Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill before us today. The purpose of this bill is to increase—or so we hope—voter turnout. Unfortunately, even if the Bloc Québécois supports this bill, which we think will give more flexibility to voters, we do not believe it will increase voter turnout. This bill will only shift the vote from voting day to advance polls, as we saw during Quebec's last election. Participation in advance polls was very high, but total voter turnout was very disappointing. The same thing has happened in the past at federal elections: there were no clear links between voter turnout at advance polls and voter turnout on voting day.
In order to bring out more voters, we will have to look beyond strictly administrative matters, as my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska was saying,. If voter turnout is not as high as we would like, it is probably not because it is too complicated or too difficult, although this can sometimes be the case—I will get back to this later on in my speech—but it is also partly because people do not want to go and vote. This indicates something much deeper and more serious, which goes beyond the actual voting period. It is something all elected members must think about. And perhaps, as the member for Richmond—Arthabaska said, we should change our way of doing things in order to encourage voters and show them how important their vote is.
I would like to compare voter turnout for Quebec National Assembly elections and voter turnout in Quebec for federal elections, for the House of Commons. Based on my information from Quebec, voter turnout for federal elections is consistently lower than turnout for Quebec elections, although it is the same pool of voters. I am not comparing the Canadian figures against Quebec figures. All voters in Quebec vote in greater numbers in National Assembly elections than they do in federal elections.
Ultimately, what incites people to get out and vote to choose their National Assembly representative, and what prevents these same people from voting to choose their House of Commons representative? In my speech here today, I will try to identify a number of factors that might play a role in people's decision. Among these factors, there are some that are more technical, such as those addressed by this bill. There are others, however, that are rather more philosophical and probably more important, although I do not have the statistics to support this in terms of any underlying motives.
I am somewhat new to politics, although I have taken part in two elections, one of which I unfortunately lost by 72 votes. Of course, when you lose an election by 72 votes, you quickly learn that every vote counts. You also quickly try to understand why every voter does not get out and vote, even when they say they will during your door-to-door visits, and you see your victory was only 72 votes away. You take the time to talk to voters, to try to understand their motives.
Technically speaking, there are some elements that will facilitate voting and can encourage people to participate. The bill before us, the purpose of which is to increase the number of days of advance polling, is certainly quite interesting, but this is far from the main reason and, by extension, the main solution. In Quebec, the advance polling period is more limited whereas, for a federal election, as soon as the writ is dropped, any citizen can go to the office of the returning officer and vote.
In fact, we can say that anyone can vote whenever they want during the election period, provided they can get to the office of the returning officer. This provision might work in urban areas, like my riding, where the office of the returning officer is not very far from people. Anyone in my riding can get to the office of the returning officer by metro. I imagine that in other ridings it is another story. And yet, voter turnout in my riding and in other urban areas is not as much higher as one might assume.
This leads me to think that the amount of time available for voting is not a factor. However, the issue of location seems to be important. A little earlier, the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska talked about seniors who quite simply have a hard time travelling sometimes. Some live in residences for seniors with limited mobility. For them it is not an issue of knowing when they can go and vote because they are almost always at home. The issue is knowing how they will get to the polling station. In my riding, I have noticed that in many cases a polling station was set up directly in the residence. This is a good idea and simplifies the voting process.
However, it is rather sad that similar measures are not taken for young people, students for instance. It seems to me that we should be putting a lot more energy into young students, especially, as the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska clearly illustrated, voter turnout for young people is disastrous. It is even worse during federal elections, when the rate is very, very low.
How can we make things easier for voters? Allow me to give a very concrete example. The École de technologie supérieure in my riding is attended by students from all over Quebec who live in university residences or in apartments located nearby. This makes for a university neighbourhood that is somewhat isolated, somewhat closed in on itself and focused on its own activities. On voting day, these young people are told to go cast their ballot in La Petite-Bourgogne, which is way over on the other end of town. I know this because I went door to door and I met with these people. I told them to go vote, and they asked me where the polling station was. I told them that it was in the same building as the La Petite-Bourgogne swimming pool, and they looked at me blankly because they had no idea where that was.
This is a problem because voters are not especially motivated to go vote, but they think they probably should. They are already less than committed. If things come up that make voting even more difficult, such as figuring out where the polling station is and having to travel a significant distance to get there, many of these less committed voters will be easily discouraged. They just will not go.
The same applies to the reminder cards that indicate the location. In Quebec, it helps that many or even most of the polling stations are in schools. People know where their local school is.
When I get my reminder card and I see that the polling station is at Saint-Henri high school, then even if I lose my card and I do not have the address, it is not a problem because I can remember that I have to go to Saint-Henri high school to vote. I know where it is because it is part of my community.
