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

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I call this meeting to order. Good morning, everyone.

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

Today is November 5, 2020. I'd like to start the meeting by providing you with information following the motion that was adopted in the House on Wednesday, September 23.

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 purposes of quorum. The committee's power to sit, however, is limited by the priority use of House resources, which is determined by the whips. In committee business today, I think we're going to have a couple of hurdles because of this issue, which we can discuss.

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 in such deliberations with remote participants.

Today's proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. I remind you 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 to follow.

For those participating virtually, 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 floor, English or French. Please make sure you select your choice at this time, so there are no delays once you start speaking. Before speaking, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. When you are done speaking, please put your mike on mute to minimize any interference.

I remind you 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 say that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function at the bottom of their screen. This will signal their interest to speak.

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 advise the chair. Please note that we may need to suspend for a few minutes to ensure that all members can participate fully.

For those participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in the committee room. Should you wish to get my attention, just signal me with a hand gesture on the screen, or you can call for the chair. Should you wish to raise a point of order, wait until the appropriate time to indicate that clearly, and raise your point of order.

The clerk and I will maintain a consolidated speaking order. However, the speaking order for the purposes of the formal portion of today's meeting has already been given to me in advance, so if you want any changes to that, let me or the clerk know, or you can just speak up at the time I call out your name.

Let's get started with today's meeting. We're pleased to have, from the Government of Saskatchewan, Dr. Saqib Shahab, chief medical officer for the ministry of health; and Dr. Denise Werker, deputy chief medical health officer for the ministry of health. From the Government of New Brunswick, we have Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer for the ministry of health.

Welcome to all of you. We're honoured to have you. I know we have members from your provinces who may have gotten to know you or at the very least we have gotten to know you through our television screens, because we see you so often delivering updates for your various provinces. We really appreciate the hard work you've been doing throughout this pandemic. It has been a marathon and I can't imagine how tiring it must be for everyone working within the ministry of health federally and provincially.

Dr. Shahab, we'll start with your five-minute opening remarks.

Please let me know if I'm pronouncing anyone's name a little off.

[Dr. Saqib Shahab, Chief Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Your pronunciation was perfect.

Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable members. Thank you for this invitation and opportunity.

I am here with my colleague Dr. Denise Werker, who was the deputy chief medical health officer until August 2019, but thankfully agreed to come back from retirement and join us in the office of the chief medical health officer as a public health consultant. We will be speaking on behalf of Saskatchewan. I'll be making some opening remarks, and then we'll both be available for questions.

As per the written statement that we shared earlier, Dr. Michael Boda, the chief electoral officer at Elections Saskatchewan, approached me in February 2020 to ask about public health advice to support the planning and implementation of the provincial elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was in this spirit that the provincial elections would be held in October 2020, and the CEO of Elections Saskatchewan built a relationship with us and the office of the chief medical health officer to address prior issues related to communicable disease control during earlier elections and by-elections, so we already had that working relationship.

It was my view and the view of my office that the provincial election could be held in such a way as to minimize the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, despite all the uncertainties about how the pandemic would unfold. The initial advice from my office to Elections Saskatchewan was to optimize voting by mail; to reduce crowding by increasing the number of hours of advance polling and the number of polling locations; to organize the flow of voters and the processes of voting at polling locations to minimize COVID transmission risk; to implement additional transmission mitigation measures at polling locations, including hand hygiene; to increase cleaning and disinfection; to establish measures to promote two-metre physical distancing to further minimize COVID transmission risk; and to apply additional precautions for voting occurring in long-term care facilities and personal care homes.

It was also recommended that Elections Saskatchewan independently contract an infection prevention and control specialist to provide direct support to Elections Saskatchewan on many of these mitigation details. We also agreed to plan for a worst-case scenario in which an election would remain feasible.

In addition to the medical health officers at the ministry of health, environmental public health consultants were also available to provide input through a structured process to Elections Saskatchewan on opportunities to mitigate transmission risk during the planning and implementation of the elections. The public health consultants and the medical health officers provided guidance and proposed mitigation measures. We also facilitated operational connections within the ministry of health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority as needed and were available to provide input to ad hoc issues throughout the planning and conduct of the elections.

As chief medical health officer, I participated in regular meetings with the CEO of Elections Saskatchewan and also had an opportunity to visit a mock-up of a polling location before actual voting was held. As the chief medical health officer, along with the House leaders of the two main political parties, I was a member of the electoral advisory group that was established by the CEO of Elections Saskatchewan. This electoral advisory group convened monthly from June to September to review the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Saskatchewan.

Thank you. Both I and Dr. Werker will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you so much, Dr. Shahab.

Dr. Russell, go ahead, please.

[Dr. Jennifer Russell, Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ministry of Health, Government of New Brunswick]

Good afternoon.

Here in New Brunswick, the provincial election was held on September 7, and the writ dropped on August 17, so that was a 28-day election period.

