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
Mr. Michel Samson (Chairman)
Hon. Mark Parent (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Patrick Dunn
Mr. Keith Bain
Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Vice-Chair)
Mr. Graham Steele
Mr. Charles Parker
Mr. David Wilson (Glace Bay)
Mr. Harold Theriault
[Hon. Mark Parent was replaced by Hon. Ronald Chisholm.]
[Mr. Charles Parker was replaced by Mr. Leonard Preyra.]
In Attendance:
Ms. Kim Leadley
Select Committee Clerk
Ms. Sherri Mitchell
Select Committee Clerk
Witnesses
Mr. Andy G. van den Berg
Ms. Louise Carbert - Equal Voice Nova Scotia
Ms. Andrea Hilchie-Pye
Mr. Blain Henshaw
Ms. Alyson Queen - Chair, FUSION Halifax
Mr. Derek Simon - Fair Vote Nova Scotia
Mr. Martin Beaver
[Page 1]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Select Committee on Participation in the Democratic Process. My name is Michel Samson, I'm the MLA for Richmond, and I also have the privilege of serving as the chairman of this committee.
This committee was formed as a result of a resolution of the House of Assembly, which was unanimously supported, which called upon the Legislature to appoint a committee to be comprised of three representatives of each of the caucuses in the House of Assembly - those being the NDP caucus, the Liberal caucus, and the PC caucus. The mandate of the committee was as a result of the fact that during the last number of provincial elections, and other elections, we've noticed a decline in voter turnout here in Nova Scotia and a lack of participation, which was a grave concern to all of us.
Therefore our committee set out to try to come up with recommendations and suggestions as to how we may be able to make some changes to increase the level of participation. Our committee has already been reviewing a number of research documents and statistics on previous elections and voter participation. Part of our mandate as well - it was determined that we would give Nova Scotians the opportunity to share with us their thoughts and views directly and, in doing so, we have set up a Web site, an e-mail address, a Facebook site, and we have a mailing address, a phone number, a fax number, and a direct e-mail address as well where Nova Scotians can contact us directly.
[Page 2]
We also decided that we should go around the province and give Nova Scotians an opportunity to appear before our committee and speak to us. It was determined that we would meet, beginning two weeks ago, first in Sydney, then Antigonish, Truro, and Amherst, and last week it was Yarmouth on Monday, then Bridgewater, Cold brook, and then, this evening, the last of our public meetings would be here in Halifax.
While we've been doing our public meetings, we've also done things a bit differently this time in that we've set up focus groups as well in the afternoon. In each location where we've gone we've had the opportunity to meet with both high school and community college students, and as well some focus groups with representatives of various community organizations - then we would finish the night with the public presentation, similar to what you see here this evening.
Prior to asking the members of the committee to introduce themselves, I should remind our presenters this evening that these meetings are being recorded by Legislative TV. While they're not video recorded, there is an audio recording being done and then it will be transcribed by Hansard, which is the official record of the House of Assembly, therefore any comments or remarks made this evening will be part of the official record of our committee's work, and in fact anyone who is interested in receiving a copy of the transcript from tonight's meeting, there's a sign-up sheet on the table over to the left, midway in the room. Also, if you wish to receive a copy of the final report of this committee, there's a sign-up sheet for that as well, so that a copy of the report can be sent to you directly.
If I could now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Over here, to my left, we have Sherri Mitchell from the Committees Office, who is working with us, and Kim Leadley as well, who is here from the Committees Office. We also have, in the back of the room, from Legislave TV, with the headsets on, Matthew Hemeon and Daniel Burke, and also Jeff White from Hansard. They've been travelling with us around the province and we certainly thank them for their work and being here again with us this evening.
We do have a list of presenters who have contacted us, and in light of the time constraints that we face we will be asking that the presenters limit their comments to ten minutes, which will allow committee members to ask any questions that they might have of the presenters. So, hopefully, that should not be a problem and everyone can stay within that time frame.
[Page 3]
So if I could now ask the first presenter, who is Andy G. van den Berg to come forward. Mr. van den Berg, you can just have a seat and speak directly into the mic - it's adjusted for you so you don't need to lean forward or anything but, Mr. van den Berg, if you could simply state your full name and your address for the record.
MR. ANDY G. VAN DEN BERG: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members. My name is Andy van den Berg. To give a little bit of background about myself - born and raised in Holland, immigrated to Canada in 1967 and moved to Nova Scotia in 1980. I'm the former business owner of Eagle Security - a company many of you are familiar with; we provided security services to many government institutions - I am also the former owner of MBE Atlantic Canada Limited. We owned and operated the Mail Boxes Etc. licence in Eastern Canada and we developed 24 centres in Atlantic Canada over a seven-year period.
I've been actively trying to participate in the democratic process for 24 years, but unfortunately nobody wants to listen. I appreciate being here and hopefully my voice will be heard.
I'd like to start out by asking a question: Does anyone remember the movie The Day After Tomorrow, where a scientist truly believed there was an Ice Age coming and he approached all of the government leaders in Washington and they kind of sat back and didn't want to take heed to his message? The Ice Age came.
I'm here to tell you that for very similar reasons, we are into what's called a financial meltdown. Many people for the last 10 years - and I can mention many names - predicted what we're facing and what is now called the financial meltdown. Unfortunately, the message that I've been trying to spread for the last 24 years has not been a very positive one and, unfortunately, when you approach people with a message that has a negative overtone, people are inclined to not be willing to listen to you.
I wrote the Prime Minister of this country - the then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney - in the early 1990s. I never heard from him; I never got a response, which I didn't expect. Most of my e-mails that I forward to people get lost in the system. But I'm here to inform you that if Mr. Brian Mulroney had taken as much as five or ten minutes to call me and ask me questions - and this may sound silly - this country would be in better shape.
In 1986 I recorded and illustrated the financial meltdown that we're facing this year. I'm not a CEO of a banking institution; I'm not an economist, but it was strictly common sense. If I was to tell you this evening that the financial crisis is going to be much worse two years from now, would any of you believe me? It will be.
There is a storm brewing, Mr. Chairman, and committee members, and I'm here to inform you where it's coming from. It's not developing in the Caribbean, and I'm here to tell
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you this evening which direction it is taking and it all ties into why people of this country don't want to participate in the democratic process any longer.
I'd like to start out with a cousin of my dear wife. She lives in Clementsport. She has had more medical issues than all of us combined in this room, and every time she needs to see a specialist she has to come to Halifax. I don't want to go through the details, I'd be here all night. She doesn't vote, and if you were familiar with her story, you wouldn't either.
Every time she comes down she comes to our house and my wife drives her down to the hospital because she doesn't enjoy driving through the city. Just last week my wife spent two hours with her in the hospital - every waiting room was packed, people lined up. If any of you read the paper in the last couple of weeks, you would have been able to read the following: There were three people on October 22nd who were in the waiting room for 12 hours and not being attended to - these were senior citizens. Would you vote if you were them? I was reading in the paper that there was a lady diagnosed with breast cancer, and it took her six months to see a specialist. Would you vote if you were her?
Mr. John Hamm, a Premier of this province, this is what he had to say before he left office - he said if the provincial government doesn't control health spending in this province, 100 per cent of the provincial budget in 2025 will have to go toward health expenditure. John Hamm understood the numbers; in addition, he was a doctor. Are we listening?
On Saturday my wife and I walked through the Halifax Shopping Centre. They were holding a chess tournament to raise funds for Alzheimer's. We have fundraising events for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Lung Association, Run For The Cure, lotteries, and we have the Premier of this province participating in benefit concerts to raise money for the IWK. People are smart enough to know that at some point in time there's an election coming up. Is the Premier of this province interested in raising funds for the IWK or enhancing his image and looking for votes? That's why people don't come out and vote, because they're smart enough to know what the real issues are.
The last two weeks The ChronicleHerald disclosed that the food bank of Nova Scotia feeds 40,000 people in this province - I was shocked. I had no idea there were that many people that relied on the food bank in Nova Scotia for their daily meals. You wouldn't blame them if they didn't vote, would you?
[7:15 p.m.]
The number of homeless continues to grow on a daily basis in this province. The biggest employers in North America, the motor industry, are facing bankruptcy. There's a storm brewing, gentlemen. In the late 1980s I started writing religious and political leaders - I informed you I wrote Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and a copy of this letter was recently forwarded to Mr. Stephen Harper before the last election. Yes, I'm predicting that the "no
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vote" Party in Canada will become the biggest Party in this country. I know what I'm talking about.
I will be leaving you with detailed information packages - these are not just words coming from another human being in this province, it is written on paper. If I never hear from you, that's okay, I've done my job. I encourage you to read what's in this package and ask me questions. When you have completed it, reading everything that's there, would you please call me back, and I'll answer every question that you have. Do I speak with emotion and compassion? Yes, I do.
