Evidence of meeting #8 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was election.

A recording is available from Parliament.

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On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Saqib Shahab  Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan
Jennifer Russell  Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ministry of Health, Government of New Brunswick
Denise Werker  Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Justin Vaive

Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON

Okay, great.

I know your electoral advisory group was meeting quite regularly and was quite effective. Would you say that's kind of a best practice?

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan

Dr. Saqib Shahab

I think that is very important, to look at scenarios that may unfold and how we would continue, both in the pre-election activities and in polling.

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Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON

Great, thank you.

In terms of ideal site selection for polling stations, were you involved in developing any criteria for that?

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan

Dr. Saqib Shahab

Yes. When we did the mock-up, I think there was a good discussion to the effect that, instead of having six lines in a room, for example, you may have just two voting lines to spread everything out. That leads to more polling locations. We had discussions about whether they could be in schools, because schools have also started, and we thought, yes, you could separate out the school from the actual voting process. I think that if they were in schools, the school would not be in session that day, but that also generated the selection of many non-school-based polling locations as well.

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Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON

Would you be able to table anything for this committee in relation to site selection from a public health standpoint at some point?

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan

Dr. Saqib Shahab

I could work with Elections Saskatchewan, because we worked on that together. Obviously, there were recommendations—

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Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON

Thank you, yes.

My last question is about communications. You mentioned reassuring the public, and there's definitely a perceived risk out there. We can make these sites secure and safe, but we also have to let the public know that they can have confidence. Would you say that public health has a lot of experience in raising public awareness in terms of campaigning, yes or no?

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The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota

Answer very quickly, please.

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan

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Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON

Great.

Should they be involved in informing, messaging and the communications strategy?

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan

Dr. Saqib Shahab

I think we can assist in promoting safe pre-elections and election activities.

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The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota

Thank you.

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Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON

Thank you so much.

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The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota

Madame Normandin, you have two and a half minutes.

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Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you.

The chief electoral officers told us that, this year, election workers were much younger and that there were fewer people from the at-risk population.

Did you recommend to the chief electoral officers that they specifically seek out election workers who were less at risk?

I want to hear from Dr. Russell first, and then from Dr. Shahab.

Translated

11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ministry of Health, Government of New Brunswick

Dr. Jennifer Russell

I don't have any information on this. I don't know whether we recommended that people be younger or less at risk. I think that people made their own choice about whether to participate.

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Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Dr. Shahab, is your answer the same?

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The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota

You're on mute, Dr. Shahab. If you could start over, I'll add those seconds back on.

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan

Dr. Saqib Shahab

We wanted to make sure the protocols are safe for anyone, whether they're older, with underlying risk factors, or younger. We also realized—and Elections Saskatchewan, I think, also realized—that there may be less interest for some traditional staff and volunteers who were older. Then I think they also reached out to younger people.

The process is.... We wanted to make sure that, irrespective of age or underlying risk factors, it is safe.

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Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you.

You spoke of the importance of staggering the number of voting days so that fewer people physically show up to vote at the same time.

Could we recommend that people who have last names starting with the letters A to F go to the polls on Saturday, for example, in order to spread out the turnout? Could this idea be considered?

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11:50 a.m.

Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ministry of Health, Government of New Brunswick

Dr. Jennifer Russell

I would say so. However, I think that we also want to encourage people to use the vote—

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11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

I have a point of order.

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The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota

I think we're not getting.... Okay, the interpretation was just delayed.

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11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

I'm watching Omar and I, too, am having some issues.

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The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota

Dr. Russell, could give that response once again? We'll see how it works.

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