HANSARD
NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
PARTICIPATION IN THE
DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
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
[Mr. David Wilson, Glace Bay, was replaced by Mr. Wayne Gaudet.]
Staff Attendance
Ms. Margaret Murphy - Legislative Librarian
Mr. David Whynacht - Communications Nova Scotia
Ms. Christine McCulloch - Nova Scotia Chief Electoral Officer
Ms. Kim Leadley - Select Committee Clerk
Mrs. Sherri Mitchell, Select Committee Clerk
Witness
Ms. Paula Romanow - Research & Statistical Officer
[Page 1]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to have you here for our meeting today. We're starting a little bit behind schedule, but we now have enough members to meet our quorum requirements and we're prepared to proceed.
Just for the record, if I could have members identify themselves for Hansard.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: We also have a number of representatives from some of our support organizations for the Select Committee on Participation in the Democratic Process. The purpose of today's meeting was to get an update from our Research and Statistical Officer, Paula Romanow, as to the work plan that she has put together and to receive some input from committee members as to what she has proposed. So without further delay, Paula, I would invite you to address the committee on what you have proposed to go forward.
MS. PAULA ROMANOW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The work plan is essentially the same as the one that I had presented a few weeks ago, I just incorporated the changes as directed by the committee in terms of the fact that the MLAs will be the ones doing the public consultation and, off the top of my head, I can't remember what the second change was. There was just a little elaboration on that, I think, and that was the only change.
The other thing that I prepared for the committee's consideration is the various types of public consultation processes, the public meeting being one of them, and then a series of other things. Do you want me to go through that, Mr. Chairman?
[Page 2]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure.
MS. ROMANOW: Okay. I think we discussed at the last meeting, and I know from Hansard in previous meetings, that when you're trying to find out from people why they are not engaged in the public governance process that holding public meetings and hoping they come is probably the least efficient way of doing that because if they aren't engaged in the process, they probably aren't going to be attending public meetings.
So from the direction from the committee, I had put together some other alternate methods of holding public consultation which boiled down to essentially talking to smaller targeted groups to get the information. Has everybody had a chance to go through the document that I prepared? I will go through it quickly. I just don't want to take the time if people have already read it.
Basically, the rationale, as I said, is essentially that public meetings are probably not the most efficient way, for this particular topic, to find out why people are not engaging in the public process. There are a number of other methods which are common to research, basically, to finding out information from groups of people. I put together a chart, which looks at some of the pros and cons of the various ways, and then some recommendations. So I will just very quickly go through the chart, as I have it laid out.
[1:15 p.m.]
The first is the typical, traditional method of the open public meeting, which is the panel of committee members with the microphones and the public comes to the microphone and talks. As I said, this probably is not the most efficient way for people who are not wanting to participate, it's probably not the best way of getting them in, because they aren't going to come to the meetings. There is also the issue that sometimes that kind of information is used by members of the public, rightly or wrongly, as a chance to vent, which is good for them and their participation but not necessarily the most efficient means of getting information out there and keeping them on target to the particular topic. And, in fact, as I said, not everybody is comfortable getting up in front of a microphone and speaking. So that's sort of the short version of the open public meeting.
We also have the option of on-line surveys and I think that they're already - Margaret, is it already up, this survey on-line for the Web site? Just a feedback? Okay. That's another possibility, a survey questionnaire with the same information, again, open to members of the general public. The pros of that are that people can just go on-line and fill it out on their own. They don't have to attend a meeting, they don't have to make time for it. Usually, it's fairly quick and the survey can certainly be targeted to get specific information.
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However, the drawbacks to that are numerous in that, first of all, you have to know the survey is there in order to participate, so it requires some advertising to let people know. Secondly, people typically need to have access, preferably to high-speed or else it becomes a bit of a clumsy process because of the technology and the time it takes and not everybody is computer-literate. Again, people who aren't engaged in the process are probably not going to take the time to go on-line, search it out and fill in a survey. So those would be kind of the pros and cons of it.