I was reading recently that Crown Prosecutors are not safe on the street anymore; teachers in our schools are not safe anymore. My wife and I are grandparents of five lovely grandchildren - those kids aren't safe on the playgrounds anymore. Some kids aren't safe in school anymore. Little kids aren't safe from religious and community leaders anymore. It's a fact.
If I am giving you any lies, stop me now, but I'm not. Some kids aren't safe in school anymore. When I was young I grew up in Holland, I was the youngest boy in a family of nine children. All of the things I just mentioned, I never had to worry about. I came from a loving family. I came over to this country with $20 in my pocket. I still contend this is the best country in the world.
I retired when I was 55. I've written a book. I'm a business consultant - I went back to university, and in 2000 I received my certification in negotiation and mediation, so I figure I would be able to handle people and answer questions and work with them.
Gentlemen, there's a storm brewing. I've tried to give you some insight of where it's coming from and where it's going. You are, some of you and some of your peers, the political leaders of this province and it's like that scientist in that movie The Day After Tomorrow - please listen. The news media in Nova Scotia knows me very well, and I'm talking about Steve Murphy and Mr. Nunn of the CBC - and the people at CBC in Toronto and the people in Ottawa know me very well. You may never have heard of my name - Mr. Graham Steele has, because of an issue that my daughter faced with her septic system.
Please listen. When you receive that information package from Kim, would you please take the time to go through it? It's no nonsense; it's real. If you're looking for a way for people to vote, please pay attention to the outside world. Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. van den Berg, for your presentation. We look forward to the package that you've left us and I thank you for leaving that with us.
Committee members, are there any questions? No? Well, thank you again, Mr. van den Berg, and we look forward to receiving those documents.
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Our next presenter this evening is Louise Carbert - it could be pronounced either way, but you'll correct me - from Equal Voice Nova Scotia. Louise, if you'll just give us your full name and your address, for the record, please.
MS. LOUISE CARBERT: My name is Louise Carbert and I'm here representing Equal Voice Nova Scotia. I'm here for Equal Voice Nova Scotia, but also I teach political science at Dalhousie University so I'm used to being in a classroom and I'm very dependent on PowerPoint. Now, I don't have PowerPoint tonight, but I did bring handouts so that you can follow along with me.
Equal Voice Nova Scotia is a new organization, we've just been around for a year. We are the regional chapter of Equal Voice Canada. The goal of Equal Voice Canada is to operate on a multi-partisan basis and that's different from being on a non-partisan basis. The idea is that women can get together and coordinate on a multi-partisan basis, bringing their partisan affiliations with them, to work on bringing women into positions of political leadership in Canada.
So on my second page I've got a list of our activities that we've accomplished in the past year. The first major project we've done is creating a civics education workshop called Government is Us and I've passed that civics education package on to the chairman of this committee.
I'm going to speak about voter turnout later, for the bulk of my presentation, but at the beginning I want to mention something about our own goal, which is to work with women at what I call the mezzanine level of political participation - that is, women who are involved in community affairs and bringing them up from community affairs in church, in Guides, in minor hockey, minor sports, and bringing them up into the next level of actually joining a political Party and becoming interested in serving on an appointed agency, board and commission.
To me, that's a real personal interest of mine. Operating a democracy is not just about elections, and continuing to find people to serve on appointed boards and commissions, that's really important to us and I think it's the entry point to a more vibrant democracy.
So the second activity that we've been involved in is that Democracy 250 awarded us $4,500 to mount a workshop on women and Senate reform, what prospects for Senate elections, what that might mean for women in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately we had timed our workshop to coincide with the date of the federal election, so we decided to postpone our workshop until the Spring sometime.
I've been involved with the Nova Scotia Campaign School and I spoke there last weekend. There was a "take a girl to vote" project during the election campaign with the
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YWCA and the Girl Guides. We published an op-ed in The ChronicleHerald on the topic of women in Senate reform and what it means in Nova Scotia.
I want to draw your attention - I'm going to be talking about women here and why we need to increase women's involvement - we've got some really prominent women, and women have a really high profile. We've got Maureen MacDonald here, Diana Whalen is here, and I mean they have a high visibility, a high profile, but their high profile shouldn't disguise the fact that we are still stagnating at 20 per cent women at all the Legislatures in Canada, across all the provinces and nationally - even after the last election. The last federal election hit 22 per cent, but we're stuck.
So why are we stuck? I've put in a little plug for my book here, on Page 3 - and why we're stuck at 22 per cent, I would argue, is because of a really strong rural-urban divide in Canada, that women are in the region of two and a half to three times more likely to be elected in the major metropolitan centres of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. Since the Maritimes are still largely rural, it means that we've got a real - that's where the activity around promoting women's leadership has to take place, going out into the countryside, outside of HRM. In fact, I conducted a series of interviews in Western Canada and across Atlantic Canada, which I published in the book profiled there.
Okay, 10 women are in the House of Assembly, four women are Band Chiefs in Nova Scotia. Now, it's important to have women involved in the legislative process and one of the reasons is because women are effective role models for younger girls. I mean that makes sense when we think psychologically, if we compare politics to sports - you know, how do young boys take up a sport and become good at a sport? They have a sports hero who they idolize and they want to be like their sports hero. They start to acquire skills, they take their skills with them throughout life and they become sports fans.
Politics works the same way. Young girls growing up as teenagers come to identify powerful, prominent women, identify them as role models and become interested in politics. What happens to Maureen MacDonald? Seeing her in the newspaper, profiled, at events, following Maureen through her career, can be really significant for young girls as they grow up around town, that makes common sense. But it's also proven in the academic literature that women pay more attention to politics when other women are featured in the news story - women's knowledge about politics is greater when another women is involved in the story.
I thought I would put in two photos here of my two favourite role models for Nova Scotia women. One is Gladys Porter, the first MLA in Nova Scotia, and I'm really pleased to see that her portrait is now hanging in the Legislative Assembly, that's wonderful. I'm glad to see that she's finally getting the kind of prominence that she deserves and I'd like to see her name and her portrait distributed more widely. Another example there is the first Chief of Nova Scotia Aboriginals, that's another one we could profile.
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Now, I've talked a lot about women and role models and, just for fun here, I'll point out that role models, identity politics, aren't just for women and they're not just for visible minorities, they're for just regular folks, regular men. I don't know, you have this in front of you - I'll quote it for the audience. Everyone is familiar with Warren Kinsella. A couple of weeks ago Warren Kinsella actually endorsed Stephen Harper for Prime Minister and he endorsed him on these grounds:
" . . . hockey dad, Leafs fan, middle-aged guy with a paunch (because all us middle-aged guys have a paunch) . . . is winning. How come? By design or by accident . . . Stephen is the Canadian Everyman. He let us know early on . . . when he carried his son's hockey bag to a game, and the resulting photograph said to a few million Canadians: 'He doesn't just understand my life. He is living my life.'"
It's corny, it's sentimental, but you know it shows the kind of logic that goes on in the electoral process of identification with our legislators.
So on to concrete suggestions, how to renew the democratic process in Nova Scotia. My first suggestion would be to continue to mount the Nova Scotia Campaign School for Women. It's had its fourth annual appearance here. The municipal campaign school was in the Spring - I've been involved with it, I've watched the women attend it, I think it's a great success. It's really important for the women who live outside Halifax - even finding those women outside Halifax is a major challenge. They're out there, they would like to be further involved and bringing them into the city to network with Maureen MacDonald, Diana Whalen, Karen Casey, they value it a great deal and they're learning really important skills at the same time.
The second possibility to consider would be mounting province-wide consultations to arrive at a list of provincial nominees to the Senate of Canada. That's another whole kettle of fish, I'm not going to address it here, but I've become interested in what elections might invigorate the democratic process - not the entire population, but there is certainly a segment of the population that would be interested in contesting those elections.
[7:30 p.m.]
The second possibility is to increase voter turnout. I'm not that concerned about voter turnout - somewhat concerned, but not that concerned - but I will pick it up here. We hear a lot about voter turnout in the American case and I want to point out that the American literature and politics are very different from what we have in Canada. In Canada - I know this and you know this too from your own partisan activity - the politicians who are elected with the largest margins, 60 to 70 per cent of the vote, non-voting in those districts is often very high.
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We can document that here with a study that came out of Alberta in a Spring election there. They actually went out, they interviewed voters, they interviewed non-voters and compared. How are voters different from non-voters? The conclusion they came to was non-voters are younger, they're more transient - and we know that, they don't vote because they're young and they're transient. But when they asked the non-voters in a public opinion survey, who would you have voted for if you did vote, if you took the trouble to, in that Alberta election result, the first choice was they would have voted Conservative.
This is different from the United States, I think, but at least in Alberta, and I think in Canada, non-voting is an indication of complacency and satisfaction with the status quo. We have one study that showed that directly, coming out of Alberta.
