Evidence of meeting #137 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vote.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Mr. Cooper, the only numbers I have with me—thank you to my colleague—are that we served 5,167 facilities. There were 183 that declined.
I'm afraid I do not know with certainty whether that number represents all long-term care facilities in Canada. I can't say that with certainty at this moment, but I do know that the instruction to returning officers is, indeed, to reach out to the long-term care facilities in their electoral districts.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Were there any challenges with this or any problems that were identified, or on the whole, did it work relatively smoothly? I recognize that there are 5,000-plus locations. In any election, there are always going to be hiccups. Probably in every riding there are going to be some minor hiccups on election day. However, can you speak to the overall experience?
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
What I can say is that, of course, that was a pandemic election. Long-term care homes were a very special circumstance during that election. There were hiccups in the sense that a long-term care home could have had a breakout of the virus, for example. They had perhaps indicated that such and such a day—say, day 12—was the appropriate day to allow Elections Canada in, and plans would change somewhat at the last moment, depending on the number of residents with COVID and the health protocols in place, etc.
I would say that it was quite difficult to administer but that it worked very well in the end. However, it required flexibility by both administrators and returning officers in working closely together to coordinate and collaborate. Yes, there were needs to adapt and to change an approach to respond to circumstances.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Have certain lessons been learned from the COVID experience moving forward, if this were to be implemented?
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Specifically with respect to the legislative framework for serving long-term care homes, this was a framework that we felt worked very well, and it was recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer in his recommendations report. Elections Canada endorses and supports this framework for serving long-term care homes as a very useful, flexible tool and another channel of voting for electors.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
I don't know if you can comment on this, and if you can't, that's fine.
What was the impact, if any, on turnout at long-term care facilities and of having a polling location at the facility?
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
One thing the Chief Electoral Officer regularly says with respect to turnout is that it's a very complex thing, so it's not necessarily possible to speak to how one measure impacts turnout. It is usually an amalgam of different circumstances that impacts turnout. Most of those are outside the control of Elections Canada, so I can't speak to how this measure would have impacted turnout directly.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you.
I likely have some additional questions for witnesses, but I will add my name to the list. I think some of my other colleagues have questions on this clause.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
You are correct, Mr. Cooper. I believe they do.
Mr. Calkins, the floor is yours.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cooper did address a number of the questions that I had.
Just for clarification, could you give the committee an indication of, on average, how many electors are registered in...? You're not sure if you got every long-term care facility identified, but of the 5,000-some that you reached out to during the election, could you give the committee—just for my own edification, at least—what the average number of registered electors would be at a long-term care facility?
General Counsel, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
This is a bit of a late-breaking answer. I don't have an average, but it varies from 10 to up to 1,000.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Okay.
I represented a large rural riding when I first got here in 2006; now it's an urban-rural split. I'm going be returning, hopefully, to this place after the next election and representing a large rural constituency again.
On the ability for people who are in a long-term care facility to travel, the reason we go to them is it's easier than having them come to the election...for lack of a better way of expressing it. The ability to go to the returning office might be difficult. It might be several hundred kilometres away. It might even be 1,000 kilometres away. I'm not sure how that works. I'm a little bit concerned about the accessibility for people in a long-term care facility to be able to vote.
We have, like you said, 10 to 1,000. Most of the long-term care facilities in my constituency, I think, would have roughly 50 to 150 electors in them. I think that would be a reasonable approximation of most of these long-term care facilities.
You've stated that there are a number of other issues around voter turnout, but can you give me a rough average of participation? I would expect that the participation rate would be higher than the average participation rate in the election. I think in the last election it was a little bit lower because of the pandemic overall, but voter turnout is typically somewhere between 65% and 75%. Is that correct for a federal election?
General Counsel, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I think that is correct.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Did the long-term care facilities in the last three elections mirror that average, or would they be higher or lower of any significance?
General Counsel, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
My understanding is that they would mirror that average.
One thing that also may be relevant to your question about this provision is that under the current act, of course, we can set up mobile polls in long-term care facilities, especially smaller long-term care facilities where they don't go for the full day, but there has to be two or more facilities. One of the changes in this provision is it will allow us to set those up in a single long-term care facility, which is especially helpful in more rural areas.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
That has been the practice, and I appreciate that.
Next, could you give some clarification? You said about 3.5% of the long-term care facilities declined in the last election to have this voting option available to them. Was that a decision made by the actual electors, or would that have been a decision made by whoever was in charge? As a follow-up to that, did you receive any complaints in long-term care facilities from electors who may not have had an option to vote in the last election?
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
We would have to check in terms of complaints, but we can get back to you on that.
The decision to host a poll is usually taken by the administrator of the facility. We're not really privy to the governance model, shall we say, within there, so we don't know who makes the decisions, whether, if it's part of a chain, a regional manager makes them. We don't know that.
Typically, the returning officer engages directly with the administrator of a facility.
December 5th, 2024 / 12:35 p.m.
Conservative
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I should note very quickly that even though 3.5% did not have polls in the long-term care homes, the ability to vote by special ballot is nonetheless one that was there and one that we facilitate.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
However, it usually involves the elector going to the returning office. Is that correct?
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
They could also apply for a special ballot kit and return it by mail.
Conservative
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Special ballot kits today for the by-election you were referring to in Cloverdale, Langley City....
Conservative
General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I wouldn't say we're circumventing the Canada Post issue, but we have found other ways of making sure that special ballot kits are received. In some cases it's door by door that we have distributed special ballot kits in the electoral district and, where possible, we have used other courier services to make sure they are returned to us on time.
We're confident that we've addressed the special ballot issue for that electoral district.