Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2022

[Stéphane Perrault]

Yes, that's something we prepare in advance. It's a lot easier to improve the overall presence of indigenous languages in the rest of the material than it is for the ballot itself, which is very sensitive.

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

Madam Chair, Elections Canada, from what I can tell through the documents, does try its best to get a local indigenous person who speaks the language wherever possible. Were you able to fill all the positions in the north with someone who could speak the local language?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I don't have a specific answer to that. I know that in some cases we have to fly people in to fly-in communities because there's a lack of resources, but it is exceptional. I would say the vast majority, especially when you look at remote and indigenous communities, we hire locally, and these people tend to speak the language. I'm not saying it's wall-to-wall, 100%, but I think it is the exception.

We have an elders and youth program. It's something I want to look into. The uptake of that has gone down. The elders and youth program is one whereby we hire an elder and a youth to come to the polls and assist voters, including for linguistic assistance. It's a good program, but I think the uptake has gone down. That's something I want to look into.

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

That was my next question: Is there some kind of program available? You answered that, and it's building, as you said, and more interest is coming online for that.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Yes. We want to revisit what we're doing. We saw some challenges in the last election, and we want to understand how we can better engage with the community on an ongoing basis, rather than just during an election. We've struggled over the years to maintain permanent connections with indigenous communities outside of the election. It complicates matters in terms of hiring but also in terms of understanding their needs if it's all rushed during the election. We're looking into that as part of a broader program review on first nations.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Is that it? You had 20 seconds left.

It was nice talking to you. Thank you for interacting with me instead. You're always a great addition, Mr. Schmale. Thank you for joining us.

Ms. Romanado, five minutes go to you.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Through you, I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I have a couple of questions. One is with respect to deployed Canadian Armed Forces members. The Chief Electoral Officer mentioned the difficulty or the challenge if the CEO had to identify each individual deployed officer and whether or not they needed a specific ballot in an indigenous language. I just want to double-check with the Chief Electoral Officer if I understood that correctly.

For those who are deployed overseas who receive a ballot, I'm assuming it's a special ballot that then gets returned to Canada. Would that still be possible to have, since they're voting in their last electoral district or the one that they have selected? How difficult would it be to make sure they received a ballot, should they wish to have one with an indigenous language on it?

[Stéphane Perrault]

They would vote by special ballot, and this is a blank ballot with a limited amount of information, like the name of the candidate. We would need to see how we could translate and keep the content as light as possible in order to have it as flexible as possible.

As I said, currently any language used is the language of the candidate's name as it appears on nomination, whatever that language is in the Latin alphabet. The issue is, if we open it up to other alphabets, how it is presented to the voter and also how it's counted back in Ottawa, with different languages and different alphabets.

We have candidates and party representatives who are at Coventry, at our warehouse, where this count takes place. The people who do the count are referred by parties, so it's not clear that they would be equipped to properly understand handwriting in a different alphabet. That is a challenge and a concern. I have to say that I have some reservations about using the write-in ballot in a diversity of languages for that reason.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

That is something we noticed in the last election. A lot of special ballots were rejected because of additional marks on the ballots themselves. Whether it was a cute little heart sign or a smiley face or something, the ballots were actually rejected because of the extra markings. This is something that would be a concern for me.

I have a question for the Chief Electoral Officer with respect to the candidate process. Candidates are required to collect signatures. In cases of communities with large indigenous populations, are they accepting the actual nomination forms with the various signatures with a language other than English and French in terms of addresses and so on? Do they have the capacity to make sure that, in terms of validation, the electors who have signed the nomination forms are in fact electors in the riding? I know that it often happens that if the handwriting is illegible, the local returning officer may reject certain signatures.

What efforts have been made in that regard?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Through you, Madam Chair, the returning officer has to be able to ascertain, as the member indicated, that this is a signature from an elector residing in the electoral district. The elector does not have to be registered, but they have to reside in the electoral district.

The returning officers are not equipped to look up addresses in different alphabets or languages. That is just the reality. Of course, there may be the occasional returning officer who would be able to do that, but I cannot guarantee that service offering.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay.

I have two very short questions. I'd like to know how many indigenous people are employed at Elections Canada in the higher ranks who could assist with respect to indigenous languages but also with cultures and so on. As well, what can candidates be doing to assist in this regard?

For instance, in my community often candidates will make the little ballot and show where the candidate falls on the ballot. We do that often in terms of our campaign literature. What can we be doing as well to make sure that we're using it as a teachable moment in our own communities and in every community, including all 338 ridings, to educate people—for instance, if I have a larger Mohawk community in my riding—and to make sure that I'm actually conveying that as well? I know we do that for other languages, but what can we be doing?

Thank you.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, I'd have to give that last question more thought.

On the first question, in the senior ranks right now of Elections Canada we do not have self-identified indigenous Canadians. We have in the past, but currently we do not. We have a small number at headquarters, but they're not senior.

As we recruit returning officers—and we do have a lot of openings, if anybody is listening out there—we hope to hire, as much as possible, returning officers who are reflective of the communities where they serve. That certainly includes, in large indigenous community ridings, the hope that we can bring in some indigenous returning officers. We do have some, but again, I don't have official data on that. It's more anecdotal.