Now, to the whole theme of voter turnout, it's related to community involvement. You know, the single strongest determinant of voter turnout is church attendance - it makes sense when you think about it. People who attend church are securely embedded in their communities, they're public-minded, they're involved with their neighbours, they're committed to the community.
Well, voting is about being embedded in a community, it's a social act and I want to take you through a brief experiment that was done in the United States, in Michigan. There were four letters here that were sent out to 80,000 households in Michigan. The first letter was sent out reminding them that voting is your civic duty, get out and vote. The second letter informed the voters that researchers are studying turnout based on public records. The third letter listed past voter turnout for the household - that's a matter of public record, to go in and say who in your household voted. The fourth letter told people who voted in their household and it told them who voted in their neighbourhood.
That fourth letter had a dramatic result on people's voting habits, okay, if you look down there. The third letter increased voter turnout by 4.5 per cent, just a letter coming out saying we know that you voted, but the husband didn't vote in the last election. The fourth letter saying we know who in your household voted, and the neighbourhood around you, that increased voting turnout by 8.1 per cent. The implications of that is that voting is a social act. People conform to powerful social norms. Going to church - feeling that obligation to go to church - people who feel obliged to attend church and be good citizens also feel obliged to vote as their civic duty.
We can work with that. It's really powerful, those kinds of social norms, in making people feel obligated to vote. So my suggestion is that Elections Canada publish a list of non-voters - doesn't need to publish it on the front page of The ChronicleHerald, doesn't even need to publish it on the front page of Elections Nova Scotia. It could be an ASCII comma delimited CSV file, not even an easily accessible Excel file - deep, deep within Elections Nova Scotia. I don't know, just a quiet word to journalists in the province, and journalists would be interested in digging through that file to see who voted and who didn't vote.
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It's already public knowledge. It's just a matter of making it easily accessible, downloading it from that Web site, and the journalists can do what they may with it. Maybe that would be one way of restoring the traditional sense of community that motivated voting all along.
Remember in 1758, voting was not a secret ballot, people voted in public among their friends, neighbours and communities. We still want to keep a secret ballot, but this might be one way to restore voting as a social act of community solidarity. And that's all I have to say.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for your presentation. Mr. Preyra.
MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Thank you, Dr. Carbert, it was a very interesting presentation. I have just one question and that relates to publishing the names of non-voters. There is a certain expectation of privacy in the process itself - I understand that you're saying you're not entitled to it, but there's a certain expectation of it. How would that increase the number of women candidates and the number of women elected?
MS. CARBERT: No, this wouldn't be related to candidacy. If I were to put a gender angle on it, I might want to make the argument that I think women, or at least women of my generation and older, feel norms of community approval more sensitively, that women might be more motivated to vote, but that's not related to candidacy.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Steele.
MR. GRAHAM STEELE: You said you weren't very concerned about voter turnout, it's not clear to me why not? Should we not be concerned about it?
MS. CARBERT: Yes, I am concerned, but in the face of other pressing issues, I'm not as concerned about it. For one thing so much of the voter turnout is among young people and young people - all the D250 initiatives, I think, are wonderful, I don't think they do any harm, but I'm not sure how much reward that we're going to have in return for them. Young people don't vote because they're transient and it's difficult for them to know which electoral district they're voting. Do they live here? Do they live there? My son is 20 years old and he's been working at a ski resort in Lake Louise, I'm really not sure which province he is a resident of, he had been so transient. I think that's part of the nature of being young.
The democratic process, I think, can bring them in later and again, evidence shows it may be complacency - non-voting is a sign of complacency and apathy.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Steele. Mr. Theriault.
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MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your presentation, it's pretty interesting. Do you believe in mandatory voting?
MS. CARBERT: No.
MR. THERIAULT: But you believe in publishing people's names who don't vote?
MS. CARBERT: It seems to me that publishing - this information is already in the public domain, it's just making it a little more easily available. I think it would be tremendously effective. I give some figures here on sort of the cost advantage compared to other mechanisms of getting out the vote, and this is easy, it doesn't cost much money. Does that answer your question?
MR. THERIAULT: Somewhat. You spoke about the young voters not coming out and when they did you said they would vote Tory. You did this study in Alberta . . .
MS. CARBERT: I didn't do it, these were colleagues of mine, these are two professors in Alberta who had done the study of public opinion.
MR. THERIAULT: How come only Alberta?
MS. CARBERT: Oh, because it was a study of the provincial election, it wasn't a national study.
MR. THERIAULT: Do you think the age of 16 is too young to vote?
MS. CARBERT: I think we could probably get away with reducing the voting age to 16 and we might not get into too much trouble. We think of some problems we've gotten into with youth voters, I mean, the political Parties have had problems with their youth caucuses, as you well know. It was the youth wing of the old Progressive Conservative Party that elected Joe Clark as Leader and I think that, generally, the Party was not too happy about that particular episode. Young voters can be a force to be reckoned with sometimes, that makes me uneasy.
On the other hand, it is true that young voters would be educated in the school system, they might be some of the most informed voters in the province as a result of their social studies curriculum around the election. I'm not a fan of it but I wouldn't - I'm not totally appalled by it, either. It doesn't alarm me, all right?
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Theriault. Ms. MacDonald.
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MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: We heard from a group of young people today, actually, in one of the focus groups. They said exactly what you've said. The ones who didn't vote, it was mostly because they were transient. Many of them attempted to vote, but they couldn't easily find out what the rules were and they were very frustrated by the kinds of information they were either given or not given.
So my question is around voting methods. Our voting system is predicated on an assumption that people aren't transient, that they have addresses, that they are fixed in a community, that they have a long-term residence, pretty much. So what, if any, methods could we examine, or do differently, to address this group? Many of these young people - and they were really an impressive group of young people - they were well-informed, they wanted to vote, they just didn't fit our system, electronic voting, for example ?
MS. CARBERT: I have always been persuaded by Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the previous Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada. His position had always been just an adamant refusal to go down that route. He never explained much about his reasons, but he brought up at one time that he thought that electronic voting was an invitation for organized crime and voter fraud. That carried some weight with me. It does alarm me that organized crime could somehow become involved in voter fraud, if it was done electronically. He said, you know if you're physically there in the voting booth, there is complete, pure privacy in making your choice, uncoerced.
I think that's valuable. I think that outweighs the difficulties and the inconveniences that young people have. It's not just the physical challenge of young voters registering and finding which district they belong to, it's about knowing the issues in that district and it's about being committed to that district, to the future of that district, and they're not prepared to vote, either, on that basis.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. MacDonald. Mr. Bain.
MR. KEITH BAIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, just one question. As we travel the province we've heard a lot about the introduction of civics back into the classroom, or a resemblance of civics, the political system, so that our younger voters will be made more aware of the political system. Even today some of them said that they had it in Grade 11, others said they didn't.
I noticed as you began you mentioned that you had a civics education workshop, Government is Us. What was the response to your workshop?
MS. CARBERT; We've given it now about eight times and the audience that has come out has really enjoyed it. We've deliberately sought out middle-aged women, all right? This is not a youth-oriented package. It's directed to women, to get them thinking, gee, I
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could become part of an agency, board or commission. That's really where we're going through.
Even among adult, middle-aged women active in community affairs, it's really startling about their level of knowledge of how our system works. So I think they really appreciated the workshop. They find they learn a lot and they enjoy it, but it's really hard to get them out there in the first place. It's not the kind of project that makes people think gee, that's how I would like to spend my evening.
But, you know, that's the whole dilemma we're dealing with here; if people would get involved in public life, they would find how rewarding it is but how do we bring them in, in the first place?
MR. BAIN: So how do you feel about introducing it in the school system? We've heard so many differences - some say Grade 3, others say Grade 6. How do you feel about the introduction, or re-introduction, of civics, or something similar, in the education system?
MS. CARBERT: I teach political science so I think it's a wonderful idea.
MR. BAIN: Would it work?
MS. CARBERT: You know, I have my doubts because I'm looking - and the women we've been dealing with in Government Is Us, competent, mature women who have lived in this province, in this country all their life and they've forgotten what they learned back in the classroom in 1972. If we could focus on adult people who are ready to become active and engaged right now I think there's work to be done.
I'm a great fan of civics in the classroom as well.
[7:45 p.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Professor, just one final question. What impact do you expect both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin will have on the female perspective of running for public office or their level of voter participation. Do you expect it will be positive, negative or a mix of both?
MS. CARBERT: I think it's a mix of both. It has been tremendously exciting for everyone. The whole world has watched this election and Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin with great attention, which is exactly what I was saying, it makes for drama and excitement and I think it has really been fascinating. We have women on the left and women on the right who are both looking up to these women as role models.