Following on that, of course, is a phone survey, the typical phone poll kind of thing, random sampling, although you can do random sampling from specific demographics. You can get very specific information, but often people don't want to talk to people phoning. They don't like responding to phone surveys, that kind of thing. Often, part of the problem with the way that most surveys for the phone and also for the computer are put together is that you're asking for specific information so you can get - as is the problem with most statistical data - you can find out the "what" fairly easily but finding out the "why" is not necessarily so easy because quite often people don't want to answer the open-ended questions - you know, where you have "Any other comments, please fill in," they never do. So there certainly is a place for both of those kinds of things, but they're not necessarily the most efficient way.
Focus groups and targeted meetings are the two which, when I get to recommendations I'm going to suggest might be the most efficient way of getting the information we're after. Focus groups - typically, you look at between six to 12 people. They're good in that you can target the audience that you're trying to get information from, so if you're trying to find out why members of the African-Nova Scotian community choose not to participate, well, then you can go to those organizations and ask the question specifically of that - First Nations, ethnic communities, young people, et cetera. It's often the best way because you're targeting very specific populations.
It's a more informal sort of chat, as opposed to guided discussion, shall we say, typically with somebody facilitating and asking the questions but with input from all parties. People are usually more open to speaking in a focus group because there are just a few people, they can bounce ideas off of each other.
One of the things, if we were going to choose that route, is that it would be important not to have more members of the committee than members of the audience that you're talking to. So if, for instance, we wanted to have a focus group with, say, 12 individuals and maybe five committee members, if you wanted that many, or three, that's something you would have to keep in mind.
The down sides to it are that if you go to the organizations specifically targeting those communities, they may not necessarily give everybody in their own constituency a chance to speak. They then become selective and choose who you want. So again you might then
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have problems. We're not really hearing from the people who we absolutely need to hear from, which are the people on the street who don't want to participate. But that's really the only drawback and as long as you make it very plain to the people who are organizing the group or selecting the participants that you're trying to get a good cross-section of the population, usually most people are amenable to that and they're quite good at finding people who are vocal and who are representative of the population.
Targeted meetings are not dissimilar to focus groups, except it's a meeting that has already been scheduled, like a board meeting, for instance, for the confederation of Mi'kmaq chiefs or whatever. So you asked if you can attend one of their meetings, so you have them, and it's carried out in the same kind of way, the difference being that they want to participate. So you need to be invited - if it's already a meeting they've got set up to discuss their own issues, do they really want to take the time for committee members to come and talk to them? That's sort of the biggest drawback to doing that.
But in my experience of setting up with those, it's kind of the way the media does editorial boards. Typically they're quite open to having that conversation, as long as the understanding is you have to - one of the problems is that you have to book it far enough in advance that they know that's going to come.
Again, it's fairly relaxed, it's a good forum for getting lots of participation and lots of chat going. You could do things that we talked about, like social studies classes or the Acadian Congress - which sadly is not being held this year, it's next year and it's in New Brunswick - but those kinds of meetings that are already scheduled.
Now when we get to the recommendations, having gone through the events for the groups that I recommended and looking at others, sadly most of those events are actually happening in the summer, and if we're looking at the optimum period of September/October for the public consultation period, there's not a whole lot of those on the board right now, outside of boards of directors meetings and that kind of thing, on which we can sort of piggyback.
Phone-in shows - well, sadly there aren't any any more in terms of Rick Howe's show that got taken off the air, certainly in metro, but there are in other parts of the province. So the media is actually not a bad way of getting public consultation, because quite often people who wouldn't come to a public meeting or don't want to play in any other way are quite happy to phone and talk to the media - you know, use the media as their own outlet. Of course, the downside to that is sometimes they're just phoning to vent, and they're not really being particularly productive in doing so.
It's very much a broader base of participation, so you really are reaching the person on the street. The downside, of course, is that sometimes people don't want to do that, but that's another thing. The other side of that is again only one or two committee members, with
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a moderator, would be able to talk, but that's certainly an option for it. Those are sort of the major ones that are out there, short of going to malls and asking people - there's that "man on the street" kind of thing, or person on the street.
