Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have a lot of expertise in terms of incarcerated voters, but from what I've researched, they're having trouble accessing specifically information about their ridings and the MPs in their ridings. They usually are able to watch national news, like CBC's The National. These

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They might have an idea of these greater party platforms, but they're having trouble accessing local news media and local MP agendas. I think it's dangerous to assume that everyone understands that you're not just voting for the Liberal Party and you're not just voting for Justin

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I think I spoke briefly to earlier, shelters have had to reduce capacity. You actually are seeing fewer shelter users and fewer people who are homeless who are able to access resources and have daily interactions with social workers in shelters. I think using shelter workers a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. In winter in many of our colder provinces these encampments tend to dwindle down. People try to couch surf in the winter. They use emergency winter shelters. I think you'll see fewer great encampments like we did over the summer. That being said, especially in Vancouver and

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I understand correctly, you're speaking more broadly to future government actions to reduce economic inequality and social inequality to empower everyone to live in dignity, to live at a dignified level so that people are not just getting the bare necessities but are living co

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think Kory brought up an excellent point about people in poverty not always having access to phones, and by voting by phone I assume you mean a call in and not a text in. I just wanted to clarify. To be quite honest, I did not know that this was something that happened in the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Initially, just from talking with people, we thought why not extend the weekend voting period to three days, to include a weekday? That being said, when Shelley mentioned having a voting day, Friday and Saturday, that was actually an excellent point, especially in bringing up th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, thank you. Absolutely, building off what Kory said, I think a lot of people just do not want to have to put an election on their plate while they're dealing with so many other things. I think even more important than the process of election is that people right now are depe

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I know Elections Canada has done research in exploring online voting, but we're unfortunately not quite ready to make it secure and accessible. I think what I've gathered from my engagement with anti-poverty organizations across Canada is that mail-in voting is something that w

Procedure and House Affairs committee  From what I understand, as it stands currently, people have to request to cast their ballot by mail. I'm not too sure what the logistics around this are. I'm sure there are a lot of administrative deliverables that I'm not taking into consideration as I'm not working with Electio

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Canada Without Poverty hasn't done extensive research into these issues. However, we witnessed a lot of people with lived experience, noting that they have had issues accessing identification. This has been particularly stressful in accessing pandemic relief programs. I think ju

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I know shelter workers can be there to assist people in retrieving their identification if it's been lost and they've never renewed their identification. We have amazing social workers in our shelters who do assist with shelter users in this process. Further, it's great that sh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair, Vice-Chairs, Clerk and members of the committee for inviting me to speak today on behalf of Canada Without Poverty. For 50 years CWP has represented the interests of people living in poverty and has been led by people who have personally experienced poverty. Ou