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The dangerous part of it is that some women see how Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have been treated in the media and they become intimidated and frightened. My goal here is, I'd like to say, the ChronicleHerald is not CNN or Fox Network News, that in fact I don't think we treat our female politicians as rough and cruelly as they do in the United States.
I wish that potential candidates could know that they're not in for the same kind of rough treatment that those two candidates have had in the United States.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Professor. We certainly appreciate your presentation and the time you've put into the documents you've presented us. Thank you again.
MS. CARBERT: Thanks very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Our next presenter is Andrea Hilchie-Pye. Andrea, if you could state your full name and address for the record before you start.
MS. ANDREA HILCHIE-PYE: Good evening, chairman, and members of the committee. My name is Andrea Hilchie-Pye and I live at 2631 Dublin Street in Halifax.
As some of you may know, I ran as a candidate in the most recent municipal election. Our voice is not heard. You will not change anything. This is how I was greeted on doorsteps during the most recent municipal election. This is why people don't vote.
In Nova Scotia people have given up on our electoral process. Nova Scotians have lost confidence in the democracy on its 250th Anniversary. Our Halifax Regional Municipality leaders introduced telephone and Internet polling to boost voter turnout. As demonstrated by the 37 per cent voter turnout in the most recent election, people were not seeking convenience, they lost confidence.
Our provincial leaders are considering lowering the voter age to 16. This makes no effort in increasing confidence in our democracy. For those of you who have studied probability and statistics, marginally increasing your sample has no significant bearing on the outcome.
Our society continues to evolve, but the democratic process in Nova Scotia remains stagnant. For example, technology such as the Internet has created a culture of openness, transparency and rapid response among our citizens, yet the government of these same citizens remains closed and unaccountable. Confidence in our government and our democracy must be restored. Our government and our democracy must evolve with our society to re-engage the electorate. The evolution will start with the following three goals:
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Lead courageously. The people have voted each and every one of you to be leaders - not the Party leader, not the Premier. Citizens expect their voice will be heard through each and every one of you. They want to know what you will do to address solutions to our collective problems. They do not care about the faults of opposing Parties and people on opposite sides. Continuing to play the blaming game does nothing about moving us forward as a society. It merely demonstrates the frustrated state of government.
Two, represent freely. Your people have elected each one of you to represent their desires and concerns, which must supercede your Party line. Under our current system, you are not always free to vote according to your constituents' best interest or your own conscience. Acting in contradiction to the people who have elected you as their leader lowers confidence in you and in our democratic process. As leaders, you all must look for new ways of working together so that you can always represent the people you are there to serve.
Three, encourage continuously. When the election is over, go back and knock on the doors where you have spoken with the people, solicit their desires and concerns continuously. You have been chosen to lead the people, you should not expect the people to lead you. As a leader, you must reach out to them. Go back into the communities, to the town halls, to the workplaces and to the schools, and keep them active in the democratic process.
Make it easy for people to keep informed on policies that come before this Legislature. Help them get involved in providing feedback and input. This is your duty to the people and this is your duty to democracy. If you continue to remain passive and wait by the phone for people to call you, the people will become passive in our democracy.
These three goals rest with each and every one of you who are our leaders. There is no quick or easy fix to lost confidence. As leaders, I ask, are each and every one of you ready to re-establish confidence in our democracy through what I call the cultural shift here in our House? Or will the people have to rise up and change democracy?
In closing I ask you, will you take the leadership and lead the people, or will the people lead you? Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Andrea, for your presentation. Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: I have a question. Thank you very much, it was a really stimulating presentation. Is this the first time you've run for office?
MS. HILCHIE-PYE: Yes, it is.
MR. PREYRA: How did you come to that place and what advice would you give to - especially a young woman running for office and is learning from experience - what advice would you give the committee in terms of encouraging more activism?
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MS. HILCHIE-PYE: I think for me it was because I want to do something better for the people. I come from a public health background, I have two small children and I want to make Halifax and Nova Scotia a better place for them.
Coming from a public health background, I'm tired of policy being made from a very isolated perspective. We need to think in a more holistic, broader way and that's why I came forward. What I would offer, which people gave me as advice, but I didn't do is - I only had a team of three people. A lot of people who I had in my team ended backing out for whatever reasons - Fall is always busy. So, building a strong team is important.
I also think I put a lot of faith in the electorate and I didn't do what I was told I should do, which is make sure you get people to the polls. I said it's now time for the people to vote and I left it with them, and the end result is I guess I shouldn't have done that. So I guess those are some of the things, and yes, I'll do it again.
MR. PREYRA: Organize and organize and . . .
MS. HILCHIE-PYE: Organize and organize, and maybe not hold three jobs down at once, which I had my two full-time jobs and ran full time, too.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Andrea, for your presentation this evening and for sharing with us some of your observations and suggestions from your recent experiences both on the campaign trail and off the campaign trail.
Our next presenter is Mr. Blain Henshaw. Mr. Henshaw, if you could just give us your full name and your address before you start your presentation.
MR. BLAIN HENSHAW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good evening, members of the committee. My name is Blain Henshaw, I live at 38 Willowdale Drive, Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. I am here tonight as a private citizen and not representing any political Party or any advocacy group. I'm here because I am, I believe and hope, a caring and concerned Nova Scotian.
I would like to say a word of qualification before I get into my remarks. Any suggestions or comments that I may make here tonight are not based on any polls, on any surveys, analytical reports, focus groups, or any statistical information. Rather they are based on personal observations that I have made of the electoral process over 20 years as a journalist, from 1966 to 1986 - and 11 of those years as a legislative reporter here - followed by 21 years, from 1986 to 2007, as a government communicator under the governments of two political Parties.
So for a little more than 40 years I've had a front-row seat to elections, politics in Nova Scotia, and it has been very rewarding. There is some politics in my family background
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and I'm happy to say it was tri-partisan - my mother was involved with the PC Party for awhile when I was a kid back in the 1950s, and my dad was a quiet Liberal, and my mother eventually became involved with what was then the CCF. So I think I have some insight into Nova Scotia political history and the electoral process.
The purpose of these hearings is to determine what might be done by suggestions from the public to encourage a greater voter turnout. I think before you can tackle that, you have to take a look at why is voter turnout low and apparently declining - and I have some thoughts and observations on that that I would like to offer.
I think one of the first reasons that voter turnout is low is we have many distractions today that did not exist in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, distractions such as dozens of cable channels to watch now - when I was young and growing up we had two television channels; satellite radio is something that didn't exist during my time; a very busy 24/7 lifestyle that everybody seems to live these days; a wider and more frequent availability of sporting events; a greater awareness of world politics - it is a global community and we find that more and more people know more about what's going on, and the American election is a very good example of that right now; and for some people a distraction I'm sure they don't see it this way, but it is just the struggle to make a living sometimes allows very little time for anybody to get interested in politics even if they would like to.
That's one reason I think voter turnout is down. I think another reason is that our schools are not teaching the students enough about politics and the electoral process. I don't think politics is a dirty word - I think you could use it in the schools. Partisanship you have to be more careful about, but I think students need to know about political Parties, what they do and what they stand for. I'll use as an example our own two children who are now young adults, because when they went through school they had very little taught to them about the legislative process or the electoral process in junior high and, by my recollection, only one project in high school - and I don't think that is enough.
[8:00 p.m.]
I recently worked with a young university graduate, this young lady is very bright, a brilliant young lady with a brilliant future working in the communications business, but she didn't know the difference between Cabinet or caucus - and to those of you around this table, I'm sure that's an important distinction that people need to know as they educate themselves about our government and how it works.
So I think there's ignorance among all ages about the differences between municipal, provincial, and federal government. Generally speaking, there is just a poor understanding about governments and how they work. I will give you an example. I did mention that I was a journalist for many years, and a prominent journalist that I once worked with didn't understand the difference between assessments and taxes. His view was that when
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assessments were up, taxes were up. Now very often that does follow, but not always. That's kind of a subtle thing that maybe not every student in high school needs to know, but it just demonstrates the low level of understanding of our processes even among journalists.
Another reason that I think the voter turnout is low is poor communication, most particularly with young people. Very few young people read newspapers these days and if they do it's probably the sporting page or the lifestyle page, and they skim it; very few listen to radio, they all have CD players and that kind of thing; and very few of them watch very much television except perhaps late night television. They get their information from alternative papers; they get it by word of mouth; they get it via the Internet through things like Facebook, blogs, or other high-tech sources. I do want to say though that I'm not at all convinced that young people are apathetic. I know a lot of young people - and I hope I live long enough to keep knowing lots and lots of young people - they're not apathetic at all, they're just poorly informed and it's not their fault. We owe them a better understanding of things.
Another reason that I think voter turnout is down is because of politics itself. We seem to be going through a phase - and with all due respect to all of you fine people here - a time when we have a lot of boring, lacklustre politicians and leaders at all levels, municipal, federal and provincial, all of whom are much too partisan. They're seemingly out of touch and they seem to make promises that they don't or can't keep and that affects all voters - and we've heard other speakers tonight elaborate somewhat more on that.