My own recommendation on all of this is that a mix of these methods would probably be the most effective for getting the information we need and if, in fact, we are looking at the September/October period for doing this, then we'd need to get working on it quite soon, because most of these groups need some lead time.
One of the things we had also discussed was that Democracy 250 is covering youth pretty thoroughly and their work is over in October. Hopefully we can use their information without reinventing - you know, duplicating what they've already done. So that's one segment that we may want to sort of move - we'll do them if we have time, but the other ones are the priority because that information already exists - or not - but that's a thought if that demographic has already been covered.
Military members, I had suggested First Nations, African-Nova Scotians, seniors, military members, various poverty action groups, because from the literature and from just the anecdotal evidence and talking to the MLAs that I've talked to so far, and their staff, those typically are the people who are not engaging in the process. So if they're the ones we want to find out, then those would be the groups that we want to talk to. What I've done - and I won't go through it - I've listed under those groups sort of the main bodies of organizations that deal with those particular demographics and they're probably the groups that you might want to approach to help us organize meetings with them. So that's what I have to say, and feedback would be great so we know what route to go.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Gaudet.
MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, before looking at ways of reaching out to the general public, I'm just wondering, does this committee have a budget they need to work with?
MR. CHAIRMAN: We certainly do and that's always a consideration in everything. All of the decisions we make are the overall costs that are going to be involved. I don't have the exact budget figures in front of us, but we have allotted for a number of different ways of being able to get the feedback from Nova Scotians. We haven't made a final decision yet as to what that's going to look like, but we have provided in our budgetary estimates the costs of potentially doing an MLA tour around the province, which is one of the most expensive options looked at. So that's in the budget. So if we go another route, it should not be an issue because we did budget for the most expensive option when we put our budget together. Mr. Parker.
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MR. CHARLES PARKER: Thank you, Paula, I've looked through this - I guess you faxed it to me overnight, or I got it this morning anyway, so I had a chance to look at it, and after our conversation there yesterday. Looking at the various options or the different types of ways of trying to get input here, most of them are random or targeted, but I'm still wondering about individuals out there. I suppose if they have access to a computer, they have the ability to go on-line but certainly as we know, people don't have that either, and I'm just wondering if we're missing some of the folks out there who may have some good ideas or may have some input. I'm thinking particularly in rural Nova Scotia where there's perhaps less availability of computers, you know, there might be some people who would like to present or like to give their information and maybe there's another way to do it. Are there written submissions being taken or not? I didn't see that mentioned.
MS. ROMANOW: I haven't put those in but that's certainly another option. Again it boils down to, if the demographic we're trying to reach is those who don't engage, are they going to take the time to sit down and write something?
MR. PARKER: And less likely maybe then, you know - I guess your first option here is around open, public meetings, and we've talked about that. There are certainly some drawbacks to it, but I feel there may still be some avenue for at least a few of those meetings in strategic areas to allow the person who maybe doesn't have access on-line or is not comfortable with that or is not targeted or random selection, but it still gives them the chance to come out and say, here are my ideas on how we can better get the vote out or better engage people to consider voting.
MS. ROMANOW: That's why I suggested, I think, that a mix of these methods is probably going to be useful, including the traditional public meeting. I think there certainly is a place for that.
MR. PARKER: There's an argument made here that it doesn't work that well, but I still think there's some room for it. In conjunction with other things, it's still, I think, one of the methods that we should be looking at.
MR. KEITH BAIN: Paula, looking at the First Nations - I like the way you've identified the different groups and where we could meet with them - I'm wondering if the First Nations contacts, the best contact to be made with the First Nations wouldn't be for either yourself or the committee to meet with the individual band councils. The chief and the band council know the feeling of the community. That, I know, would be more time-consuming than meeting at the policy congress of the chiefs or something, but I think if there was a visit made to each band council - I'm just using First Nations because it was the first thing that was there.
