Evidence of meeting #12 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was voters.
A video is available from Parliament.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Do you mean, what if we opened up electronic voting just across the board and made it possible to vote in general elections digitally?
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
My question is about expatriates, but if you want to expand on that, go ahead.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I think that if we were to open to the possibility of voting electronically, it would be very difficult to make an argument that this would apply only to some voters and that it would apply only to voters living abroad, because lots of people would love to be able to vote electronically.
Personally, I would love to see a movement in that direction. I think it would do a whole lot of good to break down barriers for people with physical disabilities, people who are living in remote communities, and people who actually do have to go through quite significant expenditures to be able to get to their polling station and vote, even though they live in Canada.
Therefore, I'm in favour of giving more thought to electronic voting. I don't think we would be able to restrict it to people living abroad, and I don't think we should, either.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Ms. Kovacikova, what do you think?
Assistant Professor of Political Science, As an Individual
Thank you.
I fully agree. I don't think it's possible to simply say that overseas voters get this wonderfully easy and streamlined option that is going to be denied to the Canadians actually living in Canada.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Do you think that would be an avenue to consider for all Canadian elections?
Assistant Professor of Political Science, As an Individual
Yes, I agree. It would be lovely to be able to vote electronically, and I would echo yet another idea mentioned in the previous meeting. I know there was a very brief conversation about the fact that we already have so many accounts electronically. I can submit my taxes electronically through the CRA portal. There are all these different portals. Different agencies have figured out a way to securely store and access people's information, so I am sure there is a way to create electronic voting for all Canadians.
I'm not saying that would be easy, and it wouldn't be instantaneous, but I do think that, in looking at the world around us today, so many things are already happening electronically. I think, slowly but surely, all countries will start to move in that direction, because that is just the easiest way to access citizens. This is all theoretical, of course, but that may be one way to increase voter turnout, because, obviously, physical voting might have some limitations, so you might be able to actually see an increase in those numbers.
Liberal
November 18th, 2025 / 11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you, Chair.
This is a fascinating discussion. I can't speak for all the committee members here, but I am somebody who has voted by special ballot because, in the Canadian Armed Forces, it is actually set up fairly well. I've had the privilege of voting, I think, in Bosnia and in Afghanistan, and our votes got back here—at least I assume they got back. To speak to that process, I know that every member of the CAF is registered for their home riding. They can change that if they get posted, but there's a deliberate process, so there's a record.
Where I'm going with this—and I want to go back and build on some of the other questions—is it all comes down to trust in the voters and in our democracy. Interestingly enough, I just pulled up the latest results from the last election in my own riding, and, according to the Elections Canada list that was provided, to their own results, there were only 224 voters listed as “special ballot” or “outside of Canada”; however, 536 voted. There were only 224 on the list, but when I look at the latest data that we all get as members of Parliament—we can pull from Elections Canada—there are only 164 still on that list. When you have this vast number, it raises some fascinating conversations and, I think, analysis or research that should be dug into. If you're saying that Canadian voters abroad aren't voting in mass numbers, yet, in my own riding, twice as many people are voting than are actually on the list, it gets to this question of, what are candidates...? Part of our whole democratic process here in Canada is our ability to make our case as to why we, the candidates who are running for the respective ridings, should be the best representative.
Any commentary—from either you, Dr. Turnbull, or you, Professor—would be just great...about the interesting challenges here about maintaining trust but, at the same time, ensuring that information flows both ways so that voters can make informed decisions on how they vote and so that political parties and candidates know how they can actually engage in the process.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Yes, it doesn't help public trust when a discrepancy like that happens. If I'm understanding you correctly, there were 200-some people on the list who were eligible to vote abroad, and then there were twice as many people who voted by special ballot. Is it that some of those people who voted by special ballot live in Canada?
Conservative
Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
That's a great question. I don't have.... Elections Canada doesn't provide us that...the fidelity. They maybe do on election night, or whatever, if we dug into the actual list, but I can't tell you right now.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
One of the things that have come from the 2025 example, in which we have this information that—I think it was—822 special ballots were in the wrong place, weren't counted at the right time, is that that sort of thing can create real concern on the part of voters, to the extent that they become aware of it. What if votes aren't counted? What if this process isn't unfolding as it should?