Another reason I believe voter turnout is down is because of journalists who are not willing to do stories, or even better, to get involved, to going into schools and maybe doing talks and presentations to help people understand more about politics and government. As a former reporter, I can tell you that the attitude of most of us as reporters has been, and still is in many cases, that our job is not to educate, it's just to report the story. But I'm sorry, with due respect to our journalist friends, I think it's time to go a little beyond that. A good example - today there was a front-page story in The ChronicleHerald about the American electoral process. I would dearly love to see one on the Nova Scotia electoral process or on the Canadian electoral process, or on the municipal electoral process. So I think journalists can do a little more than they have been doing.
I've been to the Kings School of Journalism a couple of times to make presentations and help out with some of what goes on there - not frequently and not recently, but I did find that there's very little taught in the School of Journalism about government. The students there need to know more because many of them come out of there and end up coming down here to cover the Legislature or to cover political stories, and I really don't think they're getting quite the education that they need. They're taught a lot about interview techniques and how to do tough interviews and ambush interviews and that kind of thing, but they're not being taught about the structure of the electoral process or the structure of government. I
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think they need that, so they could then ask those same tough questions from a better foundation.
Finally a reason that I think voter turnout is down is because voters themselves, all of us in this room, have to shoulder some of the blame for not encouraging our families, our neighbours and our friends to get out and vote, and do it in a non-partisan way. I'm very proud of the fact that I have never missed an opportunity to vote in an election. When I started voting, you had to be 21, that was still awhile ago. We have to do more ourselves. We can't rely totally on journalists, we can't rely totally on the politicians, we can't rely on communications, it gets down to an individual thing. You have to encourage people in your neighbourhood and your families to get out and vote. Those are a few reasons that I think the voter turnout may be down.
So the next question is, how do you get more Nova Scotians to vote? Again, I have a few ideas that I would like to leave with you. First, how to break through the distractions, I think you have to break through the distractions that I referred to earlier by going to where the young voters are. We need to get to the young voters, so you have to get yourself, or your Parties, on Facebook, on blogs. You have to get into high school classes and speak to the students and you have to do this regularly and not just during campaigns. A lot of people are a little sour about politicians because it seems that we only see them when they want to be elected or re-elected. I think you need to get out and be seen and heard more often, particularly in places like the schools where the young people are.
I think you have to devote more classroom time to politics and government and this would have to be done by the government through the Department of Education. Certainly do this in a non-partisan way, but make sure that you clarify the differences of the political Parties and their respective roles. In the teaching that I believe should happen in the schools, you have to get down to fairly simple things like explaining the meaning of words like Cabinet, caucus, partisanship, bill, orders in council, House Leader, Party Whip, and those kind of terms, because I referred earlier to a young lady who didn't know the difference between Cabinet and caucus. I think you have to get it to that level.
I would suggest that there are 52 MLAs in this province and if twice each year each MLA were to speak to a Grade 10 class - and I think Grade 10 is a good level to try to reach out to because they're getting close to the voting age - but I think if all 52 MLAs could make a point of getting out twice a year, into schools in their areas, and speak to one class, there are probably 50 children covered by each MLA, that's 2,500 each year; over four years you would cover 10,000 young people.
Another thing that I think could be done is improve communications, find alternative ways to advertise or promote the electoral process. Newspaper ads and flyers certainly do work with older people but not necessarily with younger people. So you have to find some ways to get to the younger people and also, as politicians, I think you have to be consistent
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and repetitive in your messages. If you want to see evidence of that, look at the campaign in the United States now. The leading contender for the presidency has stayed on message, and been consistent, and has repeated it over and over again, so that probably most of us here could now recite it, and you have to be that consistent.
During my time as a civil servant I wrote over 600 speeches for seven different Cabinet Ministers and a couple of Premiers and, believe me, it was extremely difficult to get any one of them to repeat the same message or speech. They seemed to think that there was something wrong in giving the same speech, with a good theme and a good message, again. I used to say, somewhat jokingly, nothing helps an old speech like a new audience, but if McDonald's and Tim Hortons sell their product, if they didn't remind you constantly of what they sell, after awhile they wouldn't be selling too many hamburgers or too many coffees, so you do have to repeat the message.
With respect to journalists, what could they do to help the public learn more about the process and how it works? They need to share what they know, because many journalists do cover the political beat and they do know something about elections and politics. They need to share that with others. They don't necessarily, or shouldn't necessarily, restrict it to their work. They should get out, get into the schools, speak to service clubs, that sort of thing, and share some of the knowledge that they have.
I've had the honour and the pleasure to do that a few times over my career and it's a lot of fun, but it also is very useful. People afterward inevitably come up to you and say, I really didn't know that and I'm glad you told me, I wasn't aware of that. So I think journalists can get out of their own box and get out and do some of that sort of thing. I think more needs to be taught in the journalism school that we have about the electoral process.
Also to improve voter turnout, I think if you can educate and inform voters more, not just during the campaigns but do it in an ongoing way. Help them to understand that it is their money, their tax money, that makes the wheels of government turn, so they need to have a voice. I want to have a voice on how you people spend my money and I think most people feel the same way, but we have to encourage them to get out and vote and remind them that they have that responsibility.
I think, also, another way to perhaps improve turnout is to strive to make voting easier and simpler. Electronic voting is a good step in that direction and I've heard people say yes, there could be problems with that, and that's true. But all of you here know that there are problems with the conventional methods of voting, there are problems with advance polls, there are problems election day. So it's just a new way of doing things and maybe with a new set of problems, but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed out of hand. I think that's one way to get to some of those younger people.
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Simplify the ID requirements for elder voters. I have heard these horror stories of older people who go to the poll and they've forgotten their driver's licence, or their card - their voter card - and they get there and they're turned down. Somebody says, sorry, you can't vote. If there are two or three people working at the poll who know these people and know that they live in that district or that constituency, I don't see any reason at all why they couldn't be scrutineers and allow these people to vote and make it a little easier for some of the older folks who get out and might just be a little bit forgetful.
Simplify the ID requirements. I don't think it's necessary to show two or three pieces of identification, probably one would do, and I think it's important to do a better job of training and provide better pay for Elections Nova Scotia staff. I did have the opportunity and the privilege to do some work with them before I left the Civil Service. They're a hard-working group, they have a big job to do, and I think they're understaffed and underpaid. What they do is very important and I think they do need some more support. I think they could use some more staff, and perhaps even some in an educational capacity to get out as electoral educators and get around the province, speak to service groups, schools and that sort of thing.
Another thing that might help is put a simple one-page voting eligibility requirement list on the doors of polling stations near the entrances. I think a simple and plain-language version of the Elections Act for widespread distribution or Web site posting might be a good thing to do.
Another thing that might help to improve voter turnout would be better leadership from all politicians. I think politicians have to stop and think a bit and show some more vision before they speak or act. Give voters a reason to want to vote for you. Tell them what your vision is for their constituency, for their region, their province, their future. Voters are getting pretty tired of rhetoric and partisanship. What they really want to know is what you're going to do to make their lives better and where you will take this province in the future.
I did make reference earlier to my own adult children and when I told my son that I was coming here, he said, well, there are a couple of things I would like to say, but he's working tonight. He suggests younger candidates, make an effort to get some younger candidates into the political system. He suggests more televised debates on the commercial networks - CBC, ATV and Global - and make voting easy and accessible. On October 18th, he said many young people really didn't know where they could vote in the municipal election. He lives and owns a home with three other young people, and through his efforts he was able to get all of them out so that they could vote, they just didn't know where to go but he was able to get them out.
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[8:15 p.m.]
He also has suggested that one full page in The Halifax ChronicleHerald be devoted to each Party to show in point form - that means keep it simple - what that Party stands for and what their plan would be if that Party were to win the election. That's something that, perhaps with some negotiation, The Halifax ChronicleHerald might be able, as a civic responsibility, to donate three pages free of charge, because I know advertising is expensive.
In conclusion, I think you have to convey to voters of all ages that they have a big stake in the electoral process. It is our province, it is our vote.
A couple of things that I think probably would not work in getting more people out to vote, I don't agree with mandatory voting. To me that flies in the face of what democracy is all about. Voting is my choice - hopefully I will choose to do it, hopefully every other citizen will choose to do it. But I really don't think I want somebody to tell me that I have to vote, that if I don't vote there will be a fine or I'll get a summons, something like that. I don't support the idea that was suggested earlier, of publishing a list of non-voters. It is each individual's choice to vote. I think a better way is to encourage people to vote.
