HANSARD

NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

SELECT COMMITTEE

ON

PARTICIPATION IN THE

DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

Thursday, December 4, 2008

COMMITTEE ROOM 1

D250 Co-Chairs

Honourable John Hamm

Honourable Russell MacLellan

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

SELECT COMMITTEE ON PARTICIPATION

IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

Committee Membership

Mr. Michel Samson (Chairman)

Hon. Mark Parent (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Patrick Dunn

Mr. Keith Bain

Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Graham Steele

Mr. Charles Parker

Mr. David Wilson, Glace Bay

Mr. Harold Theriault

Staff Attendance

Ms. Margaret Murphy - Legislative Librarian

Mr. David Whynacht - Communications Nova Scotia

Ms. Kim Leadley - Select Committee Clerk

Mrs. Sherri Mitchell, Select Committee Clerk

Ms. Paula Romanow - Research & Statistical Officer

Witnesses

D250 Co-Chairs

Honourable John Hamm

Honourable Russell MacLellan

[Page 1]

HALIFAX, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2008

SELECT COMMITTEE ON

PARTICIPATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Michel Samson

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning, committee members. It's a pleasure this morning to welcome our guests who are joining us. This morning we have with us the Co-Chairs of the Democracy 250 Committee - the Honourable Dr. John Hamm and the Honourable Russell MacLellan, former Premiers of the Province of Nova Scotia. Before we get started, if I could get the committee members to introduce themselves just for the record. Mr. Bain, if you would start.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, members, and we do have regrets from Graham Steele and from Dave Wilson, who were unable to be here this morning.

Gentlemen, as you know, our committee is similar to your committee and was formed as a result of a resolution of the House of Assembly following the last number of provincial elections and other elections. As elected members, we've become alarmed with the low voter turnout in the Province of Nova Scotia. As part of our mandate, we have been meeting with a number of stakeholders and we also underwent a tour around the province in order to meet with concerned Nova Scotians and with stakeholders as well through the focus groups that were held in order to solicit feedback as to what changes or recommendations we could possibly make to try to encourage more voter participation in our province.

Needless to say, our mandate and the mandate of your own committee share a number of similarities and as a result of that, committee members felt it important that we invite both of you to come in and share with us some of your own observations and possibly some recommendations you might have to share with this committee as to how we might go about encouraging more Nova Scotians and making it easier for them to exercise their right to vote come election time.

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With that, I would invite you to introduce some of the staff members who are joining you. We look forward to your presentation. As I'm sure you're well aware, committee members will more than likely have some questions for you at the end of your presentation.

DR. JOHN HAMM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With us today from the Democracy 250 team, we have Moira MacLeod and Amy Theriault.

Good morning, honourable members. I will make a short presentation and Mr. MacLellan will make a short presentation following which, if the technology gets sorted out, there will be a short video. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before the select committee because we believe some of the information that we have garnered will be of great interest to the select committee and will be of assistance to you in ultimately bringing to the House a report. Having said that, we certainly are pleased to have been invited here this morning.

Participation in the democratic process is an important topic and one that I am pleased to see honourable members turn their attention to. You no doubt will have many questions for Russell and for me and I will be fairly brief in my opening comments. I'm not sure about Russell. (Laughter)

Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said democracy is best served when citizens participate to the utmost. One of the objectives of the Act establishing Democracy 250 is - and I quote from the Act - "the education of young Nova Scotians and other Canadians on representative government and our parliamentary system, including the value of responsible government, and on democracy, including the importance of participation in the electoral process;"

When I assumed the role of co-chair of Democracy 250, I was aware of the low voter turnout among our youth and that this was a problem. I just had no idea of the extent of the problem. Like most Nova Scotians, I was shocked to learn that 75 per cent of youth under 25 didn't vote. I also quickly realized - I know that Russell agrees - that it would take time and the efforts of a whole lot of people to turn things around. It certainly wasn't going to be fully addressed within the relatively short life of Democracy 250, but it was in our mandate to make a start.

As members know, much of D250's youth campaign - which Russell will elaborate on in some detail shortly - was focused on non-voting youth. Pizza and politics involved elementary and junior high students; Province House tours involved boy scouts and cadets; Pier 21 Pavilion tours involved elementary students and girl guides. A particular highlight for me was our youth encounters - youth town hall meetings in consultation and collaboration with VOX, the provincial youth advisory council. D250 held eight of these meetings, one in each school board district with roughly 80 to 100 high school students within each of the representative boards attending.

[Page 3]

In total, we reached over 700 students during these sessions and hundreds more during our national and international youth conferences, including Historica Encounters with youth, Democracy 250's National Youth Symposium, which involved the Governor General, and EduNova's International Student Leadership Conference. This outreach meant that not only were Nova Scotia students involved in this process but students from outside of Canada and students from right across Canada, including students from Nunavut.

[9:15 a.m.]

We will be tabling a report on our youth town hall meetings that includes a summary of the students' responses to our youth town hall sessions - I also have here with us the actual surveys, should anyone want to read them. As you will see, we hit upon a winning formula, as far as the students were concerned, with our youth town hall meetings. During their interviews after these meetings, they made comments such as; "I want more of this", "Enjoyable to be in an interactive youth-oriented environment", "It would be great if you could do this from high school to high school", "Do it next year and every year", "It opened my mind", "Have more of these because they will really benefit the youth and the future of our country". "Bring on D251".

I think a large reason for the success of these encounters is that they were interactive and not rigidly structured. They allowed the students to share their opinions and debate topical issues with other students, many of these students they had never met before. They were informative, not preachy, not overly-instructive in nature or intent. The students participated in a mock vote and with the exception of a brief Q and A session over lunch, Russell and I mostly observed. When we did participate in group discussions with the students, it was at their request. What we observed through these sessions was both reassuring and eye-opening. These kids were engaged, thoughtful, knowledgeable, respectful of the others' opinions and clearly concerned about the issues.

During these sessions the students were accompanied by both parents and teacher chaperones. I'm sure the teachers were proud of the ability of the students to discuss with a great deal of insight topics like the environment, education, health care, the war in Afghanistan or crime in the streets. I think they were probably particularly pleased with the performance of students when they were asked to summarize, standing among their peers and summarizing the events that had been discussed. Many of them showed great poise, a great ability to be concise and to coordinate information. I was particularly impressed with the kind of performance these students were able to bring to the sessions. In fact, their questions to us were as tough and sophisticated as any I have heard from politically-seasoned adults.

The real eye-opener for me was their comments on why they believe youth don't vote. I expected to hear a lot about political cynicism, a lot about how politicians are all in it for themselves, or that they can't be trusted, or that they break their promises. We heard a little of this, for sure, but mostly we heard it is because the political, legislative and voting

[Page 4]

processes were a mystery to them. Many said they couldn't tell you who their MLA, their MP or their municipal representative is. They don't know the differences between the political Parties, they don't know the differences between the three levels of government or the difference between majority and minority governments and they don't know how a law is passed, which brings me to the recent testimony before this committee by officials of the Department of Education.

Mr. Chairman, I know members of the committee were surprised, if not impressed, as I was, at the amount of instructional material in our schools related to citizenship and governance. There appears to be an abundance of material available to teachers. There were instructional materials cited throughout P to 12, designed to help students achieve general learning outcomes. There were specific learning outcomes. Students were expected to meet these outcomes at a number of different grade levels and there were essential graduation outcomes.