We really pride ourselves in Canada, and I think we should, on having a very strong electoral democracy, that the administration is non-partisan, independent and run extremely well. I'm interested in the reaction that Elections Canada has, because when they say, “We're going to make sure this was human error; this is not going to happen again,” I wonder what the process is going to be.
Assistant Professor of Political Science, As an Individual
Thank you.
It's a great question, and I fully agree.
I was looking up some numbers prior to our meeting, and I wanted to find out the number of special ballot votes in the last election. The interesting thing is that—this is perhaps a very boring thing to mention—the methodology of how you count these things matters.
Sometimes there's some data out there to actually measure voters from overseas and exclude the military. Sometimes you find data that includes the overseas military as well as other overseas voters. Obviously, it makes a big difference to be able to separate those two groups or to count them together.
This is just one example from when I myself was trying to find certain data, and I realized that, oh, I can't use this particular statistic because this includes both the military and other voters, but this other one includes only one of the two groups. My larger point here is that it would be really great if that kind of data, the more specialized data, was actually made public, so that we would actually know what the differences in the groups were, because, obviously, once you include the military and diplomats, that changes how you can actually use that data and what you are actually counting.
Conservative
Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
In the 30 seconds that I have left, I have just a quick question for both of you.
Is there another country out there that's really kind of cracked this problem and does it better than Canada does? Just provide the name of the country that maybe has done a better job.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Estonia—they're great at everything. They're much smaller, though, so how do we take that and scale what they do? In terms of using electronic voting and being tighter with those sorts of things, Estonia is always the example I hear.
Assistant Professor of Political Science, As an Individual
I'm going to have to agree, because I don't have any other examples.
Liberal
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
I'm going to go a bit along the lines of Mr. Louis but also of Mr. Ruff.
The turnout in the 2025 election federally was around 69% overall. For those who actually vote from overseas, of those who requested the ballots, the turnout was 2.5%. Of those who actually voted, it was about 2%. That's a pretty enormous difference. Certainly, one would think that some of that is a lack of interest from folks who have been outside the country for a long period of time. Clearly, there must be more than that, and that would relate either to a lack of information on the part of folks who could vote or to obstacles.
Look at some of the other countries. The Americans vote eight times as much as we do in terms of folks outside the country. The French vote 35 times as much as we do in terms of folks outside the country.
I guess I'll say a couple of things. First, is there academic literature that actually looks at best practices and why there are such differences between western democratic countries in terms of the mechanisms they use to encourage people to vote? If the answer to that is no, what are the things that we could do to try to make it easier for folks to vote?
I mean, we used an example, I think, in one of the earlier sessions. It takes a week to get to Hong Kong. It takes a week to get back. There are all the processes of registering. If you think about Canadians who are living in Nepal, that's much worse than Hong Kong. It just seems to me that having only one mechanism that clearly is pretty clunky is not a way to encourage participation.
Maybe I just throw all of that to both of you.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I'll try to take a little piece of it and not take too much time.
I don't think anybody would put their hand up and say that mail is the best, most efficient, quickest way to do anything. At this point, we're used to being able to do everything online. I think that there's an argument to be made that we should think about that. The question is the security of it. How do you ensure that this is going to be a safe transaction?
I'm not a digital tech person. There are people out there who can answer that question, but I think, in terms of trying to verify the identity of the person and the security of the vote, those sorts of things would make it a lot easier. Beyond that, I think we can make some changes to the system we have now.
One thing is that we don't have fixed elections here. In the U.S., they know when their elections are coming. They're in a whole different situation. Sometimes I feel as though we're having elections all the time, but we're not. It's much harder, I think, for us in a parliamentary system to fully engage that process when we have to wait until the writ drops in order to be able to take any real action.
Assistant Professor of Political Science, As an Individual
Yes, I would fully agree with that. I do think that in terms of the academic literature, I honestly cannot really point to anything I know that specifically deals with comparing Canada to other systems and trying to compare the statistics on voter turnout from abroad. Certainly, there's a big space there to be filled, and it would be wonderful to have some new data.
In terms of why the turnout was so low, I would say that exactly the parliamentary system is part of it. It is in many ways the beauty of the system that elections can be called relatively quickly, but what that essentially means, especially with voting by post, is that you may not receive the ballot in time to then mail it back. Mine was an example of that. I tried very hard to get it there overnight, but whether it arrived or not is another story.