I don't think that lowering the voting age to 16 is the answer. I do agree that many 16-year olds are certainly mature enough to vote, but if that became the voting age, I think it might raise another set of problems related to other things like the legal drinking age, the Young Offenders Act. If somebody is old enough to vote and they get into some trouble, under the Criminal Code, do you publish their name or don't you? I think that's kind of a difficult area to get into and it should be well-thought-out before you go there.
What we need, I believe, is better education; consistent communication; more vision and less rhetoric from politicians; new methods of reaching out to young voters, a simple and updated voting procedure; and inspired leadership from candidates and Party Leaders. Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Henshaw, for your presentation and for providing us with a copy of that which will be distributed to all the members. Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Blain - I think I can call you Blain, I've known you long enough, I think, to call you Blain. Anybody who spends 11 years as a legislative reporter and still has their wits about them, it says something there alone, I think. (Laughter)
Blain, you've covered a lot of territory, you know, obviously with your experience in the media. The one question I would like to ask you is, what role, or what part of the blame actually, should the media take? A lot of people put the blame squarely on the media. They talk about things - and we've heard comments from people throughout this province
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about negative advertising. You know, there was the big controversy that involved CTV's Steve Murphy and the interview with Stéphane Dion, which a lot of people say played a big role in what happened in that campaign. So where does the media stand? The media can turn people on or turn people off. It can certainly scare the you-know-what out of a potential candidate when you see how the media reacts to people who become elected officials. Where do you stand? Give me your feelings on that.
MR. HENSHAW: I don't think the media have as much bearing on the outcome of an election through negative stories as people might think. I think the role of the media can be to continue to do what they do, and that is report the good and the bad - you have to report what the news is. But in addition to that, I think they can go a little beyond that, particularly between elections, and do some stories on a regular and ongoing basis, like the one that I mentioned explaining how our electoral process works in this country and in this province. I think they're falling short on that.
What they do in the kind of regular scheme of things, I don't think it has a lot of impact on elections. It has some impact on public opinion, but the public are much better informed and much wiser than they are usually given credit for either by the media or by politicians. The public know which way the wind is blowing, usually before the journalists and the politicians do, I believe - that's only my opinion - but I have great faith in the public that they know what's going on. They can decide very quickly what's right, what's wrong and what should happen here.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): There are a thousand questions I could ask, but your time in the media was during a time - I don't mean to date you or anything - that there was no polling. You were not allowed to report polls, correct, during an election campaign?
MR. HENSHAW: Polling came in toward the end of my time in covering politics. When I was active as a reporter, there was a blackout period. My recollection is that if there was an election - and they are always on Tuesdays - there was a blackout of no political reporting on Monday and none on Sunday. All you could report was the fact that there was an election underway and that the voting would take place Tuesday. It was kind of a cooling-off period, but I don't think it had very much impact.
We're in a different age. A good example is in the federal election - people from Nova Scotia could call out to B.C., Ontario and tell people there what was happening in the polls here, as we close earlier because of the time zones. So I don't think polling or the reintroduction of a blackout would do anything to change the voting pattern. I think we have to learn new ways to deal with what we have now, and what we have now is a different ball game than it was in the 1960s, 1970s, even 1980s.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you, Blain.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Henshaw, for your presentation, and a copy of it will be provided to all the members as well.
Our next presenter is Alyson Queen, chair of FUSION Halifax. Alyson, if you could just state your full name and your address for the record, please.
MS. ALYSON QUEEN: Certainly. Alyson Queen, 1326 Lower Water Street. It's very much my privilege to be sitting here as chair of FUSION Halifax. I'll give you an overview in a moment, but it's an organization that's a year old, represents the 22-to-40-ish demographic here in Halifax and is comprised of, at this point, nearly 1,300 members. We certainly do have a good idea of what the young demographic is talking about. We've heard a lot about it tonight so I'll just give you a few insights.
Before I begin, we polled our board to give you just a few of those insights. I have to tell you and start off with a story that one of my board members told me, and it was very resounding. She said, there was this young man, he was in a small mining town in Nova Scotia, owned one suit, and he put that suit on the day he got married and for a couple of funerals and that was it. But on every election day he put on a suit and tie and he walked down to the schoolhouse and he voted. She looked at me and said, I voted in the last election, but I wish I had that sense of duty, I wish I had that sense of pride.
We talked about it, as a board, prior to me coming here tonight. So instead of going through what a lot of people have already identified, I'm sure, over the process of your committee, we have drummed up a few solutions, or at least ideas of what we think may be insights into the younger demographic, and we'll be submitting this as a written proposal or submission that you'll be able to review in-depth on Friday.
To give an overview of FUSION Halifax, we were born a year ago, and basically it was based on the belief by a number of us here that the 20-to-40 demographic - the next generation - really needed a vehicle or a venue so that they could be connected, engaged and inspired in their communities, both from a networking perspective, to try to understand who was out there and get to know people who were like-minded, but also to have that one central hub where they could have the opportunity to become civically engaged, particularly on those hot topics that young people are talking about: sustainability, transportation, the democratic process, urban development. So we came together as a group and one of the things that very much determined what we would be talking about, what we would be engaging our members on, was that democratic deficit or democratic downturn.
Part of what we attempted to do, just a few weeks ago, was roll out an on-line campaign entitled Just Vote. It was amazing how some of our members - and I think in total, by the time we counted everyone up, there were about 50 people engaged. Some were creating videos that ran on broadcast and were also submitted to our members virally through those channels mentioned - Facebook and other channels through the Internet. They were
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also engaged in making it personal and encouraging, in a non-partisan way, fellow friends, colleagues, family members, to vote.
That was our one message. It wasn't supporting a particular candidate in the municipal or the federal election, because if you learn one thing about young people - and I'm sure you know this, having talked to everyone - don't make our minds up for us. Provide us with the channels and the opportunities, and be open to the fact that the channels that worked five or 10 years ago aren't exactly applicable today.
So what FUSION has tried to do is take a lot of that contemporary approach to basically gather 20- to 40-year olds in this city together and make sure they're informed about topics of the day, and in many ways create active citizens, create dynamic networks, develop friendships, and generate ideas that can help augment anything from business to arts and culture - if any of you remember the Nocturne event that just happened on October 18th in the streets of Halifax, FUSION was very much involved in supporting that - and making this an even more vibrant city than it is today. When young people are engaged, they tend to not only offer up their own ideas, they then participate in the process.
If I get to what some of the board members suggested in terms of some solutions for you and also what some of our members had submitted to us, the one thing they said resoundingly was, it's about engaging us, not just on election day but in between elections - the process must be ongoing. I think that's something you heard throughout these hearings. Again, the process must be constant and it must be relevant. After all, as we all sit here today and we all look at the results of the municipal and federal elections, and knowing that it's very likely we will have another one upcoming at some point in the near future in Nova Scotia, we have to recognize that we can be disappointed in results, we can be disappointed in a process, but only if it's relevant.
Here are some suggestions. First and foremost, much of the research we've collected from our members indicates that young people are, indeed, politically knowledgeable and they are politically engaged - it's not just in traditional means and it's not through traditional channels for engagement the same as our parents. We research and discuss issues on-line. There are many focus groups - blogs, you've all heard about Facebook. Many people will provide their own MySpace in terms of making their own comments and opinions known in order to try to address them. The question is whether they're actually being received.
In many ways, you won't see a lot of young people - although we have a good showing here tonight, I think - typically in public hearings and public meetings, but we will sign petitions, we will boycott products, we will take personal stances on what it is we believe in - then again, not necessarily join a political Party or, in this case as we saw, vote.
Some of the studies that we have conducted, both formally and informally, show that a lot of young people don't actually see voting as meaningful or effective. Again, it comes
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down to that relevancy question. As a result, political Parties and the governance process, I think, need to begin to think differently about our generation and adapt outreach through new ways. A lot of that does come down to the technology discussion. It's been mentioned many times tonight.
It's not just about getting the issues out there, and it's not just about creating advertising and awareness on-line, it is also addressing electronic voting as well. I know that the question came up about credibility, can we trust it? My response to you, on behalf of a group of a lot of young people, would be, if you're not using on-line, if you're not using electronic means, if you're not reaching out to me through social media, why not? That becomes a question of credibility for us, whereas for many people who are questioning the processes, there's a credibility question.
[8:30 p.m.]
So I think it's very much putting yourself or ensuring that we're understanding our own perspectives as we start to approach some of these electronic discussions - you know, the way it has often been discussed is the Web 2.0 World and, yes, young people are transient; yes, young people are on-line, and I think that if we address that transient way that we do see the demographic moving more frequently, certainly potentially staying in school longer, how do we address it? We address it through accessibility. So that's one thing that FUSION Halifax has tried to do which is very much open up on-line channels and do viral communication. This is one way that we can address the question of lower voter turnout and, in turn, some of what we see as this demographic deficit.