A lot of expectations around learning about citizenship and governance. There were a lot of references to textbooks and other teaching resources. With all of these expectations and with all of the teaching resources in our classrooms, I can't help but wonder how it is possible that the students - the hundreds of students that we heard from - openly stated they don't know how laws are passed, what voting entails, who represents them at what level of government, and what level of government is responsible for what.

How is it that many of them told us they were not taught anything about the political or legislative processes in school? Again, some comments from our youth town hall session: ". . . honestly, before this, I had not a slight clue about democracy"; "Keep educating the people! We need political education in school!"; "Learned a lot today, more so than I have learned at school."

Again, the students were knowledgeable, engaged and articulate. I don't think it is a case that they all forgot what they had been taught. I can't help but think the prescribed curriculum isn't being applied or taught as broadly as it should be, or - as the department reported to you - there is a gap between the prescribed curriculum, the taught curriculum and the learned curriculum. It seems pointless to me to have a curriculum that is prescribed by the Department of Education, yet discretionary when it comes to instruction time. It seems rather strange to assign essential graduation outcomes to subjects that may or may not be taught and that the Department of Education can't confirm is being taught.

In fairness to the officials within the Department of Education, they know the value of teaching citizenship and governance within our schools. In fairness to our teachers, I know they are expected to cover a broad curriculum and a tremendous amount of material in roughly 185 teaching days. By and large, our teachers are doing a good job. I made mention of the strengths that students showed in these youth encounters but it also uncovered the

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glaring weaknesses that I've already related. In fairness to the students, something is wrong and needs to be fixed. More importantly, the students want it fixed.

Some other quotes: "Keep educating the people! We need political education in school!"; "I would love to see this around the province next year.;" "It would be great if you could do this from high school to high school."; ". . . honestly, before this, I had not a slight clue about democracy and all that jazz!"

I believe the Department of Education has expressed a willingness to review the prescribed curriculum for citizenship and governance in relation to the taught curriculum and the learned curriculum and that is a good place to start. Hopefully, such a review will identify deficiencies in the system that will be addressed.

Finally, before I turn things over to my co-chair, who will elaborate more fully on our youth campaign, I want to say that when we were planning our youth town hall meetings with VOX, they made a point of saying that they should result in something positive, that we shouldn't just be going through an exercise for the sake of going through an exercise, that we needed to listen to what youth had to say and, as adults, demonstrate to them that their voices were heard. Adding anything less would just fuel cynicism. That was a good point and a valid point and I hope the committee takes this point to heart.

One last point about D250's youth town hall meetings - loosely structured as they were, they were a hit with the vast majority of students. Consideration should be given to making this kind of format a regular part of the school year so more students nearing voting age can participate in a mock election, have time to question their municipal or federal representatives, and discuss issues and debate solutions with their fellow students. It would require a modest investment but it would be an important investment in youth and a worthwhile investment in the future of our democracy. Thank you.

HON. RUSSELL MACLELLAN: Thank you, John, and thank you to the committee for giving us the opportunity to come here this morning and to talk about an issue that I feel very strongly about and I know John feels very strongly about as well. John has given you a good overview of our youth town hall meetings and what we heard from the hundreds of students we encountered. He also left you with plenty of food for thought.

I would just like to add that like John, I was extremely impressed by the students we met through our youth encounters. I also believe that the vast majority of students we reached through our town hall meetings are much more likely to vote. In fact, we had some students who, when they first showed up, said they wouldn't vote and that voting doesn't matter. By the end of the day, they had changed their minds.

The youth town hall meetings, while central to our efforts to reach youth, were just one of the many initiatives we undertook to engage the students. I know many of you are

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already familiar with our D250 youth campaign but for the record, I'd like to highlight some others. We engaged a number of youth ambassadors to help get the message out about the need to vote an informed vote - Stephanie Hardy, Nikki Balch, Jordan Croucher, Chad Denny, Dwight d'Eon, Brad Marchand, Sarah Conrad, the "Pink Shirt Boys", DJ and Travis. They produced PSAs for the Make Your Mark campaign and were front and centre on our D20 Web site.

We launched an edgy youth-focused Web site and social marketing campaign called, Make Your Mark. We held a huge outdoor concert, 10,000 people attended, concerts at our universities took place and we took the message about the importance of democracy into our schools, through the performances by DRUM!, Symphony Nova Scotia and Jordan Croucher, with incredible feedback from the teachers and students alike.

As John referenced, we held a number of Pizza and Politics events with the younger students and did numerous tours of Province House with Boy Scouts, Cadets and other youth groups. We opened an interactive pavilion and I want to pass around feedback from the students of one class that recently visited the pavilion. We produced a number of youth videos, the latest in co-operation with the GPI - the Genuine Progress Index - and examines youth attitudes towards democracy in Canada, one of the world's oldest democracies, and Bhutan, one of its youngest democracies. We produced a really fun, creative DVD - Democracy for Little Learners, with Neeta Kumar-Britten, a teacher from Cape Breton, that elementary teachers can use as a guide for instructing students on the importance of thinking and speaking up for themselves.

We sponsored Student Vote, which allowed students in junior high the opportunity to vote during the last municipal elections. We have contributed to the interactive video game that Elections Nova Scotia is presently producing that enables students to participate in a virtual election. It was a busy year and, I believe, a productive year, that I believe will pay dividends in the years ahead.

That, Mr. Chairman, is a fairly quick summary of the highlights of what we have done to fulfill our legislative mandate to reach out to you, to educate and inform them on the democratic process and to hopefully engage their participation in future elections. We also brought along a brief clip from a mini documentary we are producing that I'd like to share with the committee. It's approximately five or six minutes long.

Before we show it, I'd like to address another issue raised during the presentation by the Department of Education officials, and that is the issue of politicians visiting schools. I understand some schools allow it and others don't - that is up to the principals to decide. I thought it might be useful to share a couple of comments from the students at our youth town halls. One is: "I'd like to maybe see some current politicians at these sort of gatherings."Another one was: "More person to person talk with the former Premiers between each group of topics would have been great."

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I believe the students would welcome opportunities to discuss issues with their political representatives. Perhaps rather than leaving the decision to the principals, it should be left to the students. I think it would be good for the students, good for the politicians, and as Ann Blackwood testified last month, it would be good for the Department of Education. Specifically she said :"It benefits us when MLAs become more familiar with schools, school practices, school programs."

I'm hoping that we can now use our remaining time to show you a brief segment from the mini-documentary that we're putting together that captures some of the youth outreach efforts, if that is possible. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much Dr. Hamm and Mr. MacLellan. We'd be more than happy to watch the video now before proceeding to members' questions.

[A video presentation was played.]

[9:30 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for the presentation and I did note that in the video the only disagreement there seemed to be amongst the students were the French students arguing with each other. Mr. Graham Steele, on our committee, was very puzzled as to why the Acadian ridings have the highest voter turnout, and I'm sure that video would have probably helped explain to him why Acadian ridings continue to have some of the highest voter turnouts.

Certainly, it was a very telling video and we certainly appreciate the comments that you made, and I know that committee members have questions.

