Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2022

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

Earlier on in the conversation, Madam Chair, I heard Madame Gill ask some questions about the wider availability of supporting indigenous languages throughout the country as opposed to in specific areas. I think in her example she referred to the case where somebody in Montreal wanted to vote. I understood the discourse, and if I heard him correctly, Mr. Perrault's reply basically was that unless we go to some form of Internet voting, where there is the availability in electronic voting to make things more widely available, it wouldn't be possible.

Did I understand that correctly?

[Stéphane Perrault]

To have a wide diversity of languages available in writing where there's a small percentage of population is not possible in a paper format. This is why you have, Madam Chair, jurisdictions like California or other American...that use digital interfaces. It may not be voting from home, but it's a voting machine interface that allows the voter to choose the language of that interface.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Good. I'm glad to hear that, Madam Chair, because I think that the lion's share of the difficulty in providing the service is providing it once, and repeating it 337 more times. Other than the fact that the cost associated with the hardware to do that might be cumbersome, I would suggest it's an investment for the country. There are other ways to do it, like he's saying now. I understand that you could have more of these machines, maybe in certain areas where you're expecting a larger turnout of people who are relying on them, but then in any other polling location, such as one in downtown Montreal, you could have just one.

Does that make sense, through you, Madam Chair?

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, it makes sense; however, we are a far cry from introducing electronic voting machines in the federal electoral process. This is not allowed in the legislation, and this is not an avenue that I understand Parliament to be wanting to explore.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

My questions were more along the lines, Madam Chair, of how we ensure that the ability to communicate is there. I understood the complexity of that in the responses to Madame Gill around the challenges with upscaling from a few remote locations to the wider public.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Madam Chair, I'm not sure we're referring to the same thing. My exchange with the member, as I understood the question, was about providing a diversity of languages in a single electoral district with a single-ballot format, which led me to refer to voting machines.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay. That's fair enough.

I guess I'm not that far off from what he's suggesting. I'm just saying that I don't know if it has to be the actual voting process as much as the ability for proper communication.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Yes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That might be able to be handled without including the actual electronic voting part.

[Stéphane Perrault]

Correct. That is handled currently only at the offices of returning officers and additional offices through the CanTalk translation service, but not at regular polling places.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

Those are all my questions, Madam Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you for that great exchange.

It got me thinking a bit, Mr. Perrault.

I have to say, committee members, massive kudos to all of you for the thoroughness of your questions and for what we've been able to learn today. I think this was actually very fruitful, and not really what I was expecting. I'm very pleased with the conversation.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Sorry. That's being honest.

I think what I find kind of fascinating in my head, as somebody who was born and raised in the Waterloo region, whose parents immigrated to Canada, whose first language isn't English, was the comment that you haven't received any complaints. Well, when there's no understanding of what's taking place, how do you expect to receive a complaint? I couldn't help but go through just a series of thoughts in my head as to what my grandparents and everybody else went through, and yet we're immigrants. We're not the first people of the land.

I think that's where this conversation is such a thorough one when it comes to the importance that we put on the true nation-to-nation relationship. I want to appreciate the fact that you recognize the importance of indigenous-led. I want to acknowledge that I think you understand there is a diversity of indigenous communities, and that they're not a monolith. I think we've started some important work, but we have a lot further to go. I know that this PROC committee has done a lot of work in this space, as have others.

I want to put a quick question to you, if I may. Well, I'm the chair, so I'm going to.

Have you have been doing some of this work with other districts or other countries that are also in this space? Are you asking other CEOs, such as in New Zealand, what their best practices are and what they've done?

When I think about electronic voting and whether the will is there or not, it took a global health pandemic for the Parliament of Canada to come into the 21st century and have hybrid so that we were able to vote electronically. It's because the work is so important. If voting is so important, I think we need to start having these tough conversations to see where it's going. Maybe the will then will come. I think a lot of things in the country that parliamentarians have advanced have been things we never would have been able to do if there weren't the political will. Then we brought more people along. So I think this is a very important conversation for us to get comfortable with being uncomfortable with.

We have about three minutes left, Mr. Perrault, if you would like to answer that question. You can always send our committee more information.

Ms. Lawson and Madame Morin, if you'd like to quickly put your voices on the record as well, I would appreciate hearing from you—and from Mr. Roussel, always.

I'll pass it to you, Mr. Perrault.

[Stéphane Perrault]

I'm trying to keep track of the question, respectfully, Madam Chair.

I realize that one of our responsibilities is to explore other ways of voting. Even though it's not happening now, it may happen some day. We need to stay abreast of what's done elsewhere. We look at prototypes sometimes for some form of electronic special ballot voting. It's not in the legislation, but we need to keep thinking about and exploring ways to vote, because the circumstances can change quickly. The agility is not always there if you've not done the work ahead of time. That is an important part of our mandate.

We have exchanges through different forums internationally. As I said, on the issues of serving indigenous Canadians and reconciliation, we're having a meeting this summer with all provincial and territorial CEOs in Iqaluit.

If you are there, I would be happy to meet you there and invite you there, if possible.

That is a common issue and area of interest for all chief electoral officers in Canada. We are going to explore ways and see how we each deal with these challenges and try to find best practices.

[Anne Lawson, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Regulatory Affairs, Elections Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's always a pleasure to appear before this committee.

[Karine Morin, Chief of Staff, Elections Canada]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I can reassure you. In developing the document that you have in front of you now, we consulted with many jurisdictions, including Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Alaska, and even Australia. However, it's a little different for Australia, because the majority of indigenous languages are spoken there and not written. This has really been taken into consideration in presenting a range of options. This summer we will continue this work with our Canadian counterparts.

Thank you.

[Michel Roussel]

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity.

I wish to assure you of our commitment to assisting the work of the committee and, more importantly I suppose, to see a real improvement in the way we serve first nations indigenous communities across Canada. Please don't take my word for it; we have to earn your trust.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you so much for this great conversation. I look forward to its continuing on Thursday.

We will have three organizations appearing on Thursday and four representatives. We have the language commissioner of Nunavut, Nunavut Tunngavik, and also the Réseau jeunesse des Premières Nations Québec-Labrador. We will continue this conversation, and then we will use the remainder of the time for other committee business.

Please, everyone, keep well and safe. We'll see you on Thursday.