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I agree with what Mr. Parker says too. I think the writing in, that people come up with ideas, I guess we have to do some advertising initially to say, listen, folks, we're out here, give us your opinions. Whether it means taking out newspaper ads, TV ads or whatever, I don't think it's going to hurt.
MS. ROMANOW: No. As I said, I think for any of these types - except the extremely targeted ones - you have to advertise because people won't participate if they don't know what's happening.
MR. BAIN: I guess that's the question. How many people know this committee even exists right now? Maybe that's what we should be looking at.
[1:30 p.m.]
MR. GAUDET: I think we have to recognize what the target audience we're trying to reach out to is going to be. When I hear maybe we should look at every band council, I think there should be some band councils but I'm looking at all of the Acadian regions and I don't think there's a need to reach out to all of the Acadian regions. Again, I'm listening to Paula - we're trying to reach out to people who are disengaged, not interested, probably will not participate. Looking at your suggestion in terms of a mix - let's try a few public meetings, let's try a few target groups. We don't know what the turnout is going to be like until we set out and do a few of these - whatever we decide to go with.
I would suggest this committee look at doing a number of public meetings, a number of focus groups. I think what we need to decide is where - we can't do public meetings in every Acadian community in Nova Scotia, but there should probably be one or two.
I'm looking at Halifax. Halifax would probably be a nice place to have a general, public meeting just because of the population numbers. To have an open, public meeting in Clare, especially trying to attract people who are disengaged, not interested, I'm just trying to look at - right now, over 80 per cent of the population in Clare votes. I look at the last five elections - I remember in 1993 there was almost a 92 per cent turnout. I think there needs to be some connection with the Acadian community, but at the same time we need to sort out and target different audiences with different methods of reaching out to them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: If I'm hearing you correctly and hearing the messages I'm hearing, is it safe to summarize that there is still a strong desire among the committee to hold a series of public meetings and then, if there is a deficiency in those public meetings, if we have not heard from the Aboriginal community, if we have not heard from the Acadian community or not heard from the sectors, at that point we'd be able to specifically say, here are the areas where we feel we have not heard from. Then it would be easier to target at that point where there are some gaps in the system. Is that a fair summary of what I'm hearing?
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MR. PARKER: I think that's a good suggestion but I'm also thinking that when we go to a community, whether it's Halifax or somewhere else in the province, that we do invitations as well.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, yes.
MR. PARKER: Like, on June 28th we're meeting in Halifax at such and such a location and an invitation to some of these groups that we're talking about here, maybe an invitation to political organizations, too, that are involved in the process, know what's going on and they're as concerned as we are about the lack of voter turnout. They may have some thoughts or ideas, too, on how to get people out - that we would send an actual letter or invitation to various groups like that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, and that's something we discussed right from the start, that it would be essential to not only have the proper advertising put in place, but have the specific letters that have been mentioned. We also talked about political organizations, school boards, universities - a whole host of some of these targeted groups - to invite them to come present to us. Again, hopefully, they will take us up on that offer and if they don't, then we always have the opportunity to look at more of a targeted approach where we see that we may not have heard adequately from a certain sector. Mr. Steele.
MR. GRAHAM STEELE: We have talked about some of this stuff before and I just can't help feeling that public meetings - with all the MLAs at the front of a room and a microphone - is going to be just a big waste of time and money. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we'll throw a party and nobody will come, but it will cost a lot of money to throw the party.
I thought the concept was that we would do the research first, see what the research showed us, and then decide what the shape of the public consultation would be. For example, the reason why the Acadian community was suggested as a prime target was not because the voter turnout is low but because the voter turnout is high - it is exceptionally high. Every riding with a substantial Acadian community has the highest voter turnout in the province and it would be worthwhile to find out why that is. So I just want to remind people that our target isn't exclusively people who don't vote, it's also people representing communities who do vote and do vote in great numbers, to see exactly what it is, for example, about the Acadian community that makes them turn out.
