitoring. Each office and voting place had a customized safety plan. The effort to address this challenge was significant and should not be underestimated.

I'm very gratified to be able to say that during the campaign period, we passed a number of WorkSafeBC pandemic safety audits and there were no COVID-19 exposure events at voting places, offices, or at our headquarters in Victoria.

Madam Chair, that concludes my opening statement. I'm now happy to respond to any questions that committee members may have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Dr. Boda, we would like to hear from you, please.

[Michael Boda, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Saskatchewan]

Madam Chair, honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today.

My name is Michael Boda. I'm the chief electoral officer for the Province of Saskatchewan. I've been back here in Saskatchewan since 2012, but for the last two and a half decades I've worked on election administration around the world in places like the U.S., the U.K. and a lot of developing countries.

Last Monday at 8 p.m., voting closed for Saskatchewan's provincial election, with approximately 434,000 voters having cast their ballots. The initial participation rate looks to be about 52% of eligible voters. In 2016 it was about 54%.

Almost every aspect of administration of our provincial election has been impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic, except perhaps that turnout, which looks to be very close to our 2016 numbers. I do hope that some of those turnout numbers can be traced back to the significant effort we put into ensuring that voters knew that voting would be no more risky than a trip to the local grocery store.

While there hasn't been much time to assess the conduct of the election—we're actually completing our final count this weekend—I want to describe for you three key steps that I believe have contributed to what has unfolded so far.

Our first step focused very much on our adapting Saskatchewan's election system to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus. In fact, we pursued many methods to achieve this, but our overarching approach was focused on building capacity in our now three principal areas of voting by reinventing our absentee or vote-by-mail function—in 2016, just 1% of voters participated in this way—and doing everything we could to make both advance and election day voting safer.

Not knowing how many voters would take advantage of each of these opportunities, we had to quickly build capacity for vote-by-mail so that we could allow for applications starting more than two months before the election day for voters who felt that attending a poll could be a health hazard for them.

Early on we also determined that to make things safer, voting-in-person opportunities would need to be spread out in a very different way, meaning that where we might have had five or six polls at a location in 2016, instead we would have just two or three polls. In the end, our number of polling locations grew from just 1,100 in 2016 to nearly 1,900 in 2020.

In a second step, we understood, as an election management body, that not only would we need to ensure that our physical polls met the safety standards of public health officials but also that our voters and workers would have to be convinced that in-person voting would be safe even with elevated levels of COVID-19.

Working closely with our chief medical health officer, we adapted our physical polls in order to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19. Our 2020 polls look very different from those from 2016, with protocols including physical distancing, hand sanitizing, barriers between voters and workers, masks being required for all workers and scrutineers and a strong recommendation that all voters wear a mask.

While I believe we took every reasonable step to make our polls safer, this really wasn't enough. We also had to ensure that voters knew that the polls would be safe. In the weeks leading to the election, we worked very hard to educate stakeholders, voters, scrutineers and election workers so that if perceptions of the risk of COVID-19 changed in the province, stakeholders would remain convinced that visiting the polls in person would be safe.

A third and final step that was essential to the effective conduct of our election related to the importance of relationships between election administrators and our stakeholders. As chief electoral officer, I could not have conducted this election without a strong recognition among voters, government, the legislative assembly, parties, candidates, school boards, first nation communities, personal care facilities and so on that to be successful in 2020, the process would have to unfold very differently from the way it did in 2016. Perhaps most important has been our relationship, my relationship, with the Office of the Chief Medical Health Officer.

As an election administrator, I have always believed that an election is not merely a technical exercise but also that strong relationships with stakeholders are essential to the success of the conduct of an event. Our 2020 election in Saskatchewan only reinforced that for me. Working with all stakeholders, we had to adapt to ensure that the process was safer for everyone participating.

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate.

I also would be pleased to answer any questions, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you to both of our witnesses.

Just so everybody is aware and can plan accordingly, I want to remind you that we will be going until approximately 12:30 p.m. with the formal meeting with witnesses. If there is an appropriate time to break, we might stop sooner because we have to transition into the subcommittee meeting.