The other question I think that came up earlier, and certainly came through a number of our members who are university students, is that, number one, if they did try to vote, it was frustrating. They weren't on a list. If they had been students for nine months, they haven't got a permanent address. So that is absolutely something that I do believe we would recommend be addressed in terms of how students are able to vote in the process. Secondly, I think it's a matter that if you are either relatively new to an area, if you are a student, what we all need to do, both grassroots organizations like FUSION and all of you, to think of ideas as how do you get people to have roots where they are when they're there.
So it's very much about reaching out and tapping into the younger demographic through the organizations that they're associated with or those who have extensive reach, ours is one example, in terms of getting the message out there, getting the times, getting the dates, getting the information so that they can make an informative choice.
You know I could go on and on, I want to stay as much within the 10-minute timeline as possible for all of you, but I think for me and for our board members, if you look at us sitting here in 2008, we're at very much a positive - we have a positive opportunity. We're at a juncture to try to make a difference and I think that looking at things like electronic
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voting, doing much more of engagement through grassroots organizations, because we know that works, addressing the idea of the younger demographic being transient and working with that as a point of knowledge and working with it positively can make a difference, and so the one thing I could say to you, one organization is going to help you do that.
Just last week at our AGM, FUSION actually enacted a democratic action committee as one of our key priorities for 2008-09 and it's meant to address some of the questions and make sure that there's some information available on some of the questions that came up. Should the voter age be lowered? Should we be enacting, for instance, more advanced voting like we're seeing in the United States? Should there be changes to the actual voting system in terms of mandatory voting?
I'm not here to answer any of those questions. I think that our membership certainly can provide some insight into what their thoughts are to give you good data, to additionally address some of these questions, but I would say that it's about raising the dialogue at the end of the day and certainly I would personally invite all of you, once we collect some of the further data, to participate in an event with FUSION Halifax where we roll out some of these results, where you get to interact with some of the younger demographic and have another opportunity to really hear what's on people's minds. I think the more that, in general, our government is visible, is engaged and is very, very specifically addressing young people and young people's concerns, we can all collectively make a difference, but, again it does come down to very much being relevant to each other and for each other.
I will submit my written submission by Friday.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Alyson, for your presentation. Mr. Theriault.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you, it was a wonderful presentation. Where did FUSION start?
MS. QUEEN: Actually, FUSION was a concept based in Saint John, New Brunswick, and in that city - actually where I'm originally from - FUSION was developed in tandem with the board of trade to address what was seen to be a diminishing younger population and one that was not necessarily engaged in the community or what was happening. From a young professional standpoint, it was a matter of, why is this a great place to live?
So a group of very motivated individuals got together and said let's try to form an organization that becomes the hub for this demographic, that provides, number one, networking opportunities, so once a month there will always be some sort of a mixer that highlights something that's either happening in the city or, as the organization developed, what's happening in terms of what some of the members are up to and some changes they're
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trying to make. The second piece of it, of course, was very much built upon attraction and retention.
Young people stay, live, and work where they feel engaged and where they have the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way. We're seeing very positive feedback from that in Halifax, similar to Saint John - it's actually an organization that exists in Portland and in Bangor as well.
MR. THERIAULT: Is there a minimum/maximum age? Am I too old? (Laughter)
MS. QUEEN: You are welcome any time.
MR. THERIAULT: I'll get your contact. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you for your presentation, I really enjoyed listening to your remarks about youth engagement and how you get young people engaged. Certainly, FUSION is a good example of how you can build community and network in pretty short order.
I have a question for you about transients. It is a big issue, certainly in my constituency - we have six universities and students were pretty frustrated with the process. What would you recommend in terms of residency requirements? That was a big challenge in the municipal election, the length of time that students were required to be residents in that district before they could vote. If they were married they could vote, and if they were not married they had to vote where their parents lived. What would you recommend? What would be a minimum residency requirement for you in terms of voting? I heard you say earlier where students feel engaged, then they should participate there. Would you apply that to voting as well?
MS. QUEEN: First of all, I don't know that I'm actually in the position to be providing a recommendation on the minimum length of time. I do believe that it was three months for this particular election. I think at the end of the day - and maybe I'm very wide-eyed on this particular situation - if you are a registered voter and you have moved, if you are able to provide any form of identification as to where you now currently live or proof of how long you're going to be there, and you actually have the desire and have gotten yourself to a polling station or to a Web site and want to vote, you should be entitled to vote.
So I guess my answer is I don't believe in a minimum. I think at the end of the day if you are eligible to vote and you have the desire to do so, and you of course provide the required documentation that you are now registered in this particular area, then you should be entitled to vote.
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MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just one question, Alyson, on the issue of Facebook and communicating via the Internet, that's one of the challenges for all of us in political Parties, it's accessing people's e-mail addresses to be able to connect to them. I'm curious, for example, if a political Party were to approach the executive of FUSION to request the e-mail addresses of its membership, is that something you'd give out?
MS. QUEEN: For us, our distribution lists are very closely held and it's property owned by our organization and that's very similar to the philosophies of a number of other organizations.
The opportunity that I think organizations like FUSION or others, what they can do, if they're non-partisan, is work very closely with political Parties to ensure that, as you're leading up to an election, as you're leading up to a plebiscite, or some sort of an issue that's important to constituents, it's your job as a non-partisan organization - meaning, me - to ensure you've reached out to all of those who have information or have opinions on a particular issue and then all information is extended to your membership.
In terms of sharing distribution lists, no. In terms of working closely with political Parties and working closely with other organizations or NGOs who are trying to actually achieve things, that's where that collaboration needs to happen in order to see some sort of result on the other end.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So if a political Party were to contact yourself and say here's our Facebook site, here's our Web site, you could then pass that on to your membership?
MS. QUEEN: Absolutely. Yes. I think, especially with the younger generation, it's very much about sharing and collaborating - and I'll make up my own mind, but please make sure I have all the relevant information. So there are a lot of things that can be done to help extend.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Great. Thank you very much for your presentation, appreciate it and look forward to your formal presentation on Friday, which we'll certainly share with all the members. Thank you.
Our next presenter is Derek Simon from Fair Vote Nova Scotia. Mr. Simon, if you would state your full name and address for the record, please.
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MR. DEREK SIMON: Derek Simon, Apartment 5, 6137 Charles Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am here tonight, as you heard, on behalf of Fair Vote Nova Scotia. Fair Vote Nova Scotia is a province-wide, non-partisan organization whose purpose is to promote electoral reform in Nova Scotia. Our purpose is to gain broad, multi-partisan support for an independent, citizen-driven process to allow Nova Scotians to choose a fair voting system based on the principles that all voters are equal and that every vote must count - in other words, we believe that Nova Scotians should be able to choose a voting system that best meets the needs of all Nova Scotians.
The question becomes, is our first-past-the-post voting system meeting our needs? By one very important measure we've discussed tonight, it is not - and that is voter turnout. In 1960 our voter turnout in Nova Scotia was at 82 per cent; as recently as 1993 it was at 78 per cent; and in the last 15 years we've seen it plummet to 60 per cent and below.
As we celebrate the 250th Anniversary of democracy in Nova Scotia, we see that the people of Nova Scotia are voting with their feet by not showing up to the polls. In fact, as has been pointed out tonight, far more Nova Scotians who are eligible to vote now choose not to vote than vote for any one political Party. Why is that?
We at Fair Vote feel that the first-past-the-post voting system is an important factor in this problem. Since 1980, over half of all votes cast in provincial elections in Nova Scotia have not gone to elect anybody. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as wasted votes, and while personally I prefer to think that no vote is truly wasted, it still raises an important question - if more than half the people that bother to show up on every election day in Nova Scotia do not see their ballot go to elect anyone, is it any wonder that less and less Nova Scotians are showing up?
Of course, there's also the problem that our voting system does not count all votes equally. Depending where you live, and depending where you vote, your vote might be more likely to count than someone else's. In the 2006 election, for example, the Progressive Conservative Party with just over 160,000 votes won 23 seats, or about 7,000 votes per seat. Interestingly, they won two less seats than the previous election even though they increased their number of votes. The NDP, with 140,000 votes, comparably won about 7,000 votes per seat. The Liberals, on the other hand, required 10,541 votes to win a seat, so a Progressive Conservative or NDP vote in the last provincial election was worth about one and a half times what a Liberal vote was.
If you look at the 2003 election, it was worse. The Progressive Conservatives had about 6,000 votes per seat; the NDP had about 8,500 votes per seat; the Liberals with slightly more votes than the NDP, won less seats, and close to 11,000 votes per seat. So in that election the Progressive Conservative vote was worth almost twice what a Liberal vote was.
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So maybe if you're looking at this from a partisan perspective, if you're a Liberal, this looks pretty bad; NDP, middling; for a Progressive Conservative perhaps it looks pretty good, but then that depends where you live.
[8:45 p.m.]