MR. KEITH BAIN: Thank you both for all you've done the past year, and indeed your entire political lives, to promote democracy and democratic principles. I have a couple of statements I'd like to make and then a couple of questions.

Last Sunday I was walking out of church and one of the parishioners came up to me and started talking about the Democracy 250 program and said please don't stop this, don't let it stop, keep it going. It has put a new life in the ideas and the thinking of people, and we can't just let it die because it happened in 2008. So I think that's probably worth consideration for all of us in this committee and, indeed, in government.

I also had the opportunity to attend one of the youth town hall meetings at the North Star Inn in North Sydney, and I mentioned at the committee meetings before how impressed I was that the students who were there were so in tune. They were on top of things; they had knowledge of many of the events that were taking place within their community, and politically, but I think what was most evident was the fact that they were asked to participate.

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I think that in itself - student involvement goes a long way- and I think because these students were involved, it is going to spread. It'll make its own little garden, I guess.

The town hall meetings - what would you recommend, or would you recommend, I guess, continuing these town hall meetings beyond now and into the future?

DR. HAMM; We certainly had a lot of comments from young people relative to doing exactly that. The enthusiasm that was generated through these town hall meetings - each lasted some four to five hours - the enthusiasm was very, very encouraging. Let me make reference to the format because a lot of people put a lot of thought into what was the best way to engage young people, because there wasn't a format established as to how we were going to do this when we received our mandate.

Through consultation with VOX, and through the input of our very talented D250 support team, we came up with what we think proved to be a very good approach. The technique of initiating discussion that we use seemed to work extremely well. The facilitators were all young people, most not that far away in age from the students themselves and that seemed to work very well. It's not the kind of thing that I think necessarily would be well handled by older teachers, or certainly older politicians. They seemed to be very, very comfortable with the facilitators we chose - they tended to be university students, many taking a political science course, for example. They didn't provide any kind of a threat to the students, and I think that was one of the reasons that we succeeded. I think another reason that we succeeded is that there was open discussion and everybody was urged to contribute.

One of the things that I think has fallen by the wayside in today's society is the opportunity for broad-based discussion, so reintroducing that I think has worked very well. Research indicates that the best way to engage young people in community activism and in community involvement is through discussions, because it's certainly being suggested that discussion is not as prominent a feature in family life as it once was - our homes have all been invaded by technology.

If your question is what is our recommendation relative to the go-forward with these meetings, certainly the students encouraged the meetings to continue, and I think obviously the proponent of the meetings will have to change because D250 is a sunset organization and the two co-chairs are far too far along in life's road to undertake this as their life's work. I think the format is one that should continue and I think it's one we should encourage the Department of Education, or some other organization, to take up this particular challenge and to make that kind of approach available year after year.

I don't think we have to do much convincing to reinforce in this group the idea that repetition, when you're trying to change public opinion, is very, very important - "one-offs" simply don't work.

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I believe we have started something that has shown that it can work, and I'm hoping that the committee will give some long thought - and some serious thought - to a program not unlike what D250 has initiated, to become part and parcel of the next number of years to start bringing young people on board in terms of support for the political process, and also to encourage their involvement. So it's one of the things that we will be reporting to the Leaders of the Party - because one of the undertakings that we have is to report to the Leaders of all the political Parties - that they can use in their deliberations in terms of where they want to put their shoulder to this particular wheel.

[9:45 a.m.]

This comment also allows me to thank all members of the House for the non-partisan way in which all members have participated. I think that, in itself, has been a bit inspirational to young people, to see that politicians of all stripes, when faced with a very serious matter, can come to grips and work together for the common good. So I want to thank all honourable members here, and through you to thank all honourable members in the House, for the way in which they participated in promoting the D250 activities from one end of this province to the other, because without that kind of co-operation, D250 could not have had the broad-spread provincial application that it had.

MR. BAIN: Just one more brief question, if I could, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. MacLellan, you referenced the pavilion that we know is at Pier 21 - what are the long-term plans for that?

MR. MACLELLAN: For the pavilion? Yes, we're going to be turning it over to the Discovery Centre and we're working out an agreement now with them. We hope to have it going before school starts, in a full way, in conjunction with the Discovery Centre - before school starts next September. It's very important, this is quite an asset for us and, of course, those of you who know the Discovery Centre and the work they do, I think would be very supportive of them.

Our message, along with their message, and using this facility, I think can be a wonderful, wonderful tool for young people in this province. I'm very pleased with that and, hopefully, we can get this worked out and done as soon as possible.

I would like to echo what Dr. Hamm has said about the co-operation of all Parties. Really, "inspirational" is the right word and everybody - and I mean everybody - co-operated on this, and the caucus representatives were excellent. We, of course, couldn't have done it without that kind of co-operation. So it is important - both of us feel very strongly about this issue and about the continuing of it. It's important that it continue. A wise politician told me

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when I was a young Member of Parliament, he said that when you're tired of talking about something, that's when people are just starting to pick up on it. So it takes a while.

Look at the campaign Stop Smoking - how many years and how many people and organizations worked at that? And now we've reached the point where it's a pariah in society, smoking. Look at drinking and driving - it's the young people who led that movement, I mean it's the young people who said look, you've had a drink, Dad or Mum, you can't drive. So I think we're on the right track, but we've got to maintain it - and how we do it, as John has said, we put the challenge to you and the provincial Legislature to help us in this regard.

MR. BAIN: Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Bain. Mr. Dunn.

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and once again welcome to the select committee. I know you've had an extremely busy and very productive year, and I don't think you will realize the impact of what you have done this particular year until years to come - the spinoffs from it.

I've also had the opportunity to be extremely impressed with students when they are engaged in interactive, informative sessions that you were involved in for the past year, when given that opportunity. But I don't think they've been given that opportunity enough in the school system with regard to world politics, which I think has to change. There has to be something with regard to the curriculum to enhance that, because there's just not enough consistency, it's my belief, within the school curriculum for the youth.

I think Dr. Hamm did mention in his opening comments about the curriculum being somewhat discretionary at times, so I believe no wonder it's a mystery if they're not being involved in it and given the opportunity, because I believe youth are pretty sharp when you give them the opportunity to be engaged and so on.

The other thing, too, that I feel is different now than before is - and for the sake of putting a tag on it I'll call it "kitchen politics" - the kitchen politics around our province. In a lot of areas there doesn't seem to be any interest in discussing politics at home, because of the change in the lifestyle, because of many reasons - you mentioned technology, for example, and people are very busy, so the opportunity to sit down and get engaged on the home setting seems to have disappeared in many areas.

One question that interested me is you mentioned about the Democracy for Little Learners - thinking and speaking up for themselves is just something that you can see being engaged in our schools. Is there any process in place where . . .

[Page 11]

MR. MACLELLAN: Yes, that's going to become a very important book, I think, for Primary, Grades 1 and 2, particularly. Ms. Kumar-Britten has done an excellent job. This is really quite an impressive document and it's going to give the young people an idea of their importance, their self-importance, some self-value, plus get them on the right first step to community participation and good citizenship. She's done an excellent job and we're going to make sure that it is distributed - certainly we would like to make copies available to all members of the Legislature as soon as it is available.

