Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2022

[Stéphane Perrault]

That's a good point, Madam Chair. I don't have the exact number, but if I remember correctly, there are hundreds of languages beyond indigenous ones. It's a very large number.

However—and I don't have hard data on this—anecdotally I am told that there is very little uptake, so we need to look at how we promote the use of this. It is a service only at the office of the returning officer and at additional satellite offices. It is not something that can be made available at the polling places. It's for people who use a special ballot or who come to the RO office in order to register and who may need some assistance. At that point, we have the CanTalk system available to them.

It is perhaps something that needs to be promoted more, because it does not seem to have a lot of uptake, but I don't have hard data for the committee.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Do you have to go into the office in order to use the CanTalk service, or can you call from your home and be connected to the CanTalk service?

[Stéphane Perrault]

My understanding is that it's available only in the office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Part of why I ask that you go through the chair is to provide the interpreters that break, for anybody hearing in a different language. As somebody who does appreciate interpretation into official languages and who is hoping to expand those, I think we need to be mindful of the work that our interpreters do.

Could we continue our comments through the chair, Ms. Sahota?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'm sorry.

Maybe first I'll just make a comment, because I didn't realize that service, Madam Chair, was available in my riding. There are many languages spoken in my riding, not to mention the fact that Punjabi is one of the most popular languages. I believe that as of the last census, it was the third most widely spoken language in Canada.

Many of these speakers have no idea that this is available, but there are a lot of issues. I think I'm digressing, not that I am here today to advocate for those languages being on the ballot or anything like that. I truly feel this is the proper first step to be taking.

Madam Chair, through you to the Chief Electoral Officer, first of all, I'm very confused about the language being used on the posters. According to my understanding, fax mails are faxes that are sent out, but you can correct me. That was always my understanding, so I was a little confused when I read the material at first.

Are the posters placed in each individual voting booth, and have there been issues raised in terms of people being able to follow these posters, or ballots that are wasted at the end of the day? Do you see that happen more in certain communities than in others?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Again, Madam Chair, this was an experiment in Nunavut. The requirement that was made was that we would have posters on the wall and another copy, which I shared with you, at the voting table for people just to look at, so they weren't using that.

I'm not aware of problems with that. That doesn't mean there weren't instances where the document was not available, but I've not received any complaints in that regard and I'm not aware of instances where it was not available.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Would it be more helpful perhaps to provide this also in the actual voting booth? I believe that would be a little easier for the person voting.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, it was on the wall and the intent was to have it also at the table of the voting booth where the electors were. The intent ideally would be to have it posted in the booth so that they could see side by side the ballot in Inuktitut and the regular ballot that they use to mark, that they use to vote, so that they can align them.

In Nunavut, with three candidates, it was a fairly simply comparison and the translation was fairly easy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Do you have one more question?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

No, that's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That's excellent. Thank you.

Ms. Gill, you have two and a half minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This might be more of a comment than a question. I've been thinking about the 1% population threshold per constituency. It may have taken a little too long to address it earlier. My own constituency of Manicouagan has two indigenous communities, the Innu and the Naskapi communities. These communities speak two languages that, while similar, are different. We've talked about voter turnout, which is one of the reasons for the measures implemented.

I want to humbly state an impression based on my thoughts. As part of the reconciliation process, this approach could help to keep these languages alive. The Naskapi people in my constituency represent about 1% of the population and they're really quite isolated. Perhaps this approach would help keep their language alive.

We've seen that, since 2011, the Innu language as a mother tongue has been in decline each year. Some very famous Innu people have relearned their language. One example is Natasha Kanapé Fontaine. We can think about what happened with the residential schools. Sometimes, Innu isn't even the mother tongue of these people. As part of the reconciliation process, I think that this approach could be a way to protect indigenous languages. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

I want to add that, although we're talking about the 1% of the population per constituency, when it comes to electoral redistribution, indigenous people deal with something quite random and arbitrary. I wanted to share these thoughts. I was thinking that all languages should be protected. I can imagine all the difficulties that this can entail. Yes, we have the turnout issue, but we also have the responsibility to keep these languages alive.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, I want to make two points.

The first concerns the significance, but also the difficulty, of the threshold. This has been discussed, I believe. The data on spoken and written languages is fluid. We're talking about writing here. Written language is also important in this case. We need to establish thresholds, but it isn't easy. When we conduct our tests, we must work with the communities to determine their needs, beyond the figures provided by Statistics Canada, to ensure a qualitative aspect.

The other very important point concerns reconciliation. You spoke about it. We—and I'm including my predecessors here—have always considered that we're providing a service. We know that, in many indigenous communities, about 40% of the people don't want polling stations on the reserve. It isn't that we don't provide the service. They don't want the service. I must respect this wish. It's part of reconciliation.