I think that quick turnaround also increases the incidence of not getting timely information about elections. I am in a different position, because I pay attention. If I am a Canadian who isn't in the political space, and I know that there is a talk about election but I'm not really sure when it's happening, and then all of a sudden it's called, by the time I look up from my day-to-day life, I realize it's over.
If you have these quick turnarounds, then, that's great in many other respects, but in terms of actually having the administrative ability to tell everybody, especially those abroad, and to then mail the ballots back and forth, that really creates a huge challenge.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
There's the issue of reducing obstacles. It seems to me that perhaps one thing Elections Canada could do is make it clear that people actually can use consulates and embassies to vote. It doesn't solve anything for people who live in far rural areas of particular countries, but it certainly would make it a bit more accessible for a lot of people who live in the larger centres.
The other piece is this. What could Elections Canada be doing differently to engage Canadian voters in advance of the election to try to ensure that people have the appropriate information such that once there's a writ drop and there are 36 days, they're not just scrambling?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I think that's a key part of it, because it's true that it's not enough time. If they have an international register of electors, presumably they have contact information and email addresses for people. They don't want to flood their inboxes and build anticipation of an election that we're not sure is coming, but I think there could probably be a decision made to engage well in advance, to put it on people's radar, to make sure electors know to look for the package we'll be mailing to them.
It gets tricky. I'm not making an argument for a presidential system here, but it's easier when they know that the election's going to be on the first Tuesday of November, so they're going to mail your kit well in advance. We can't do that. It really does put us at a disadvantage, but the best way is information. The best way is to build an expectation of communications from Elections Canada.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Thank you so much. We are over time.
I would like to thank our witnesses.
We're going to do a bit of committee business. You're welcome to stay, or you can go. I do appreciate both of you for giving us your time.
I believe we have a quick matter, and there have been discussions among the parties and consent for Mr. Cooper to move his motion on foreign interference.
We'll turn the floor over to him on that particular point.
It's being circulated, unless there's any opposition to that happening.
Seeing none, Mr. Cooper, the motion's being circulated.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The motion has been on notice since November 14. I'll read it into the record:
That, further to the motion adopted by the committee on June 12, 2025, the committee undertake a study respecting foreign interference, provided that:
(a) the evidence and documentation received by the committee during the first session of the 44th Parliament on the subject, in relation to the following studies, be taken into consideration by the committee in the present session: (i) foreign election interference, (ii) the question of privilege related to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and other members, and (iii) the question of privilege related to cyber-attacks targeting members of Parliament;
(b) the committee readopt the report entitled “Question of Privilege Related to the Member for Wellington—Halton Hills and Other Members”, adopted during the first session of the 44th Parliament, and instruct the chair to present it to the House, provided that dissenting or supplementary opinions be filed with the Clerk in both official languages within one week of the adoption of this motion;
(c) the committee hold at least four meetings on the matter of reported instances of foreign interference in relation to the recent general election, and, for that purpose, invite the following to appear: (i) a panel of representatives of the SITE task force, for two hours, (ii) a panel of members of the critical election incident public protocol panel, for two hours, (iii) the Chief Electoral Officer, for one hour, and (iv) such other witnesses as may be proposed; and
(d) the committee hold at least two meetings on the matter of the implementation of the foreign influence transparency registry and, for that purpose, invite the Minister of Public Safety to appear before the committee, for two hours, in addition to other witnesses as may be proposed and that these meetings be held by no later than December 12, 2025.
That, Mr. Chair, is the motion. I will very succinctly outline the rationale for it.
During the last election, there were reports of foreign interference. That was identified and uncovered by the SITE task force. The critical election incident public protocol panel invoked the critical election incident public protocol to alert Canadians of such foreign interference. In light of that, I think it's important that we hear from members of the respective panels to get a better understanding of what interference was identified and how that was dealt with.
In addition to that, I think it's important that we hear from the minister with respect to steps that are being taken to get the foreign influence registry up and running. Also, with respect to the question of privilege related to Michael Chong, the purpose for having it brought back or for the committee to readopt the report is so that the House can concur in the report, because the House did not have the opportunity to concur in that report and therefore has not pronounced on Zhao Wei's being in contempt of Parliament.
With respect to the evidence and documentation received by the committee in the last Parliament, the purpose of that is that significant work was undertaken in the last Parliament around foreign interference, so it would just provide that the evidence would be available for the committee's study in this Parliament. We would not have to reinvent the wheel.