I want to mention that the honourable member - who has been an excellent teacher himself as has his wife, a credit to the profession - I'm pleased that he has taken an interest in this because it's so important. As John has mentioned, there are a lot of documents and literature in the Department of Education made available to the schools, but we still have this disconnect. Even though Ms. Blackwood says we can't put more work on the teachers, and I agree with that, but we can't leave it the way it is. Something has to be changed; there has to be a new mix. Something has to be looked at so that the teachers aren't overburdened but the message and the materials are hitting home, and they're having the desired effect.

MR. DUNN: Another question - the mini-documentary, what are the plans for it? When will it be distributed and to whom will it be distributed?

MR. MACLELLAN: It will be distributed to each member of the Legislature, as well it's on the Web site now, and it will be made available as a general educational tool for the benefit of the province.

DR. HAMM: One of the challenges is, of course, before you can sell a solution, you have to outline the problem. This committee understands the problem, D250 understands the problem, Elections Canada and Elections Nova Scotia understand the problem. Part of what the documentary, I think, will be able to achieve is to indicate that there is an issue here, but there is a solution here. We believe the solution is a very good one, and one that now has a proven track record in terms of engagement, because that's obviously the centre of how this is going to be achieved.

I like the term kitchen politics, because kitchen politics, I think, is something that isn't nearly as common as it used to be, and it's one of the reasons why perhaps we're engaged in this kind of activity at this particular time. Discussion really works, and if there's one thing I have become convinced of as a result of the youth encounters, it is the value and strength of discussion with young people. It was absolutely encouraging to see the difference in young people at the beginning of one encounter, when you compared that to what their attitude was when they left - they became enthused and interested in what the topic was all about.

I think that the thing is doable, and when I say what is doable - engaging young people in the value of our democracy and the value of their participation.

[Page 12]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parker.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Good morning, fellow Pictonians. I want to thank you both very much, and your staff, for all the work you've done here on the Democracy 250 project. I guess it started off in 2007 sometime and it has really blossomed and grown over that time. I know initially there was some resistance to it, especially around the funding issues - people were concerned about the cost of it. But I've heard a lot of good comments and, as the year has gone by, people have become engaged in it, in our schools and our community institutions, heritage sites, community centres, Legions - it's really grown. I commend you for the work that has been done.

I guess there is an end date and it will wrap up at the end of this calendar year. My question is - you're going to have a chance, I assume, to make some recommendations on if anything moves forward from this - does it actually end at the end of 2008 or is there anything still going into 2009? Maybe it became a bigger project than you realized, but I'm sure it was grown from part-time to full-time work for both of you over that time. Can you just tell us about the end date and how recommendations might move forward from there?

DR. HAMM: Your last comment is one I can certainly agree with. It turned out to be a bigger job than either of us understood at the time we accepted the challenge. Having said that, it has been a very rewarding experience.

The celebratory aspects, obviously, will be over the end of the year - as a matter of fact, there are only a few left for the month of December. These are things that, obviously, are very crucial in various locations for that particular community to be involved in the D250 celebration.

The other thing is the wrap-up of the finances, because we certainly are responsible and accountable for the public funds that have come our way to put on this particular endeavour. We have to rationalize that with the province. We have to rationalize that with the federal government as well, who was a major contributing partner, as you know, for the celebration, because while much of this celebration was concentrated in Nova Scotia there also was a national and international element to the celebration. The reason the Canadian Government sponsored us and financed us is they understood this to be a national celebration, that we were celebrating the birth of democracy in Canada. We, in Nova Scotia, have particular ownership to all of this, but in reality this was the beginning of the Canadian democracy, so it is something even broader than the topic we're discussing here today.

Yes, we do wind down in terms of the celebratory aspects of D250, but there are some housekeeping issues that will continue on into the new year.

MR. PARKER: Okay, I want to shift gears and come back to a topic we've been discussing here quite a bit, and that's the disconnect in our schools between what is offered

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in the curriculum through the Department of Education and what you're hearing and what we heard. We heard the same thing, that students are graduating from high school and not knowing how to vote. There was one young lady in Cape Breton who appeared in one of our focus groups and she had no idea how to vote. She knew where to go, she knew where the polling booth was, but didn't know the procedure, didn't know the process. And that was not uncommon - it was expressed over and over.

[10:00 a.m.]

As you mentioned, people not knowing who their MLA or MP or councillor might be, or how to vote - just a lot about the democratic process they were unfamiliar with. We were quite impressed when the Department of Education staff were here, there was a tremendous number of textbooks that were passed around here and, wow, if they're getting all this, then they should know a lot. On the other hand, we heard that they were not getting that and I guess I'm trying to look at what are the solutions to allow students to come to get a better understanding about democracy. You know, getting MLAs or MPs, elected people, into the schools was one suggestion, although that's not always easy, and I think Model Parliaments were mentioned as another possibility. There seemed to be some cold water thrown on the idea of mandatory courses - they felt there were enough courses now and it was difficult to squeeze more in.

There was also a suggestion, I recall, that there be a travelling group that could go from school to school, maybe spend a week at a time at each school and really bring a lot of democratic education on a rotating basis. I want to ask you, then, what do you see as most workable, or what solutions would be out there to try to get our young people more educated in the schools?

MR. MACLELLAN: I think John mentioned one at the end of his presentation about continuing with the student groups and the visitations, having the mock vote and so on. There may be other solutions as well. I think we have to try new things. The first thing we try may not work as well as we would like, so maybe we try something new, or something in addition to that. We've got to do something.

We know what worked for us and our report states clearly that when you talk to young people you let them contribute, you let them be a part of the event. They will contribute. It's amazing how well versed these young people were on the subjects we discussed - education, Afghanistan, crime, environment, health care. They knew so much about it, but it was just the fact that somehow they didn't really - it wasn't really impressed upon them that to achieve what they wanted to see done they had to be part of the democratic process and to have an informed vote. I think we have to work on that. I think that's very important.

[Page 14]

And I want to apologize to the member for Pictou Centre. I think I said that Democracy for Little Learners was a book - it's a DVD.

MR. PARKER: I have one final question. In light of this problem of young people not voting as much as the rest of the population, one suggestion we've heard from time to time in our focus groups, in our committee moving around the province, is that we should lower the voting age to 16. I think I heard it in the video here, that one young lady said that if you become accustomed to voting while you're still in high school, you're setting that precedent and then it might carry on for the rest of your life, and vice versa if you don't. Do you have any thoughts on the voting age aspect?

DR. HAMM: That comment occurred on a number of occasions, although it didn't preoccupy the minds of all of the students at all. In the course of the encounters, we encouraged students to bring forward their own ideas and that was one that did come forward.

I'd like to comment on two things. First of all, your suggestion that one of the things the committee might suggest is a group that travels around - that may be a workable solution because we were able to engage a number of hundreds of students. In order to engage more, obviously it takes a more focused approach than we were able to deliver with D250.

One of the things I would encourage, though, is that this would be an independent group, because I had earlier made the comment that one of the reasons that these discussion encounters were successful is that the facilitators and the moderator were young people. They were not teachers; they were not aging politicians - they were young people with whom the other young people, the students, felt very comfortable. It would be difficult to do that under the auspices of the Department of Education, but much easier if a group such as VOX or - I'm just throwing that name out to illustrate that there are other options.