However, if the address indicated was that of residence xyz, of some centre or of a lesser known location, and that on election day I leave my workplace without that document, I may wonder where I have to go to vote. If I do not have the address and do not know where to vote, I will first have to go back home. These are minor inconveniences. However, when someone is not quite sure if he is going to vote, this might turn out to be the reason why, in the end, he will not bother. When most workers arrive at the same time to vote, there are waiting lines in some polling stations, because these locations are ill-suited and were not set up to make the process as quick as possible. In such cases, some people just turn around and go back home without voting.
I do not know whether studies were made on this issue, but I personally witnessed this situation. In the two elections in which I ran I, like many members of this House, toured polling stations to congratulate the election staff. I also took that opportunity to watch how the voting process was going. At about 5 p.m., the same scenario occurs everywhere, and particularly in those parts of the riding that have a large number of families and workers. People get to the polling stations and waiting lines begin to form. These workers get back home and they must cook supper, take the kids to soccer practice, pick up their little ones at the daycare, and so on. People all have obligations. I remember seeing a totally disorganized polling station. There were 10 or 12 polling booths inside, but they would only let people vote one at a time. This created an incredibly long waiting line. People estimated that they would have to wait 45 minutes or an hour, perhaps less. Since they had other obligations, they thought it was too complicated. Unfortunately, for reasons that I will explain in the second part of my speech, when people have to choose between their personal obligations and their civic duty, they increasingly opt for their personal obligations, rather than voting.
I find that the bill we are debating today is merely interesting. A great deal of work remains to be done in terms of the location of polling stations and their physical layout. What can be done so that at peak times, when workers arrive after work, voting can be carried out as efficiently as possible so that voters do not have to wait?
I said that I would talk a little about some more philosophical considerations. I will attempt to show the difference between what happens during a Quebec election and a federal election in terms of the appreciation of the elected members. When you tell citizens that it is important that they vote for their elected representative because members are the representatives of the people, you must be consistent, you must respect the members and appreciate their work. Unfortunately, this is less and less evident. It was not the case with the Liberals and it is even less so with the Conservatives.
The only message, in Quebec at least, repeated by this government like a child short of arguments, is to the effect that the Bloc will never be in power and that it is useless. That is not an argument that voters accept, as shown by the election results. It greatly devalues the role of the elected representatives. I wonder if the Conservatives said the same thing to their supporters when they were in opposition. I would like the Conservatives to provide me with some quotes from speeches they made in their ridings where they told voters that they were useless because they were in opposition.
They would never have said something like that. Perhaps when the Liberals have an opportunity to ask me questions, they will confirm that since they have been in opposition, they have been useless. Obviously, nobody would ever say that because it just is not true. We all know that the work of opposition members is very important in our democracy: our role is to keep the government in check. We are the majority in this House, and that means a lot.
There are advantages and disadvantages to being in opposition and to being in government. Opposition members do not have their hands tied by their government's promises, and they can criticize the government's actions frankly. Being a Bloc Québécois member is even better because our only loyalty is to Quebeckers, and we do not have to make compromises with other Canadian provinces on their positions and interests.
I think that the Conservatives' attitude will continue to undermine the role of elected members and will have a negative impact on voter turnout in the future. That elected members should do this is deplorable and very sad.
There is also the matter of the Conservatives respecting decisions made by the House. That was also the case with the Liberals when they formed a minority government. How can the Conservatives—like the Liberals—go around saying that we have to improve voter turnout, then turn around and act like this when they are in power? Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have done the same thing. They do not respect the choice made by citizens who elect representatives to speak on their behalf in the House of Commons. That has been happening more and more often with the two most recent minority governments. That might partly explain the difference between the number of Quebeckers who voted in Quebec's provincial election and those who voted in the federal election.
I am curious to see what will happen in Quebec now that we have a minority government for the first time. Will the National Assembly's decisions be respected? The current government will have to see to it, but as things stand, people become disillusioned when they see that the government ignores unanimous decisions without even giving them the time of day.
This government has also disrupted committee work. It even went so far as to develop a little guide for committee chairs explaining how to emasculate the work of committee members. The government's actions have certainly undermined the members' work.
We saw also what the government is doing in the case of former programs, such as Summer Career Placement—the new Canada Summer Jobs. In this case, members were entirely excluded from the grant allocation process. Of course, in the past, members were not distributing grants from the Summer Career Placement program, but they were part of the process. They worked with officials to establish local priorities and to provide some feedback on what was really happening in the field and where the needs really were.
People appreciated this. They felt that they had chosen a member who would be able to make the right choices and to guide officials toward the right priorities for the riding. Unfortunately, the Conservative government decided to cut all this. From now on, only one elected member will deal with these files, that is the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. This minister does not know what is going on in each of our ridings and where priorities are. We find ourselves in an extremely partisan system, while previously, the system ensured that the elected member's work was appreciated. If the member made bad choices, constituents were able in the next election to tell the member that, if he did not take their priorities into account, they would replace him with someone who would do the job correctly.
If all this were considered and a little more effort were made, I am convinced that the turnout rate in federal elections would improve a lot.