Our role at Public Health New Brunswick was not to endorse whether an election should proceed; rather, we reviewed the operational plan that was put forward by Elections New Brunswick and provided feedback to ensure agreement with public health guidance. WorkSafeNB also reviewed and approved the operational plan.

Public Health New Brunswick provided guidance to all the parties on how to safely host public gatherings. In terms of other activities commonly conducted during elections—for example, door-to-door canvassing—public health provided feedback on individual party plans submitted by parties, but it never provided direction on what types of activities could or could not occur.

Elections New Brunswick followed public health guidelines to make visiting polling stations and returning offices safe for electors and election workers. Electors were asked to apply hand sanitizer as they entered the building. Frequent cleaning of high-contact areas was conducted at all voting locations. Election workers were required to wear masks or face shields during their interactions with each elector. As much as possible, two-metre physical distancing was practised during an elector's visit, and electors wore a non-medical mask at polling stations when physical distancing could not be maintained. The number of electors allowed in a voting location was limited.

We also had the option to vote by mail. All New Brunswick electors could apply to receive a mail-in ballot, and the Department of Social Development worked with long-term care facilities to ensure that ballots were provided and that there was no unnecessary election-related visitation to these vulnerable settings. We also had advance polling stations.

There are municipalities in New Brunswick. Municipal elections will be held in May 2021, and all the best practices from the September provincial election will be built upon to provide advice for those elections. It is hoped that the favourable conditions in New Brunswick during the past summer months recur in the spring for these elections.

What is known is that New Brunswick is in a good position to contemplate its participation in a federal election, but there are aspects that remain unknown.

New Brunswick has alert-level phases that dictate varying degrees of societal limitations, ranging from yellow to orange to red phases. New Brunswick's red phase is as close as we come to returning to a lockdown.

It's difficult to contemplate a region of New Brunswick being in an orange or a red phase, with public health dictating that contacts be limited to those within a household, while simultaneously gathering for an election. However, I did look up what the New Brunswick Public Health Act says around this type of thing, and I believe that, based on the authority that public health has, limiting a democratic right would be something quite out of the range of the actions we would be taking.

Obviously, it would have to be quite a serious situation for us to ever interfere with the democratic process, so, again, stopping an election probably wouldn't be in the scope or the range of the things we would do. In this particular election that we just had, we were in the yellow phase throughout the province. There were no active outbreaks, and we were fortunate that nothing like that happened during the election period.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you to all three of our witnesses.

We'll start with our first six-minute round.

I just want to remind everyone, once again, that there are so many questions with this pandemic, but our focus should remain within the scope of how they advised the running of a safe election within their provinces and what advice they may have for running a federal election.

We'll start with Mrs. Vecchio for six minutes, please.

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

Excellent.

Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us. This is a really important topic. Ensuring the safety of all Canadians while continuing to enfranchise them to vote is paramount.

I'll start with Dr. Shahab.

Following the election, did you see any increase in the number of COVID cases caused by any gatherings or anything of concern like that?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

We are following that very closely. The in-person voting ended over the last two weeks.

So far, we have not seen any specific signals of concern. We have had one instance where someone who had been at the voting site was identified as COVID-positive, but the way the protocols were set up was such that there was no one else identified as a close contact. I think that's an important lesson for us.

In terms of the way we planned it, if for some reason we had someone who may have been infectious, either going in to work or volunteer, the protocols were such that there shouldn't really be any situation where someone would be considered as a close contact or exposed, and that's what we saw in just one situation. Apart from that, we have not seen any signal of concern related to elections. Because of the way the polling was done, we would not expect to see that either.

Thank you.

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

Thank you so much.

I'll now turn to Dr. Russell.

Following the election that you oversaw, you've had a few more weeks on that to be able to look at this and identify.... Was there any increase in COVID cases following the election, or, with all the protocols in place, did it come out rather safely?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

There were no cases as a result of the election. Obviously, again, we're in a fortunate situation that we have not had very many outbreaks in total during the entire pandemic. The cases that we had over the summer months and into September were, for the most part, travel-related cases, and they were self-isolating and did not transmit to anybody else.

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

Thanks very much.

I'll switch back to Saskatchewan now. I want to look at long-term care homes and places where vulnerable people would be going, such as the hospital and things of that sort. What types of protocols did you have for election workers who were going to be entering those facilities? What additional protocols had you mandated?

[Dr. Saqib Shahab]

Maybe I'll ask Dr. Werker to speak to those details, as she was providing direct advice.

[Dr. Denise Werker, Medical Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Government of Saskatchewan]

Thanks very much, Saqib.

Michael Boda worked directly with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, as well as the ministry of health branch that licenses personal care homes. Under The Election Act, they have a requirement to enfranchise people in personal care facilities. That's under their legislation, but Michael Boda had to translate that to our legislation and how our facilities are licensed.

