Procedure and House Affairs committee  Are we out of time?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sure. I'll be quick as I know that the time is running out. We've been doing a project with CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and People First of Canada are running a class right now. It's a six-week session for people with intellectual disabilities around their mental health, on how to recognize it, what to do about it, what it feels like, the words to use if they need to go into a hospital.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Our funding has not changed. In fact, we've actually had a small increase in funding to do a very specific project around COVID and people with intellectual disabilities. We've done work on providing plain language. A lot of the news coming out about COVID is not written...or the resources...or what does PPE mean....

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for asking that question. People First of Canada is part of an organization called Inclusion International. We do work with many countries across the world. I'm proud to say, believe it or not, that Canada is one of the leaders in this area for people with intellectual disabilities.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Blaikie, could I ask you to rephrase that question in plain language, so that we could better answer you?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for clarifying that. Kory, do you want to comment on that?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Kory, do you want me to answer that one?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Our membership fluctuates. We are currently in every province and territory with the exception of Nunavut. Our Nunavut chapter in Rankin Inlet has closed. We hope that is temporary. We represent between 3,000 and 4,000 Canadians with intellectual disabilities who are members of our organization.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's a really good question. I don't have a statistic on how many people with intellectual disabilities across Canada are voting, but that's certainly something that we could look into. We are very concerned about people with compromised health. You are correct that many people who have intellectual disabilities often have other health issues as well.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To add to what Kory said, when Kory went to do the pre-vote, he had to write in the name of the person running. It's important for you to remember that a very large part of the people we are representing today do not have access to technology. It's not as easy as jumping on a computer and seeing who is running in one's riding.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Just to add to that, through the work that we've been doing on the AGDI committee, this has been number one on our agenda since we joined Elections Canada, and we talk about it every opportunity that we have. We are very clear on the implications of changing the voting ballot to include photos.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We've given some thought to the possibilities around telephone voting, where people would call in and have to answer specific security questions that Elections Canada would have. We've had some conversations around that, and I think there are lots of barriers that might be in place for people, particularly with literacy issues.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Kory. We recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic could affect how the federal election is conducted. The special report by Canada's Chief Electoral Officer highlighted three main challenges as the provision of accessible, safe and secure voting services, the availability of election workers and the availability of poll locations.

Human Resources committee  An example of disability support is me being here with Kory. In the intellectually disabled world, the accommodation rights, as he said, are complex. It's the ability to have somebody—I'll use our language—a non-labelled person, somebody without an intellectual disability, beside a person with a disability to translate into plain language when needed.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely, and there is a cost to that. We're two people, so every cost to bring Kory somewhere is times two.