In terms of senior ranks, as I indicated earlier, as part of the program review we want to bring in some people at the executive level who are indigenous Canadians to help us in that program review, so that it's not us on our own doing this. There is an engagement with the communities, but for the team itself, we are hoping to bring in, and we are going to bring in, some executives with that background.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you for that exchange. We will now move on to Mrs. Block for five minutes, followed by Ms. O'Connell, Madam Gill and Ms. Idlout. I'll tell you who else later.

Go ahead, Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witness for joining us today.

The more I read the information that was circulated to us, the more I recognize what a set of complex issues Elections Canada faces in regard to ensuring that all Canadians are able to participate in the democratic process and cast a ballot in a general election.

When I look at the conversation we've had today and reflect on it, I go back to Mr. Perrault's opening comments in regard to the fact that you are currently offering information products in several indigenous languages. You stated that you were working to improve your processes and service offerings. The bulk of your comments were centred around ballots and having various indigenous languages on the ballot.

We also talked about the range of information products that can be made available at the polls. I appreciate the comments by my NDP colleague in regard to how some of those products probably aren't being prepared at the last minute, or wouldn't need to be prepared at the last minute, so could be readily available in a timely way.

I wonder, though, if you could comment a little on the processes, because the service offerings are different. I also want to know whether you're facing similar problems or complaints from the other territories or other remote indigenous communities.

Lastly, are you aware of or in conversation with any other jurisdictions around the world that might be dealing with issues similar to those here in Canada in regard to indigenous communities and the barriers we're facing during general elections, specifically maybe even the Commonwealth? Is there a forum where you are able to have conversations with other countries around these issues?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, starting with the last point, there are several forums. There are a few countries that share the same characteristics as us in terms of our first nation communities and political system. We engage regularly with Australia, which, of course, does have an indigenous community and does have some challenges. However, even there, their realities are different.

I would say the same thing in regard to Canada. Even within the country, the realities and the challenges faced by the different indigenous communities are vastly different. We talked a lot about Nunavut, but Nunavut is a jurisdiction where there is a large predominant population that uses Inuktitut. It's an official language. There are expectations. There's an alertness to the issue of language in Nunavut that results in complaints that we're not necessarily seeing elsewhere. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be products made available, of course, but the reaction varies considerably, as does our ability to provide products. It's hard to find, even within Canada, a “one size fits all” approach—which I don't think is where we want to go—and even more so at the international level.

I'm not sure if I captured the full question. I think there might have been a question on the service offering, and I'm happy to speak to that if that's the desire of the member.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

Through you, Madam Chair, I would just go back to my earlier intervention, where I was focusing more on improving your processes.

Given the testimony you've just given, is Elections Canada being proactive in identifying some of the issues that might exist in parts of the country other than Nunavut, that perhaps don't have that readily available acknowledgement or knowledge of what needs to take place when it comes to Elections Canada and the kinds of communication that are available to those communities?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

That's why we want to look at how we can engage those communities on an ongoing basis. It's to get a better understanding of those needs and those realities, which we do not have right now.

The first step is to build the capacity to engage better on an ongoing basis in order to have a better view of the needs. There are things that we know, of course, and language is one. We work with the AFN, and the AFN has identified that as a significant barrier, so that's an important area.

The other important area that we know about is advance polls. We've increased the offering of advance polls over the years in urban and semi-urban Canada, but the offering has not increased in remote communities. We need to be able to offer more flexible options. As I said in my last appearance, we could have a single day of advance polling in remote communities. Where it's a very small community, we can't hire for three or four days, but we can for one, so there's a lot more flexibility in the services at advance polls, to avoid the rigidity of having a single day of voting that may not be suitable for everyone in that community.

These are the things we're looking at right now. We can make improvements on that fairly rapidly, but in the longer term it's building the relationships and building the engagement capacity so that we can better understand the needs and realities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mrs. Block.

Ms. O'Connell, you have five minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions will be through you to the witnesses.

Thanks so much for being here. I want to follow up on a couple of issues that were raised by my colleagues. You touched on ballot translation. We've talked a lot about it, but what is stopping you in this time—in between elections—from having already produced those voting signs and whatnot? Even in minority governments, you have years, in a lot of cases, so why are they not yet produced, if that was something you heard?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, I think there's a misunderstanding. They are produced. They are electronically available right now. We have PDFs of all of these documents, and if we need to alter them in some way, we can do that at any time. This is not about waiting until the election.

When the election kicks off—leaving aside the ballot here—these documents are made available to community relations officers, who work locally to see which products are suited to the community—

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I'm sorry, Madam Chair. I have limited time. I don't mean to interrupt.

Madam Chair, through you, when were they produced? If they weren't available in the last election.... For example, there's the voting sign that you acknowledged caused some feedback.

When were they produced, and in how many languages?

[Stéphane Perrault]

I'll clarify. We have essentially two main products, Madam Chair, in 16 languages. They are the voter identification rolls and the “ways to vote” products. Not everything is in 16 languages. The voting signs are not and, as I indicated, that's an area that I would like to improve.

There are more products that we can work on.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Again, Madam Chair, what is your timeline to produce the materials that aren't translated? Again, we're out of an election, and that was specific feedback that you heard.

What are the timelines to produce the materials that aren't translated?