The election officials and administrators were considered critical workers, which meant that they could enter those facilities in the same way that other essential services could enter those facilities. What Elections Saskatchewan arranged was to have a central polling location, if that was feasible, within the facility, or they arranged for what was called door-to-door voting. In that circumstance, the election official would stand at the door, and the health care professional, in full PPE, would administer the ballot under the observation of the election officials.

There was also guidance that the infection prevention and control program for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, developed for both hospitals and long-term care facilities, be generalized to the personal care homes, although the Saskatchewan Health Authority is not responsible for the policies in the personal care homes.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a quick question for Dr. Werker. Because they were critical staff, did they have to be tested, like other staff members, to see if they had COVID or carried the antigen?

[Dr. Denise Werker]

No, staff entering those facilities did not have to be tested before entering those facilities, but there are precautions in terms of wearing masks and physical distancing.

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

Perfect, thank you.

[Dr. Denise Werker]

As I said, if there was close proximity with an individual.... The election officials did not get into close proximity with those individuals. If they set up a polling station, it would have been done in the same way, with physical barriers as well as physical distancing.

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

Excellent. Thank you so much.

The reason I ask specifically about this is that here, in the province of Ontario, whether you are working in that facility or whether you are visiting, there is mandatory testing for some of these locations. I wanted to see where you're at.

Dr. Russell, I had read somewhere about how in New Brunswick, because of COVID, they were trying not to do the door-to-door in long-term care facilities. I read this...it was a place dealing with long-term care homes.

I want to ask you the same question I asked Dr. Werker. What was the role, when it came to medical health officers, with testing anyone coming in who was working for the polls or anything of that sort? What were the restrictions put into the long-term care homes? As I brought up, Dr. Werker indicated door-to-door. Was that allowed in New Brunswick?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

We didn't make a distinction between door-to-door in an adult residential facility and a long-term care facility, etc. Each facility has protocols that reflect which phase of the response we're in. At that time, the province was in the yellow phase, which means that they all have a certain type of visitation that is allowed, and it's limited to one family member, usually.

Door-to-door was not done anywhere in the province, actually, even though we didn't say that it couldn't happen. There was no party that put out an operational plan to do it, so there actually was no door-to-door anywhere, including long-term care facilities, etc. But I don't even know how they would have been able to, based on the visitation requirements in the yellow phase.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Dr. Russell.

Next, we have Ms. Petitpas Taylor, for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I also want to take a moment to thank Dr. Russell, Dr. Werker and Dr. Shahab for the tremendous work they have done over the years.

Specifically this year, I would think, Canadians have a greater appreciation for the work that public health officials have done. I can only speak for my province, Dr. Russell. I've watched your daily briefings, and you've certainly done an exceptional job of informing our New Brunswickers, educating us and also reassuring us. Thank you to each and every one of you for the work you continue to do.

I'm going to focus a bit on Dr. Russell, because I am from New Brunswick. I have a few questions.

First and foremost, what is your relationship with the chief electoral officer in the province of New Brunswick?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

I don't have any official relationship with the chief electoral officer.

Again, we provided input from a public health perspective around how to safely have an election. It was very, very basic advice, from the perspective of all the engagement sessions we had early on in the pandemic when we were going through our phases around what businesses or other establishments could do in different sectors of industry.

In terms of having templates all ready to go, in terms of WorkSafe's involvement, it was very straightforward. For any types of activities, whether it was business or otherwise, that were happening in the provinces, it was how to do them as safely as possible, depending on what the situation was with respect to the phase we were in.

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

Great.

The Province of New Brunswick was in a minority, just as we are here nationally with our federal government. I'm wondering, when did the conversation start between your office and the chief electoral officer on planning the election?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

During the first wave of the pandemic, when it was clear that during the red phase of our response many things would not be able to take place.... I remember the very first conversation around what things could happen and what things could not happen in the red phase, well before any lockdown happened.

Certainly, when the first lockdown happened in that first wave, it was clear that things like legal proceedings and elections would not be allowed at that time. Then, as things evolved through the summer, I don't have a distinct timeline of when the first conversations happened, but we would have been contacted by the chief electoral officer for our public health advice and input.

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

Right. Thank you so much for that.

You also indicated that come the spring in New Brunswick, we're going to be having municipal elections. From your experience with this last election in New Brunswick, what additional measures do you think could be put in place to guarantee even further public health measures and safety for people to get out to the polls?

[Dr. Jennifer Russell]

Well, our public health advice depends on what phase we are in, and we keep revising that. The original red phase of lockdown is very different from our new version of that, because as we get new information and new data and the risks change globally and in other jurisdictions in Canada, we continuously take that new evidence-based information and data to inform what our different phases will look like.

When the election took place, I don't think mandatory masking was in place. Whatever updates we have in terms of public health advice would reflect anything new with regard to revisions for the ongoing yellow phase and information we have received from either outbreaks we have dealt with in our own province or evidence-based information we have seen from other jurisdictions.