Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 5th, 2020

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Right. Again, as you indicated, I would say we had a successful election in New Brunswick overall.

However, in the event that we had an outbreak within our province during the election period, was there an actual protocol that was in place that you could provide to us with respect to information, best practices, guidelines that were prepared?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

I don't think there was anything specific. Again, it would be the same type of guidance that would exist for any operating business or establishment.

With respect to changing response phases because of an outbreak, the most recent outbreaks affected only one zone at a time. We did happen to have two separate outbreaks concurrently in two different zones, but the orange phase of response meant that certain businesses could not operate. We are revising that now. The only other changes were around how many people could gather with respect to close contacts and household members.

Technically speaking, that wouldn't necessarily impact all of the protocols that are in place for an election to take place—again, with the physical distancing and spacing, etc. As you may or may not know, during the last outbreak in the northern part of the province, in zone 5, we did have, as we have had on other occasions, mass testing. The physical distancing is in place. The masking is in place. The hand sanitizing is in place, and so on.

There was nothing specific around that, again, because the protocols that would be in place already—which are set out in our advice, recommendations and requirements for the orange phase should there be an outbreak—technically would not impact all the things in the protocols and plans for an election.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's all the time we have, unfortunately.

Madame Normandin, you are next, for six minutes, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Dr. Russell, Dr. Shahab and Dr. Werker. I don't have the pleasure of knowing you personally, since I'm not from Saskatchewan or New Brunswick. My questions will be for the three of you in general.

I want to talk about worst-case scenarios.

At some point, either early in the preparations for the election or around the time of the election call, were any scenarios considered in the event that an election couldn't be held?

I understand that this may be sensitive information. However, what general criteria would have led you to conclude that an election couldn't be held?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

Who wants to go first?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

I'm happy to start.

I think that's a really important point, because when we first started having discussions with Elections Saskatchewan.... We had a relationship with Elections Saskatchewan in previous elections. We would always work with them. For example, elections frequently happened during the influenza season, so there would be outbreaks in long-term care facilities, and we would work with Elections Saskatchewan to make sure that voting occurred in a safe way, as described by Dr. Werker, for long-term care facilities where you have more vulnerable clients.

With our electoral advisory group, which had membership from the political parties, we met monthly from June to September. We would look at our rates, which were generally low. We would look at the rates in the rest of Canada, which were also generally low. We would look at rates in other parts of the world. We would say, “If we had rising rates, what would we do?”

Our advice from Public Health was to have protocols that would ensure safe voting, so that even if rates were high, we would be confident that people could go and vote safely. The question, of course, was what the public confidence would be in terms of turnout, and what the confidence of staff would be in terms of working for Elections Saskatchewan. Elections Saskatchewan was very much aware of that. My understanding is that they did a lot of work to encourage staff to understand the protocols, such as masking and infection control, so that everyone felt safe—the staff and volunteers, as well as the people coming to vote.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Dr. Russell, do you have any comments?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

In terms of the possibility of not holding an election, in New Brunswick, all our discussions focused solely on providing advice and recommendations on how to conduct as safe an election as possible. There was no discussion about not holding an election.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I want to ask you the same question that I asked your chief electoral officer colleagues.

Would it have been useful to collect the contact information of the voters who came to vote, a bit like what some provinces have recommended that restaurants do? When we went to a restaurant, we had to write down our names and telephone numbers. That way, we could be reached in case a person at the restaurant at the same time as us subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 and was potentially contagious.

Is the contact between voters negligible enough to justify not keeping a record? I'm not talking about contact between a voter and an election worker, but about contact between voters.

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

Who are you asking?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'm asking anyone who wants to answer.

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

Maybe I can make some quick comments, and Dr. Werker can then add to them.

Our premise was that elections.... We know much more now about COVID than we knew in March. We know that people are most infectious in the two days before symptoms and the two days after symptoms, and many young people can have very mild symptoms. We know that testing and symptoms alone are not sufficient to promote safety during voting or any other activities in the public sphere that are essential, such as grocery shopping or going to school.

We were working, along with Elections Saskatchewan, to make sure that processes were such that even if someone was infectious, the risk of transmission would be minimal. My understanding was that each polling location would have a record of the staff who worked there on specific days and would be able to either communicate through a public service announcement, if there was a need to contact people who had voted there in person, or have a record of who voted at a particular location.