So yes, to reach more students it's going to take a concerted effort and a very organized approach on that one activity alone, so I think that suggestion is one that the committee might want to spend some time on. Perhaps there are other suggestions that you will entertain as well, but what we can't allow to happen is for this to lose focus - and you always, if you want to maintain focus, have to have a group initiating, promoting, and carrying out the activity that has one objective and one objective only.

That suggestion that you made is one that might work very, very well. Did you have another question?

MR. PARKER: Well, any thoughts on the voting age at 16?

DR. HAMM: Some of the students expressed the opinion that they felt that a younger voting age was appropriate. That's perhaps as much of a conclusion I could come to.

[Page 15]

Referring to what Russell said, what the students are lacking is the ability to connect the dots - I have an opinion on the environment, I have an opinion on health, how do I initiate change? They didn't associate that with the political process. The only way that you can really achieve real change is by influencing the political process and that obviously can take several forms. We encourage young people to understand what the political Parties are all about - one of the ways in which you can initiate change is to choose the political Party that best reflects your attitudes and become involved.

I was impressed when I listened to the discussion groups that went on at all of these encounters - how similar they were to the policy making discussions that occur when political Parties meet. The discussion was very, very similar - and for a group of people to come together and come to a conclusion on a particular subject. So these people who participated in the encounters would be ideal members for political Parties, and all political Parties in this province are trying to engage young people.

I think that what we have achieved is something that deserves a lot of attention by this committee. We certainly will make our recommendations and we will certainly try to influence the political Leaders in this province to make this one of the things that they will become interested in.

MR. PARKER: Okay, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Parker. I must say that while Mr. MacLellan may reside in Pictou County, I know that his heart will always be in Cape Breton. So just in case there was any doubt of that, Mr. Parker, I just wanted to make sure you are aware of that.

Mr. Theriault.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr. Hamm and Mr. MacLellan. I know you've put a lot of work into this, and I'm also pleased that I was on the select committee and went around the province - I've learned a lot myself. I've learned in the last five years since I started this - I've learned quite a little. But this past year of being part of this, I've learned a lot more.

I know we're focusing here on children today and that's a great thing, because if you want to change something in society you have to focus on the youth because that's where you'll change it down the road. Going around the province, we heard from a lot of adults, too, who were not voting - and more and more of them every year. We see the voting going down and it's not really caused by the children, it's caused by the people who aren't going out to vote. We heard many, many different reasons and I think it will all be in the document when it's done. I don't know if you've seen that yet. So there are things there that we need to correct, too.

[Page 16]

Will there be, in your recommendations, once you go through these documents that we collected around the province, will there be recommendations for present representatives and future representatives in the political field, the same as myself and the MLAs and municipal leaders and federal leaders - will there be recommendations of things that we can do and change to make people want to come out and vote for us? Will that be in your recommendation?

DR. HAMM: I hope the recommendations will generate interest in coming out and voting. What I can say that one of our recommendations will be is a more active engagement by the political Leaders in this province - municipally elected people, provincially elected people and federally elected people - to become engaged not only in promoting the partisanship that obviously exists in the political realm, but also in a non-partisan way to promote the democratic process.

Russell made reference to politicians making themselves available in schools, not in a partisan way but in a non-partisan way to promote the democratic process, to promote an understanding of the system and how well the system has served us and how much we have to be thankful for in this country that is a direct result of the democratic system that we've had in this country since July 1, 1867.

You know we're all very fortunate to be where we are. We're all very fortunate to have been born in Canada, but we didn't do a lot to generate that good luck - the system that we were born into did and will continue. I often made the comment that democracy very often is not pretty and democracy is not quick, but given time it always gets the job done. So if we can promote that kind of a concept, I believe that it will generate enthusiasm among people perhaps to reflect on how good things are in Canada and why they're good.

Unfortunately, people aren't necessarily relating the advantages we have in Canada with the political system we have in Canada, but they are very, very closely connected. We are just so fortunate to have the system that has served us all so well.

Part of what I think politicians have to achieve is to generate enthusiasm. Part of what we tried to do with Democracy 250 is generate pride of place. We, as Nova Scotians, should be so proud that we contributed to Canada the democratic system that has resulted in Canada being one of the most admired countries in the world. Pride is a great thing and for Nova Scotians to be proud of what we've accomplished is something that we tried to generate with the D250. We represent about 3 per cent of this country, from a population point of view, and yet we have perhaps contributed, as Nova Scotians, the greatest gift that this country has ever received - that being the system of government democracy that has allowed us to progress as a country in the way that we have over the last century and a half, since 1867. So, you know, we haven't made enough of this. We haven't as Nova Scotians been proud enough, as we should have been, over the fact that we gave this great gift to Canada.

[Page 17]

What Democracy 250 has attempted to achieve is to remind Nova Scotians and to remind Canadians of this great gift. I know it's a little bit broader than perhaps the discussion we're having today about promoting young people and their involvement in the democratic process, but it is something that I think was very, very important for Nova Scotia. When you lose your pride, everything becomes more difficult, and success becomes far more elusive. Pride can generate great, great success and, goodness knows, with the challenges that we face as a province today economically, our pride will have a great bearing on how successful we are in overcoming the challenges that we're all facing today.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. THERIAULT: Thank you. I just . . .

MR. MACLELLAN: Just one thing. We're talking about the group mainly from 18 to 25, but I think it's important to note that the voting rate isn't that much better in the group from 25 to 34. As the citizen gets older, the voting rate is lower. So we talked to other groups as well, and our best allies, of course, were seniors and they're very upset about their legacy and the fact that they may be passing on to their children a democracy that is weaker than the one that they enjoy. And it was funny talking to some of the people in their thirties and forties - they would say, I voted because my mother or my father said you go down to that polling station and you vote, there's no supper for you until you've voted. That's the way that they got started.

So, you know, it's a general question that has to be addressed I think to all age groups, but the greatest urgency is with the young - not only because of their vote, but because the world is changing so quickly. We not only need their vote, we need their ideas if we're going to bring our society into sync with the technology and the direction we hope to go.

MR. THERIAULT: Thank you, and I would just like to make a couple of comments. Going around the province we heard a lot that people's votes weren't important. So I just picked up on the film there, the six-minute document you had, that one young fellow said my vote is just as important as the Prime Minister's of this country. That caught my ear, and another comment I want to make is that in going around the province we heard about how the Acadians of this province come out and vote - you know, a big percentage, big percentage. Some said it was the people who were representing them, which I agreed with somewhat. (Laughter)

MR. MACLELLAN: Oh, yes.

MR. THERIAULT: I agreed somewhat there, but on the weekend home between the road tour, I spoke to a friend of mine, an elderly Acadian, and laid that question on him. He

[Page 18]

said son, we go out and vote because we lost our freedom here once and we're not going to lose it again. So with that, thank you.

MR. MACLELLAN: Good point. Yes, very good point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Theriault, and I always wonder why they start to laugh when you try to give credit to the Acadian representatives of those ridings - but, again on behalf of Wayne Gaudet, Chris D'Entremont, and myself, thank you for that little plug, Mr. Theriault. (Laughter)

Ms. MacDonald.

MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Dr. Hamm, Mr. MacLellan, and the staff as well, I want to thank you for a job that I know we all feel was very well done. It's impressive looking at the number of places you've been and the events you've done and have been involved in. I've been fortunate to meet with a couple of youth groups who are being supported by the D250 initiative and, as Mr. MacLellan said, these young people are really very, very impressive. They're bright, they're engaged and, you know, they're so hopeful. But that brings me to a concern that I have and I know we all share, and that's the young people who aren't so hopeful and are, in many ways, the most difficult perhaps to engage because of the extent of their lack of hope and alienation.

I have a couple of questions. I know we saw only a small segment of the full video but, in what we saw, we didn't see a representation of African Nova Scotian youth or newcomer youth in newcomer groups. I'm wondering, are they represented in the video, number one and, number two, to what extent were they engaged in the groups?

I know you have a couple of specific groups - I'm noticing the youth at risk groups and the Preston youth group, but one of the things that we have been concerned about, as a committee, is whether or not we're really engaging mostly the young people who are already engaged or more likely to be engaged anyway, that 25 per cent rather than the 75 per cent. So I'll stop there, that's one of my first questions.

MR. MACLELLAN: I haven't seen - I've just seen what you've seen. I know we had people from the Black community, the African Nova Scotian community, young people, coming to our sessions in the schools. Now whether they were prepared to be interviewed and to state their positions, I really can't say. But you're absolutely right, it's very difficult to say who is in the 25 per cent and who is in the 75 per cent. We can suppose that this person is in the 75 per cent because their level of hope is very low, but we can't be sure.

I know what you mean, and I agree with you completely. And that's why, when we talked about Model Parliaments, Model Parliaments tend to involve those who are already

[Page 19]

interested in politics and, while they're good, there's a lot of work involved in them - and can this work be better put into something like what we did?

A lot of the students said gee, I really got so much out of this, I only wish a lot of my friends could have been here to experience this. I must have had nine or ten of them tell me that personally, not to mention the comments that they left with us. So that's an important factor to consider in where we go from here.

DR. HAMM : We asked ourselves the same question. The question is are we seeing a representative group of students or are we seeing a special group of students? Probably we were seeing a bit of a special group of students, the students who would sign up to give up a school day, get on the bus, and travel to the youth encounter.

One of the reasons why we have to broaden the approach is to get at not only the exceptional young people but the average young person in this province, because obviously we want to be able to influence all of our young people in this positive way. If you look at the numbers, we have about 140,000 students in our school system in this province and we have met, through the youth encounters - now quite a number of students, with our other activities, too, but focusing just on the high school youth encounters - 800. What we're hoping, of course, is that these people will - and we actually made this point with them, to encourage them to be advocates of this with their peers because peer pressure works with young people, and we made reference to that in terms of the approach to the encounters themselves. That's a question we did ask ourselves and for which we don't have an accurate answer, but broadening the approach to students will partly address the issue that you're bringing to the table, and that is getting to the students perhaps who are less motivated, perhaps who have had less advantage in this province than others.

What I can say directly - there were a number of African Nova Scotians participated and certainly they were very much in evidence, more so in some groups than others because, as you know, our African Nova Scotian communities are not spread equally around the province, so there was a bit of a difference in terms of the groups. But that is a very, very good question and one that we have to come to grips with if, in fact, this is to become an ongoing initiative.

MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Absolutely. As you know, I represent a constituency that has a fair population from the African Nova Scotian, and newcomers, First Nations off-the-reserve population, just a lot of young working class youth - and so many young people now are doing part-time jobs. As a social worker, I think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and voting is sort of at the top of the pyramid - you know, it's more of an abstraction for people and they have to have their basic needs met first. It's a struggle for many young people, they have hectic lives and a lot of pressure.

[Page 20]

So it's how do we get to those young people in a concrete way, and one of the things that I've often thought about, and I've observed in our own Legislature over the time I've been there, are the number of people who are involved as adults who actually probably started their careers as politicians in student politics. I'm not sure how strong or how uniform a system of student politics we have in our school system that provides an opportunity for engagement of young people, where they're at on the issues that they're most concerned about and that would allow them to start at a young age to develop the skills and the interest in the political process - I don't know if that came up in any of the groups that you had. Did young people talk about their own student politics and their own opportunities rather than looking at the adult system?

I think there used to be a much more robust system of student politics in our schools - I don't know where that's gone and I'm interested to know if there were any thoughts about that.

DR. HAMM: Well, my answer to that question would be - and I would certainly encourage Russell to give his view on it as well - that there wasn't a lot of discussion in the high school level about political partisanship in the schools. As a matter of fact, what we heard is that partisanship is not something that they encourage and that they are enthused about - that must be something that comes on later in life, but . . .

MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: If I could just interject for a moment, I'm not thinking about a partisan political activity, I'm just thinking about student councils and that kind of stuff in the school system.

DR. HAMM: Yes. Student advisory councils, student councils and so on, that certainly provides some rudimentary introduction to the political process - it involves voting, it involves campaigning and so on. It involves taking positions on objectives and finding a way to have those objectives met, and I think that is very, very helpful. However, there wasn't a lot of discussion in our sessions about that. There was some peripheral discussion on it, and I think intuitively one would think that it is a positive thing for the initiative that we're involved in, but there wasn't a lot of discussion, certainly, that I was involved in around those issues.

MR. MACLELLAN: No, there wasn't and I think a lot of it has to do with the general decline in volunteerism. They're not seeing it at home; they're not seeing involvement at home and, as Mr. Dunn has said, kitchen politics now is very much diminished from the way it was years ago - and I think it goes right down the line to the children in school, volunteerism is not considered a noble activity, and that's really a tragedy.

DR. HAMM: The Make Your Mark program, because obviously that began to be recognized around the province, the tag line, Make Your Mark, it's not only a program to encourage involvement in the political system, it's also a program to encourage young people

[Page 21]

to become involved in their communities, because research indicates that young people who become involved in their communities are very likely to become involved in the political process as well, and political activism.

[10:30 a.m.]

So the Make Your Mark program is directed not only at electoral involvement, political involvement, but also community involvement. I was impressed because one of the things we did, we looked at research in terms of how you achieve what we were trying to achieve and we certainly came to the conclusion that encouraging community involvement encourages the kind of involvement that we're talking about here today.

MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Okay, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. MacDonald.

Mr. Dunn.

MR. DUNN: Mr. Chairman, just perhaps a couple of comments, and I'm zeroing in on my area of beautiful Pictou County and glad to have a couple of Premiers living in my constituency (Interruption) the present and future Premiers and Leaders of the Parties will probably migrate to Pictou County after they retire. (Laughter)

Anyway, with regard to feedback, I have received considerable positive feedback, not only from students but also from adults, and the adults felt that what occurred this year was extremely necessary, that they wish it had started even years before. So there's a lot of positive feedback.

Going to our school system, I really believe strongly that I think you have to have fun with politics in the classroom. You have to be enthusiastic about it, just as we had a very enthusiastic D250 committee and staff members who were very enthusiastic about democracy. If you can have that, I think they'll see the connection between their lives and the worlds that they live in and the political world and so on.

Sometimes, unfortunately, if you have someone who is involved in that as an instructor and it's just a task to get over with, it's in their way, they know they have to do it so let's get it done and get it over with, if that fun is not there, that enthusiasm is not there, I think that spreads a pretty deliberate message to the receiver. So I can envision having a lot of fun in the classroom, fun with politics from any grade level - I don't care if it's Grade 1 or if it's Grade 9 or whatever.