In my view, increasing the presence of indigenous languages, not only on the ballot, but also around the polling stations, is a way to begin reconciliation. Telling community members that these are their polling stations will perhaps, regardless of the turnout or figures on this issue, lead to greater acceptance of the stations on reserves.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Madam Idlout, about two and a half minutes go to you.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

From my understanding and my reading, you have 12 distinct language families that are listed and that they use every election, or do they get retranslated every election? Inuktitut languages use different dialects. Are you making sure that every dialect is covered, understood and serviced to Inuit?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, the question is also a good reflection of the complexities of the issue that we have to deal with. We are not experts in indigenous languages, so we need to rely on others, and in particular the translation bureau, to provide their expertise to support us in the documentation.

It's a partnership that needs to take place. It's not something that Elections Canada can deliver on its own. We will never have the expertise to deal with all the indigenous languages and the dialects. I know it's true in Inuktitut. I know it's true in other communities where there are different dialects.

We have to rely on the experts and, necessarily, there will be a choice made as to what is the appropriate version or dialect used in our documentation, but that is something that involves the communities, the translation or transliteration services that we obtain, and us. It's a very complex issue.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

About elections, about ballots, the language itself in English is the same. They're giving the same messages, but it changes in the different languages. If you're going to translate it into Inuktitut, or into the Cree language or any other indigenous language, you need to understand that if Elections Canada is not going to change its style or procedure, it's an impairment...it's not proper if they cannot change the languages.

[English]

I don't think the English terminology changes very much between elections. If you are translating documents into indigenous languages, there wouldn't need to be that many changes to indigenous documentation as well. I'm just asking if you reuse the same terminology—for example, in Inuktitut—that would have been used in the previous election.

Secondly, to go to my next question, in your experience, what are the time frames for translating these materials, knowing that you've given us times when an election is called? Basically, the terminology doesn't change. It's only the names that change, so it doesn't sound like it should be that much of a barrier to translate these documents into indigenous languages.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, that's quite correct.

If you look at our information products, you see that they're stable. Unless there are changes to the legislation, we typically do not revisit them, or we may because we want to improve them, but most of the documents themselves remain stable and therefore are reused over time. Translation is not an issue.

The timelines, of course, vary. Most service standards are between 10 and 20 days, and sometimes more than 15 days, but that's for fairly long documents. As suggested by the member, that does not apply to the name on the ballot. Even the party name, if we can work in advance with parties and get agreement on the translation and transliteration, we can have that resolved.

Candidates names, though, are a bit of a different matter. It's a small document, I agree, but the time frames that we're talking about are not days but hours. In Nunavut, for example, on the close of nominations, 21 days before election day, in order to have ballots at the advance polls on day 10, the image of the ballot has to be finalized on the night of day 21. There are not an extra 24 hours in the schedule for that, so we need somehow to find the time to do the translation there and squeeze it in.

Inuktitut is fairly accessible in terms of translation. It's not equally true of other languages, and there is no time there for validation. If a candidate who does not speak the language does not have the opportunity to verify, we have to find out how that works in the process and how long we extend the time frames to allow this, because right now there is just no space in those 10 days for that.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done and it's not possible. I think we have to learn through the experiment of facsimile, running the risk in a facsimile that it may not be available on the first day of advance polls—we'll see what happens there—and build the expertise to then come back and see whether it is appropriate, useful and feasible to include that on the ballot itself. I think we need to work through the experience.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mr. Perrault.

Now we will go for five minutes to Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to ask a question to Elections Canada, through you, to continue on actually what they just mentioned a second ago about the ballots.

We talked about ballots on election day and the problems and concerns you have with timelines. Maybe I'll pick up with what you were talking about with advance polls and the challenges that would entail for the staff locally, but also centrally as well.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Yes, it's very tight for advance polls, and we want to make sure there is time for quality control once the ballots are printed.

I have a time sheet that I can share with the committee of every step that goes into the production of the ballot. It's really by the hour. There is the first step, which is confirming the image to make sure it has the right names in the right order, that there are no mistakes. It goes to the printer. Then there is a sequence of events. I've shared, I think, the copies, but I can share actual ballots where you can see the stub, and that takes a fair amount of time.

Then we need to check to make sure there are no mistakes, and mistakes do happen. We have seen ballots that are misprinted, so there's a very rigorous process that needs to take place to make sure we do not have improper ballots at the polls.

I'm not sure, Madam Chair, if that was....

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Yes, there was more about the timelines. I think the answer to that question is it's tight to begin with. It's even more challenging for advance polls.

Madam Chair, through you, did Elections Canada receive any complaints about people not being able to vote, since we're talking about mostly in the north, specifically Nunavut? Did anyone complain, or were there any reports or complaints about not being able to vote because of the current languages used on the ballot?

[Stéphane Perrault]

No. We mostly have communications in Inuktitut, but we have received complaints that some of the language, for example that bright yellow sign that says “Vote” with Elections Canada on it, unfortunately, is not translated. I think that's something we could change, because it's apparent for people in Nunavut when they see that. That's not in line with their expectations and experiences. It's striking for them, because they are accustomed to that.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You have lots of time to do that, and it's standard, as you said, with your other material.