Now, in that respect, I know you have a couple of events there but it seems to me that the logical place to meet with Acadians, if we're trying to be efficient, is at the annual meeting of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, which is an assembly of people representing all of the communities and all of the organizations in the Acadian community of Nova Scotia. They meet once a year, over two or three days. A workshop is part of that annual general meeting, I think. They would be very welcoming and everybody would be
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prepared to have a round-table discussion rather than going, for example, to the Acadian National Day festivities in Yarmouth where people are just in a different frame of mind. It's a different kind of event than the AGM of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse. That's just an example.
After all of this, for us to go ahead with just a public meeting like any other select committee, I just think, boy oh boy, is that really the best use of our time and our money? I don't think so.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I guess, Paula, in this timeline that you've developed, at what point did you predict that you would be able to provide us with statistical data for us to be able to review as a committee, as Mr. Steele suggested, and then be able to determine, more appropriately, exactly what course of action we should take?
MS. ROMANOW: When you say statistical data, in what regard?
MR. CHAIRMAN: From voter turnout, to First Nations voter turnout, to Acadian ridings, to youth turnout, to all of that information.
MS. ROMANOW: Statistically, I'm not sure that's going to be possible. Chris can back me up on this, I think, because those demographic statistics have not been kept in terms of voter - the statistics that we have are not broken down by demographic, which is a big problem, a huge problem, and that's why I'm doing this anecdotally. However, in terms of having that information, if you like, I can tell you sort of very quickly what I'm finding right now.
MR. SAMSON: Okay, I guess when I look at - I understand you're saying it's not broken down. If I look at Richmond County, it wouldn't be very hard to look at the last five elections and see how Chapel Island has voted because Chapel Island has its own polls. That's a First Nations reserve there . . .
MS. ROMANOW: Yes, certainly, that's true, absolutely.
MR. SAMSON: . . . Membertou has its own polls, Waycobah and everything. So the Native reserves have their own polls. So that's one of the areas that we've specifically targeted. We'd like to know what the voter turnout is in those areas. Is it higher in Membertou as compared to some of the reserves down in southwestern Nova Scotia? That's some of the information I think we'd like to see.
The Acadian ridings, it's not hard to identify either. There are three that are specific but you also have the region of Pomquet, for example, you have the region of Cheticamp in Inverness County that's broken down into specific polls in Cheticamp. You're not going to get the absolute numbers but those certainly give the committee a good sense of, is the voter
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turnout in Cheticamp, which is in a predominantly English riding, as high amongst the Acadians there as it is in Clare, which is a predominantly Acadian riding? So those are some of the statistics, I think, that we're looking for and as far as youth, if it's not broken down, I guess it's difficult for us to be able to figure that out.
But again, you do have some polls, I believe, that are held at university campuses as well, which would give us a sense of whether university students are taking the opportunity to vote. I remember doing enumerations, some of the polls were specific residences at the universities here in Halifax, so I think that's the kind of information that Mr. Steele is referring to and that other committee members are referring to that we'd like to have in front of us, to have a better appreciation.
We often hear that the government never wants to have an election when university students are here. Is that truly a concern, and how are they voting, and are they voting in big numbers? Those are some of the questions that we have. I think if I hear Mr. Steele correctly, that's the information that he'd like to see and we'd like to see in front of us, to be able to make the comparison.
Secondly, is Nova Scotia in line with the rest of the Canadian provinces? Is the voter decline in Ontario the same level of voter decline in Nova Scotia? Is it higher in B.C.? Is it lower in Newfoundland and Labrador? I think those are all some of the comparisons that we're hoping to be able to look at, to better appreciate exactly what's happening here, and is it something that's comparable to other jurisdictions as well?
MS. ROMANOW: Yes, I can certainly have that information for you by the end of the month. I think one of the first questions we have to ask, though, is, is there, in fact, a voter decline? The information that I'm starting to collect in my discussions with everybody is that I'm not convinced there is as big a problem as we thought. There certainly is in some ridings, I wouldn't - that's sort of an over-looming statement. I'm not sure, in the rural ridings I don't think it's as big an issue as we think. In the urban ridings it is and that's why I'm saying that we need to get to the root of why in the urban ridings.