I just want to make those comments, and again, in closing, I want to thank you again for your devotion to this particular D250 during 2008. Thank you.

[Page 22]

MR. MACLELLAN: Thank you very much. I must say how times have changed and how much better things are today in one respect - people are now claiming I'm from that jurisdiction. When I was in politics they were quick to say no, no, he's not from here. (Laughter)

DR. HAMM: I'd like to put on the record, Mr. Chairman, that three former Premiers live in Pictou County.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's true enough, true enough.

Mr. Bain, quickly.

MR. BAIN: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make an observation that someone made in a telephone conversation with me yesterday, and it is concerning what is presently taking place in Ottawa.

We've been talking about educating the youth and this person said to me that regardless of the outcome of what happens with what's happening in Ottawa, people are being educated now, young and old alike, about our political system, about our constitution - I know that wasn't the intent of what has been taking place, but little did they know that they are now educating people with the tremendous media coverage this is getting and everything, people are being educated and we might see a change in voting patterns as a result of something like that - just an observation.

MR. MACLELLAN: And as I said earlier, it's dispelling the myth that Canadian politics is dull.

I just want to make one comment, too, about democracy and why, you know, we feel so strongly about it. There are other freedoms besides democracy and the right to vote - freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and the rule of law - but the problem is, the most important one by far is democracy because if we lose our democracy, we will soon lose the other freedoms. They'll just go like dominoes and we have seen this in countries where democracy has disappeared and that's why this is the linchpin for all the freedoms that we have is a democracy. It doesn't stand still - it either gets stronger or it gets weaker and like so many other things. So we maintain there's only one option and that it get stronger.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. MacLellan. I've had the opportunity to speak to a number of students over the years and as a result of some of my work with the French parliamentarians, I've visited countries, especially in Africa and in Asia. What's interesting, when one sees how those countries have lived under dictatorships, they've lived through war, they've lived through famines, through unrest, and to watch, having observed elections, women bearing small children stand in 48 degrees Celsius heat for three hours in a line so they could get a chance to cast their vote and the fact that we've never known that here in

[Page 23]

Nova Scotia - I always thought if there was any way of being able to take that experience and bring that to Nova Scotians and say here is what people in the world are fighting for, something that we take for granted.

You spoke earlier about the role that youth have played in other campaigns, whether it be cessation of smoking, or drinking and driving. One of the presentations we received when we went around the province was from the Richmond County warden, John Boudreau, who talked about the success that the recycling campaign has had and how he credited it with youth and the work in the school system - how that has produced the results we've achieved. Richmond County continues to be one of the leaders along with Nova Scotia. He mentioned of how young people at home, if a parent went to drop a recyclable in the garbage, there would be almost civil unrest in the home when that would happen and he encouraged us to use that same approach when it comes to voting in that, if nothing else, the children are going to guilt the parents into voting because I think you're correct in what you pointed out, is that it's not just the 18 to 25, it's your 18 to 40, if not 45, who are not voting.

So the parents of these children that you met with are not voting themselves which is one of the problems and so I completely agree with what the other committee members have said, that the work of D250 has to somehow continue, and the question is how do we continue that and keep pounding away at that message. Recycling didn't happen overnight, but today people wouldn't dream of throwing a pop can in the garbage but it took a lot of years and a lot of work to get that message across. So we need to use that same approach.

I was curious and you did make a brief comment about the model parliament system. I grew up in the Model Parliament system with the late Roy Boudreau in Richmond County and the success and the interest it created in the school. While it did bring together some of us who were already engaged, we dragged long with us some of the people who weren't engaged and all of a sudden they became Ministers of the Crown and some were very interesting backbenchers, but it created a level of interest.

The concern always seems to be that there's no coordinated approach to Model Parliaments in this province. Schools are left to their own, school boards are left to their own, and I've always been an advocate that we need the Speaker's Office and Legislative Counsel to lead the charge and to go to the schools and say here is the template, here is how it can be done, and here are the support staff rather than asking the teachers to bear the burden, we will bring in a staff that will help you run this election and run the model parliament so that the kids get the best benefit of it. I'm just curious what your views would be on that and any feedback you receive from jurisdictions that still continue some form of Model Parliament?

MR. MACLELLAN: The question was, where do we start? What's going to be the most beneficial thing? Model Parliaments are a lot of work. It takes a lot of organizing and, as you say, left to a few people, it's a very difficult project and can we bring in enough

[Page 24]

people who are not really predisposed to vote now, and perhaps get them involved and have them vote in the future? That's a good question.

I'm not saying Model Parliaments aren't useful, because they are. It's just until we get more people involved - and we've got to go primarily with the events that are going to get as many young people interested in democracy and voting as we possibly can with the support that we have now and if we don't have the support, can we create the support to do this? That's so important - getting young people - because all the things that we've mentioned like drinking and driving, smoking, littering and recycling, all have been started by the young people. They have been the main proponents and the agitators of saying look, you've smoked, or you had a drink and you were driving, you threw the pop can in the garbage and a pox on you for doing those things.

With regard to voting and democracy, it's the other way around - it's the young people who were the least enthused about this. It's upside down as far as an important movement is concerned. So until we get the young people enthused and onside, we're going to be fighting an uphill battle. We've got to do something or some things immediately. Carrying on with the work of Democracy 250 certainly to me is paramount because I think we've done a lot of not only good work, but we've a lot of information that would help the next stage and where we go from here. We just can't waste time on it, democracy is just too important.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm curious what your thoughts are, having attended a number of schools both within Richmond and outside Richmond. One of the questions that comes from young people is, what do you do? It's not just a question of voting, but what do you do? What's your typical day and what is it that you do up in the city?

When I was first elected, one of my cousins who is a teacher said, do you have a video or anything that I can at least show my class to give them a sense of what it is that you guys do, that's going to be short, brief, but is going to at least give them a sense? When I looked into it, the last time a video was done, Paul MacEwan was the Speaker of the House and Alexa McDonough was still the leader of the NDP. So needless to say, it was a long time ago; but it was actually a really good video because it showed committee work such as this; it showed caucus meetings; it showed a bit of the Legislature, how that process works, and it was a fairly well-rounded video.

We don't have any of that right now and when people ask, I don't think they can even find that old video from the Paul MacEwan days. I'm just curious what your take would be on how useful that would be as part of the learning tools that we do give to our school system, having some sort of Parliamentary video put together.

MR. MACLELLAN: I think it would be very helpful.

[Page 25]

DR. HAMM: That's not one that I had thought about, actually, so that old video is something that I had forgotten about. One of the things we are doing, though - as part of the D250 initiative - is, we are bringing up-to-date that legislative booklet that you've all seen that took us up to about 30 years ago and we're arranging to have that modernized and, as well, brought up-to-date. I used to find that very, very useful in describing what is going on at Province House and a little bit of the history of how the democratic process evolved here in Nova Scotia.

If the committee would give me two minutes, I'd like to share a very powerful statement. I think it perhaps emphasizes the value of group discussion. This doesn't relate to one of the high school youth encounters, it relates to one of the university encounters that we did because we also did these in the universities. We were at Cape Breton University, Russell and I were sitting at the centre and we were surrounded by students of Cape Breton University. It was a free-flowing discussion around the democratic process and many comments were being made about some of the negative things about politics, negative things about the government and so on. And as university students are wont to be, they were very, very forthright in the discussion. It was a good discussion, and after about an hour I noticed there was a chap who hadn't been participating. I did know that he was an international student, but he hadn't participated in anything up to this point.

