Good evening from Hong Kong and good morning to each of you.
First of all, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Timothy Veale.
I'm going to describe a problem facing our country and our citizens.
Let me give you some numbers for context. Nearly five million Canadians live outside the country as part of the Canadian diaspora. That makes our diaspora the size of Canada's fifth-largest province, or over 10% of the national population. There are almost 400,000 Canadians just where I am now in Hong Kong alone.
If 72% of the Canadian citizens abroad are eligible to vote—that is, the same as resident Canadians—then almost 3.5 million Canadian expatriates were eligible to vote this past federal election, but only 100,000 voting kits were applied for, with just over half—or 57%—returned. That's a really low conversion rate.
One hundred thousand people wanted to vote but couldn't. That shows a technical problem. With only 57,000 voters out of the entire amount, it's just over a 1% turnout. That's not okay. That's a 1.7% voter participation rate, to be precise, and that is just not acceptable. This shows a structural problem.
By comparison, Americans abroad outvote us by eight to one. Imagine that as a score in the Stanley Cup finals or in a game in the recent World Series or at the Olympics. The French, the Italians and the Portuguese overseas, by comparison, also outvote us, but this time by up to 35 to one.
However, the diaspora of Canadian citizens is growing and is already larger than that of the French, the Italians and the Portuguese. In fact, it's almost as big as the American diaspora, yet they all outvote us by a wide margin, so we have a problem.
There are three main barriers causing this problem. The first is technical, the second is structural and, finally, the third is political. Not fixing them is causing damage to our nation.
First are the technical barriers. We have limited voting mechanisms. Non-resident Canadians must vote by mail only, with no electronic or official in-person voting options. Voting kits can be mailed out only after the writ has been issued. Now, a 38-day campaign was not designed for voters abroad to achieve better than—as we've seen recently—a 57% conversion rate. It just wasn't designed for this. We voters—Daniel and I—must do three things.
We have to apply to register to vote. We have to wait for that approval to be posted back to us with a voting pack sent via the postal system of any one of 200 countries on the planet. As I'm sure everybody can appreciate, not all countries have effective postal systems. That's getting the packet to us. Then we have to have our vote posted back by the same challenged postal systems to Elections Canada by the deadline in time for it to be counted. A 38-day campaign, again, was just not designed for this.
I hope my vote was counted. I actually don't have that certainty. I hope that I was one of the 57% whose votes were counted. I applied for mine early. I just don't know. We lack the modern infrastructure—digital, regional and logistical—needed to accommodate a global electorate.
Second are the structural barriers. We have no direct representation in Parliament. Unlike France, Italy and Portugal, which have dedicated overseas MPs, Canada provides no parliamentary seats for non-resident citizens.
No one contacts us seeking our vote, not once, not ever, yet decisions impacting us, like, for example, the citizenship of our future family members, are being made by elected politicians: nothing about us without us, please.
This has impacts, including, of course, exclusion from the political process. Many non-resident Canadians are in effect disenfranchised by what could be considered unintended yet structural gerrymandering. It has led to the erosion of democratic legitimacy. The effect weakens Canada's claim to democratic inclusivity and equality, especially given our self-image as a global defender of democratic norms.
This creates missed opportunities for engagement, investment and nation building among a large and talented diaspora. Solutions, in fact, can also have geopolitical implications benefiting Canada.
I will wrap up with some solutions.