In terms of the statistics, and it's pretty symptomatic right across the country, there are some variations between provinces but it's roughly the same across the country, with some differences, in part due to the different demographic makeups of some of the provinces that are different from Nova Scotia.
MR. SAMSON: I think one of the other main issues that we're hoping you're going to be able to provide us is, what have other provinces been doing in order to do this? We know in the last Ontario election there was quite a significant effort put in by Elections Ontario, with the support of the government. Unfortunately they saw another decline rather than an increase. We're curious to see what other jurisdictions have been doing so we can look upon that, as well, in determining what our best course of action is.
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If they've done public meetings, have they been successful, or have they been a failure? What has worked? Has the Web site received a lot of hits? Has anything else that they've done? What has worked, what hasn't worked?
I guess the whole idea is that we're not looking to re-invent the wheel here, but at the same time we're not looking to make the same mistakes that may have been made in other jurisdictions already. I think that's what Mr. Steele is saying and I think we certainly all agree with that, that we want to make sure we give as much opportunity to Nova Scotians to comment and the last thing we want to see is this committee be a failure. We've said that from day one, we want to avoid that. So the more information that you can submit to us regarding the statistics, regarding what has been done in other jurisdictions and what efforts have been undertaken and their success or failure, I think is what the committee is looking for prior to making any final decisions.
MS. ROMANOW: Sure, and I can certainly have a preliminary data set for you by the end of the month, I would say, because the stuff in terms of what the other provinces are doing, it's all gathered, it just needs to be written up. Looking at the statistics, Christine, would that be doable by the end of the month? I would need some help from you.
MS. CHRISTINE MCCULLOCH: Yes, sure.
MS. ROMANOW: If that's acceptable.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: I was just wondering, as part of this discussion, how are your meetings with the MLAs going? How many have you met with so far?
MS. ROMANOW: I'm about halfway through, yes, and they've been going great I have to say, everybody has been really, really helpful. It has been very effective.
MR. STEELE: You've found them useful?
MS. ROMANOW: Very useful, yes.
MR. STEELE: I mean if the question that we're talking about here is how are we going to shape our public consultations, I really feel like, as the chairman has been saying, we need to have more insight than we do about what exactly the problem is and once we have what I would call some theories about the problem, or some hypotheses, then we will be able to shape the public consultation process and not the other way around so that, you know, I would be very happy, for example, if we're going to have something like an open public meeting, instead of doing the traditional one in Halifax, do it in Clare because they turn out there every election in large numbers.
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There is no voting problem in Clare. So let's go down there and find out what's going on, or the constituencies with the lowest turnout overall are all in metro Halifax. What is it about the urban setting and how do we get at that - and having an open public meeting in Halifax is not generally going to be the way to get at that problem - but what is it about urban voters that makes them not want to engage with the political process as opposed to rural areas - but it's not every rural area that has a high voter turnout, only some. So really, to me, it's almost still a little bit premature because we still don't have any hypotheses on the table about what's going on.
MS. ROMANOW: I can have that for you by the middle of next week because it's all here.
MR. STEELE: We do have some. We do know that First Nations are not turning out, at least in provincial elections, I think we know that, and it would be worthwhile to move ahead, I think, with finding ways to communicate with them. We do know that Acadian communities turn out in large numbers. It's worthwhile to communicate with them. It seems to be pretty clear that low-income people, the lower somebody's income, the less likely they are to turn out in an election. That's my hypothesis but it seems pretty clear to me, certainly in my riding and the neighbouring riding.
[1:45 p.m.]
MS. ROMANOW: The literature certainly backs that up, yes.
MR. STEELE: I think we should move forward in terms of how we get worthwhile feedback from people who have low incomes, or who represent people who have low incomes, to try to figure out what's going on, whether that has changed. I don't know whether low-income people voted more in the 1950s and 1960s, maybe they never voted, but the key question, if the voter turnout is going down, we still don't know who it is that used to vote that isn't anymore - we still don't know that - so it's hard to shape the public consultations when we have no insight into that question yet.