[10:45 a.m.]

Finally, he rose and said, Mr. Chairman, I don't think this group understands what this topic is all about. He said, in the country where I come from, there is no democracy. He said, if we were to sit around and make the comments about the government that are being made here tonight, you well could disappear and nobody would look for you. That was more powerful than anything Russell or I were to say all evening, or any of the other students were to say all evening. I think everybody in that room understood from that short anecdote what this was all about. It's the freedom and the protection that we have as individual citizens that we enjoy here in Canada and take for granted.

It is something many people in the world do not experience. Less than half the people in the world are living in a democracy, so the other half, greater than half, are living in the kinds of conditions that you described. It's interesting, sometimes when you open a discussion, you don't really, perhaps, appreciate where it's going to lead or what's going to influence the people who participate in that discussion. I was, and will be, eternally grateful for that student who I think impacted the views of everyone in that room that evening, relative to the value of our democracy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. Hamm. One of the main things that D250 did was coordinate a number of visits to the Legislature. Again, that's one of those things that are hit and miss around our province; certain schools participate, certain school boards participate, others don't. I have some schools in Richmond who do it and then they don't do it. What

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value do you see in having- whether we start and say all Grade 5's from here forward or all Grade 7 classes from here forward, will at least make one trip to the Legislature a year so that you know that throughout the school system, they've at least gone there once - what value do you put on having that type of system put into place, of coordinating and supporting the schools and making sure the kids throughout the province have the opportunity to experience the Legislature?

MR. MACLELLAN: I think it is of significant value if proper preparatory information is given before they visit. If you just put the young people on the bus and take them to the Legislature without them having any idea of what the Legislature does or what it's doing at the particular time, I don't think they'll get a lot of value. But, if they have an idea of what the Legislature does - and I think this is another reason for the visiting of politicians to the schools. They feel part of it. If they talk to a politician, it's amazing, they feel part of the system and then the Legislature is part of the system, so they get two parts of the system. They really get energized by that. It's remarkable. They don't feel like they don't count anymore, like nobody's going to bother to tell them, we want you to vote, but we don't see them otherwise.

I don't know if this is related or not, but I was at the Grand Parade on Remembrance Day and I couldn't get over it. Honest to heavens, if someone fainted, they wouldn't be able to hit the ground. The place was packed. The number of young people - it wasn't a question of they were all in favour of war or anything, they were there to honour those who gave their lives. It was really quite moving. You were there Maureen, and it was certainly the most moving Remembrance Day I can remember at the Grand Parade.

So, something is happening with our young people. They're listening. The thing is, how do we draw them out as far as interest in democracy and the system of government that we have? They're ready to listen and I feel if we don't energize that interest, then we can't really blame them, we've got to start blaming ourselves, and that would be a tragedy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that comment because one of the messages - and I think we've heard this around the committee in some of the presentations - is that there seems to be a renewed interest among our young people in honouring veterans and honouring the sacrifices made, but somehow we failed to connect the dots amongst our young people that wearing a poppy and showing up for Remembrance Day is one thing, but not going to vote almost discredits the respect you showed because these people went and gave their lives so that you'd have the right to vote and you'd have the right to freedom, the right to assembly and everything else. So somehow we've failed to connect the dots for them but I think the opportunity is there because there is a renewed interest and a renewed support for that.

I'm curious - we've heard presentations about Internet voting, new technology and everything else. What sort of feedback have both of you received from young people when it comes to the way we conduct our voting process, the paper ballot and the system that

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we've used, which is the system we've used for the longest time? What sort of feedback did you get from young people regarding the way we even conduct elections and the voting process itself?

DR. HAMM: Mr. Chairman, before I attempt to answer that, could I make short comments about your other two observations? First of all, we've all noted increased participation at Remembrance Day services and I believe the schools can take a lot of credit. I think our teachers can take a lot of credit for that because certainly in our area the increased participation is a direct response to the attention the teachers are giving to this particular day and remembering our veterans.

Number two, I've noted a great difference when I was at One Government Place when I would be invited to go to meet with classes, there was always a greater degree of insight and knowledge of all of these things in those classes that had made a trip to the Legislature. So in an attempt to answer that question, there was a noticeable difference in those students compared to students in classes that hadn't had a visit to the Legislature.

There was some comment about electronic voting and the ease of voting and so on because obviously the demographic group that we're talking about are very, very engaged in the electronic age and they get all of their information electronically now. Newspapers and books do not play the role in their lives that those media played in my life, for example.

Yes, I think it might be intriguing to young people who do so much of their business now electronically, that I think it would be a step forward, for a number of reasons, because it allows you to vote remotely, which is important to some people and necessary because of lifestyles today. I think it would be intriguing in terms of making a statement about modernizing the democratic process, and there were students who did bring that up.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, on behalf of the committee - oh, Mr. MacLellan.

MR. MACLELLAN: We were anxious to get the voting rates among young people and other age groups for this last federal election, compared to the federal election before, where we have the 1.2 million not voting. They're somewhat blurred by the fact that in this election, people needed identification and a lot of young people didn't know they needed identification.

You read the card that is sent in the mail to look for where the voting takes place, the address. You don't read any further, quite often. So they didn't take their identification and when they weren't allowed to vote because they didn't have identification, they went home and didn't come back. I think that's something we have to look at in the next election as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I can assure you that many of the presentations that we received from throughout the province gave that comment loud and clear and I'm sure Elections Nova

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Scotia was listening very intently to those comments at the same time. For many seniors, it was the same and it was bizarre in communities such as with my own neighbours who have known each other all their lives - one working in the poll said no, you can't vote because you don't have your driver's licence, and they live next door to each other. It was completely bizarre and strange but, regardless, on behalf of the committee I want to extend my sincerest thanks to both of you for coming here today and for your support staff who are here as well.

I think, Dr. Hamm, you weren't able to join us for the Speaker's dinner and while we don't usually repeat too much of what goes on at the Speaker's dinner, I can tell you that all members and all leaders certainly extended their sincere gratitude to both of you for your personal interest in this. I believe your careers in politics and outside brought great credibility to the effort of D250 and a great deal of the success that was achieved is because of the personal integrity both of you brought to this effort.

Again, it's our task now to continue the legacy that you've started, to see that it was not in vain and that it can continue. I think Mr. Dunn was right in saying it may take years to see the results, but we can't wait years and rest on our laurels, we have a lot of work to do and I believe this committee is going to do its best through its recommendations to continue that work and continue the success that we have seen.

So, again on behalf of all the committee members, we thank you for your presentation, for your honest comments here this morning, and if either of you are prepared to tell us how the Governor General is going to rule this morning, we would be most interested in hearing once the committee rises. Again, our sincerest thanks and if there's anything further that you feel would be important for our committee to receive from D250, by all means feel free to have your staff forward that to us and we appreciate the opportunity to work in collaboration with you and, hopefully, our success will be judged in the years to come.

DR. HAMM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman; thank you, committee; and thank you, staff.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 10:56 a.m.]