I'll see whether Dr. Werker has further information on this, or whether Elections Saskatchewan can confirm. I would like to reiterate that the way it was done, even if they needed to do a public service announcement and reach out, the expectation would be that the process works in such a way that there would be minimal infection of others, based on physical distancing, mask use, hand hygiene and other measures—the layers of protection already in place.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Madame Normandin.

Next we have Mr. Blaikie for six minutes.

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

Thank you for taking time to be with us at what I know is a very busy time for you in your important work.

I want to start by asking this. We know that the pandemic has affected different groups of people differently. I'm thinking particularly about indigenous communities, people with disabilities and other groups. I'd like your reflections on how public health orders might present unique or different barriers to different populations who are already struggling with the pandemic in different ways. Over the course of the elections in your respective jurisdictions, were there any problems that came up that you hadn't anticipated, or were there best practices or solutions that you found to particular barriers that you'd like to share with the committee as part of our study?

We could start with Dr. Shahab and then go to Dr. Russell and Dr. Werker, if she'd like to contribute as well.

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

Thank you for that question.

We worked very closely with Elections Saskatchewan. From our side, the emphasis was that the processes should be such that everyone, even if they were from an older demographic with underlying risk factors, would feel very safe going to vote in person. That is essential.

Of course, Elections Saskatchewan always ensures that access to polling locations is available to everyone. Beyond that, we recognized that many people would feel more comfortable voting by mail. I understand that although voter turnout was strong in Saskatchewan, there was a much greater proportion of people who voted by mail. Also, there were more polling locations numerically and more pre-polling opportunities. All of that contributed to thinning out any sense of crowding. The protocols were such that there shouldn't really be any crowding; there was good separation.

I think the perception of that was very important, that individuals would feel comfortable voting, either by mail—and there were lots of opportunities to do that; as early as August, I think, the opportunity was there to register to vote by mail—or by going to more polling locations than normal, either before or on election day.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

Dr. Russell.

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

To Dr. Shahab's point, we had advance polls and we also had mail-in options, so that definitely gave a lot of flexibility for people who wouldn't necessarily be able to vote on election day. The only complaint I heard was, I think, about a wheelchair accessibility issue in one of the polling stations. I think it was in one of the advance polling stations. That was addressed.

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

Okay.

In the case of indigenous communities, particularly where there might be travel bans in effect by public health orders, did anything come up that you were asked to address in terms of how some of those public health measures impacted people's ability to vote?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

For indigenous populations, there was nothing that would have prevented anybody here from voting in that way, although there was a recent election on the Quebec side of our border. We did actually give exemptions for the New Brunswickers who needed to go across to vote to do so.

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

Thank you.

What about Saskatchewan?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

In Saskatchewan, during the election period some first nations had the jurisdiction to limit non-essential visits on reserve. They had the option to either have polling locations on reserve or work with Elections Saskatchewan off reserve. Public health itself did not have any travel restrictions during the current elections in October.

In July, we had an outbreak in northwest Saskatchewan and there were some travel restrictions for non-essential travel, but travel was allowed for all residents of the northwest—in indigenous communities and non-indigenous communities—for essential reasons like grocery shopping or medical visits. If elections had been held during such a situation, I would have suggested that travel should be allowed for voting purposes as well.

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

Beyond the question of access to voting stations and being able to mail in your ballot, another really important component of the conduct of an election obviously is campaigning activities. We're heard that different things have happened in different jurisdictions in terms of consultation and collaboration with political parties about best practices around campaigning.

Can you speak to whether you think it's important that there be some kind of body set up with recognized parties in order to discuss those things in advance and come to some understanding? How did that unfold within your respective jurisdictions? I know we're very short on time. Could you let us know—just a yes or no for each jurisdiction—if you think it is a best practice that there be a body with political parties to discuss campaigning methods?

I hope to return to this in a later question.

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

I would say yes, but that is not seen as the responsibility of Elections Saskatchewan. For any questions we received in public health, we said that we needed to follow the general measures, so door-to-door canvassing in Saskatchewan was allowed, and all the guidelines should be followed by political parties. Certainly, the meeting limits of 30 people indoors and 30 people outdoors were in place and had to be followed. Jurisdictions can be in different phases. That would be an important thing regarding campaigning before an election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Dr. Russell, go ahead.