The subcommittee meeting is only for the members of the subcommittee, obviously, so the main members can leave the meeting at that point. We will carry on in camera with a different link and a different password to sign in to the subcommittee meeting. Be prepared for that at around 12:30 p.m.

We will start our six-minute round with Mr. Doherty, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our guests.

Mr. Boegman, as the only member of Parliament here from British Columbia, I will centre my questions on our election. We just went through our provincial election and we held it on a Saturday. It's the first time a weekend provincial election has been held since the early 1900s. Am I correct?

[Anton Boegman]

You are correct.

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

When was the last time it was held on a weekend?

[Anton Boegman]

I don't have the exact date it was held, historically. I know that the past four elections were always held on a Tuesday in May.

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

Did holding the election on a weekend present any unique challenges, or was it more beneficial?

[Anton Boegman]

It was more beneficial from a number of perspectives. One was in terms of access to election workers, especially in a pandemic, when many older workers who typically are the election workers are in an at-risk category. It allowed us to recruit younger workers and workers who were able to work on a Saturday because it was a weekend for them.

It also allowed us access to other locations that were not necessarily available during a weekday. Particularly in relation to the pandemic, it enabled us to use schools as voting places on the Saturday and Sunday of the advance voting period, as well as on voting day, in a way that enabled us to integrate our safe voting place plans with the safe schools plans and keep the school communities closed when students were in place. By having voting on weekends, we were able to use those facilities.

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

Did Premier Horgan consult with you before calling the snap election?

[Anton Boegman]

Premier Horgan did not consult with me before calling the snap election.

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

Would you say you were fairly prepared for this, or would you have required a little bit of extra time? It seemed like everything went smoothly on election day.

[Anton Boegman]

British Columbia, like the federal situation, was in a minority government situation. My mandate requires that we be ready. We started working immediately at the onset of the pandemic on our plans to administer an election during a pandemic. Following the political signs in British Columbia and media speculation, we advanced our planning over the summer. Although it was certainly a scramble to the start-up, I believe we were well prepared for the election.

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

I've read your “Safe Voting Places—COVID-19 Workplace Safety Plan” and how to campaign safely during COVID-19. For the most part, did political parties adhere to your plan on how to campaign in a COVID environment?

[Anton Boegman]

Yes. It's my understanding that there were no issues in relation to the campaigning side of things.

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

Did Elections BC promote the measures being taken to ensure voter confidence in the process and also in the safety of the polling stations?

[Anton Boegman]

Yes, we did. We had a press conference the day after the call of the election. It focused heavily on safe voting and the processes in place. Our advertising campaigns were reworked during the early stages of the pandemic to emphasize safe voting and the alternative voting options we had in place, and it was our continual focus through our media interviews and the presentations we made during the campaign period.

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

How are you handling the sheer volume of the mail-in ballots? We know that we're not going to have the final results until November 16, but did you anticipate the sheer volume that we received?

[Anton Boegman]

We did anticipate it. As I mentioned, we did surveys over the summer that indicated on a consistent basis that approximately 35% of British Columbians would choose to vote by mail in a pandemic. That informed our planning and our reorienting of our systems and infrastructure around voting by mail to support that kind of volume.

As you know, we've had a number of purely vote-by-mail referenda in the province, and we were able to use the infrastructure systems and processes that had been developed for those events during the election.

In terms of the count of the ballots, of course we're distributing that across all 87 electoral districts, so the number within each district is manageable within the three days we have assigned for the final count.

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

Did you find it challenging to source personal protective gear for all of your polling stations?

[Anton Boegman]

It was challenging, but that was identified early as a long lead time item, so it was our focus at the end of July and throughout August to make sure that we could access supplies. We also tapped into the province's portal for some of the supplies.

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

Okay.

Was your workforce predominantly older or younger this time, or was there an average? Obviously, the age of the workforce went down, but was it still predominantly the same volunteers, the same employees, you had previously?

[Anton Boegman]

I don't have statistics on our workforce composition, but I could get that if necessary. Anecdotally, I've heard that the workforce was younger than it was previously.