MS. ROMANOW: Yet - yes. I can have a preliminary report for you by the middle of next week on that easily, it just requires writing basically with some of the hypotheses and much of what the literature says. The background literature that I've been reading certainly supports what I'm also hearing from the MLAs in terms of their feelings toward why things are the way they are in their own particular ridings. So I can have that for you next week.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think once we do have that, if there are some supplementary questions that we have, it would give members an opportunity to put those forward to you prior to us being able to make a final determination. So you're saying you can get some information to us next week and the remainder of it by the end of the month?
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MS. ROMANOW: Yes, by the end of the month.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there any other further comments on it? So do we agree we'll wait to receive that information, have a chance to review it, ask any questions to Paula? You can e-mail her directly or through myself as chairman, or through Kim or Sherri, any supplementary information that you might be looking for. But is it fair to say that members want to review this information first before making any determination on where we go forward? Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: Yes, that's right, at least as far as public meetings go but there are some things that I think we should go ahead with now, like what Mr. Bain was saying. I think we do need to widely publicize the means by which interested individuals and groups can contact us on their own initiative. I think a campaign of newspaper advertisements would be useful to say: You want to contact us, here's a mailing address, here's an e-mail address, let us know. That channel has to be open all the time from now until we finish our work, regardless of what other public consultations we do.
Also, as I was just saying, I think work should go ahead in arranging meetings or some kind of interaction with some of the groups that we know have unusually high or unusually low voter turnouts to the extent that we know that. We don't know everything about it, but we do know some things and I would like to see those move ahead.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So we can agree that we will start the advertising of how to contact us so that we can solicit any information from that either by phone, mail, fax, e-mail. We will give all of those options and then we can start that round of advertising to try to see how much feedback we receive from that means. At the same time, we will wait to receive the information from Paula.
I guess the next big question is we are into June, it's the summer months. I'm curious as to when the committee would like to meet again in light of the fact we will be receiving information next week and the end of the month, which brings us into July. I'm open to any recommendations from members as to when they would like to see us reconvene to further map out how we're going to move forward.
MR. PARKER: Whenever the information is available, I guess. If we have a date in early July or July 10th, or whenever it becomes available to us, we would have to try to arrange a meeting.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. May I suggest that once we have received the information from Paula, that as chairman, I will have the opportunity through both Kim and Sherri to poll the members to see what is a convenient date or how much time they feel they would like to be able to absorb those numbers. I imagine it will be quite a bit of information to absorb. So if I can suggest that we will talk to each of the members, see when is a good time and then
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try to be reasonable in meeting people's schedules and obligations and set a date sometime in early to mid-July as to when we can meet again after having gone through that information.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
Are there any other issues? Mr. Parker.
MR. PARKER: I guess I just want to come back to this youth issue, Paula. Maybe it's hard to get information but the general assumption is out there that perhaps youth are not voting as much as people over 30, or whatever, whatever you define youth as, I guess. Do you think there are any statistics available or anything that might help back that theory up that perhaps youth are not voting like the rest of the population, particularly as it applies to Nova Scotia?
MS. ROMANOW: There's a huge body of literature that looks at the whole issue of youth and engagement, so there is some information coming out of that. But the information, more specifically Democracy 250 - and I'm setting up a meeting with them to get some of that information from them. They have done a huge amount of work on exactly that because that has been their main focus. So we can certainly get the information, some of the information that they have collected.
MR. PARKER: It's great to have information on the Acadian community or the First Nations, or whatever, but I think youth is across the board, all of us, all populations. It would be nice to have as much on that as we could.
MS. ROMANOW: Sure, okay.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other issues? That being the case, Paula, we will wait for your information, and following that we'll arrange for a time for us to meet again in July to continue to map out. In the meantime, I will be talking with Dave in Communications Nova Scotia to start the process of the advertising and we'll make sure to let members know when they could expect to see ads running in the media on this issue.
So with that, enjoy the next few weeks and I look forward to seeing you all again in July. Thank you.
[The committee adjourned at 1:51 p.m.]