If you're a Progressive Conservative in the Halifax region, it takes you about 14,000 votes to win a seat whereas for the NDP in the Halifax region, it takes just a little over 5,000 - so not so good for Halifax Tories. The NDP vote in Halifax is worth almost three times what a Conservative vote is worth. So then it starts to look pretty nice for the NDP, unless you look at the Valley where in the last provincial election with 12,700 votes, the NDP won no seats; the Liberals, with about 60 per cent more votes, took four seats. So Halifax Progressive Conservatives, Valley New Democrats, and many Liberals, not to mention smaller Parties and Independents, had something in common - they all got ignored by the current voting system.
Similar disparities exist in most regions of the province and it's even worse when we look at the federal level. I could go on throwing numbers like this at you all night but I don't think any of us want to sit through that, the point being that when most people's votes aren't counted, and not all votes are counted equally, is it any wonder that people are not turning out at the polls? What can we do about it?
Well, the first- past-the-post system we're currently using was developed a long time ago and many systems have been developed since. Fair and more proportional systems are used in many countries, including most new democracies, and several have gotten their start not long after we did, such as Australia, which uses a form of transferable voting called instant runoff voting; Ireland, which uses a form of multiple member transferable voting, called single transferable voting; and New Zealand which uses a form of Party list proportional representation called MMP. There are many other variations and from country to country these systems work differently - the point being there are lots of options out there. Every system differs from country to country and province to province depending on the needs and the wants of the electorate in that particular country. The challenge is to design a system that fits the needs of Nova Scotians and that engages all Nova Scotians.
At Fair Vote we recommend the creation of a citizens' assembly of randomly selected Nova Scotians from across the province who will consult with Nova Scotians through town hall forums such as these, through on-line submissions, through many of the media we've discussed tonight, who would develop the criteria for a new voting system based on that feedback; who will learn the various systems that are available, and design the best system for Nova Scotia which will then be put back to the people of Nova Scotia in a referendum backed up with a well-funded public education campaign. So it has a democratic front end in terms of the assembly, it has a democratic back end in terms of the referendum. What
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better way to celebrate 250 years of democracy in Nova Scotia than by actually engaging Nova Scotians in the process of renewing our democracy?
Again, we have a serious problem here in Nova Scotia and what we are advocating for is a made in Nova Scotia solution. Electoral reform is not going to be a quick fix and it's not going to be a magic silver bullet that's going to solve all of our problems with voter turnouts and the other problems we've heard about here tonight but it is an important piece of the puzzle. I want to thank you for your time this evening. We will be providing a written submission later this week and if you have any questions, I would be glad to hear them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Simon, for your presentation. Ms. MacDonald.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm curious what you think about the fact that we have had several provinces now in Canada that have gone down the citizens' assembly road and, in fact, they have put to the electorate, in an election, electoral reform along the lines that the citizens' assemblies have recommended to move in this direction, yet none of those provinces have changed their electoral first-past-the-post system. So I guess what I'm asking you is, given that has happened in three provinces, why should we repeat that experience?
MR. SIMON: That's a good question. I think the key is we have to learn from both what those provinces did well and what they did poorly. In the case of P.E.I., it wasn't so much a citizens' assembly, it was a citizens' panel. They were appointed; they weren't necessarily broadly representative of Islanders in any way. They came up with a system where there wasn't much of a consultative process there, so I think all around it's not surprising they came up with a system that wasn't really palatable for most voters in P.E.I.
Ontario did a better job. Where Ontario probably fell down was it was the government that set the criteria for the system, as opposed to the assembly setting the criteria for the system by consulting with Ontarians. So, again, the government set the criteria in a way that kind of pushed them towards a particular result, and that coupled with, as I said, a very important piece of the puzzle as a publicly funded campaign, it didn't have that in Ontario, or at least not sufficiently funded. They sort of went through with the whole process and then didn't bother to educate the public at the end.
B.C. had the same problem. B.C. was one up on Ontario in the sense that they let their assembly set their own criteria, again based on the feedback they were hearing from the public consultations. B.C. fell down again on the public education campaign. They are now trying to rectify that - they're having another referendum in 2009. This time they'll have a fully publicly funded yes and no campaign so people can hear both sides of the argument. It will be interesting to hear what comes out of that.
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The other thing I would point out with B.C. - it had actually gotten the support of 58 per cent of the voters and passed in 97 per cent of the riding. Unfortunately, they set the threshold at 60 per cent, so it actually got more votes than any government in the history of British Columbia and yet it still didn't change the system. So I think that 60 per cent threshold is something we need to seriously reconsider if we are serious about voting for this reform here in Nova Scotia.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: The whole debate is about differences in the voting and, of course, it's one you can have endlessly. As I said, we could throw out statistics back and forth at each other - and you know, it's very interesting, I've visited countries that have other systems and one of the things that has always puzzled me is that Canada, for example, through the OSCE has sponsored new election systems in new democracies in eastern Europe, they're all proportional. They all, for example, guarantee a certain number of places for women, so that these new democracies have far more women in their Legislatures than Canada, one of the sponsoring countries under the OSCE.
Anyway, as I said, we could have that debate all night, but here's my question for you, whatever the merits of alternative voting systems, I've never seen anything that suggests that changing the voting system increases voter turnout - now, do you have any information or a statistic showing that in countries that do not have the first-past-the-post system that they have a consistently higher voting turnout than Canada does?
MR. SIMON: It's hard because obviously when you're trying to compare across countries, it's kind of apples and oranges sometimes. I like to look at countries that are politically similar in a lot of ways to Canada, that have a similar history and political background. I chose the Countries of Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand for that reason. Australia is a bit difficult because they have mandatory voting, so the voter turnout there doesn't tell you much, but Ireland and New Zealand both do have significantly higher voter turnouts than Canada with their proportional voting system. Now, studies would have to be done to determine whether the system is playing a factor in that. New Zealand only recently introduced theirs and their voter turnout has stayed reasonably high in a period where most democracies seem to be declining significantly, so it would suggest that maybe their voting system was a factor in keeping people in the system.
MR. STEELE: What I worry about is we could go down the road of British Columbia, which took a lot of time and spent a lot of money on this citizens' assembly and, of course, in the end it was rejected, but we could end up adopting a new system of voting and it turns out that it fundamentally changes our political system but has actually no impact on the voter turnout. That's kind of what I worry about here, because if this committee is going to recommend the kind of citizens' assembly that you're talking about, I'd like to have some confidence, some information that it's actually going to reverse this slide in voter
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turnout. Right now, we don't have that information and, if you do, we'd certainly welcome seeing it.
MR. SIMON: I can certainly try to find more of that information for the written submission.
MR. STEELE: Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Theriault.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Simon. A good presentation; lots of numbers. You seem to know your numbers. Do you know anything about the Acadian population in Nova Scotia - Richmond County and down in Clare and the Pubnicos, do you know anything about the voter turnout there?
MR. SIMON: That's a very good question, actually, and I don't. If you guys have more information than I do, I'd be interested to hear about it, but, no, I haven't studied that as a separate . . .
MR. THERIAULT: Well, the voter turnout in all the French Acadian areas is very high. We can point at the representation there, like our good chairman here, he's a great representative of Richmond County, and down in Clare we have Mr. Gaudet. In one election there were 11 people never showed up to vote, out of 6,000 or 7,000 people, and they found out they were out of the country. We've been asked this question a few times the past couple of weeks and I spoke to an old friend of mine from down home, an Acadian, and I asked him the question and in his answer he snapped back by saying we lost our right to vote here once, we're not going to lose it again. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Simon, for your presentation. We do look forward to your written submission to be sent at the end of the week.
We have one last presenter, Mr. Martin Beaver.
MR. MARTIN BEAVER: Thank you very much, I didn't think I was going to be able to speak.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Beaver, if you would just give your full name and your address for the record.
MR. BEAVER: My name is Martin Beaver, and I live at 2112 Kline Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia. I've lived in Nova Scotia my whole life. I was born in Nova Scotia, and I voted from the time I could originally vote - and I've voted Liberal, Conservative, and NDP. The last time I voted was before the NDP representative said he wasn't going to be bullied around
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by labour. At that point in time, I felt that no matter what Party you actually belonged to - Liberal, Conservative or NDP - you were all the same. You represent yourselves, the people who put you into office, rich people and you have no desire whatsoever to represent the regular people. Hence, I stopped voting.
Before I stopped voting, I used to write on my ballots that none of these people are worth voting for, and then I stopped voting because that vote is not heard anyway. By the advertising recently - which really disturbs me because it says that your vote is not being heard, your voice is not being heard and I feel the absence of my voice on a vote should be heard very loud, that people are very disappointed in our government and that our government does not represent the regular people in this province. That's all I have to say - thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Beaver, appreciate you coming out this evening and sharing your thoughts and comments.
Mr. Steele has a question.
MR. BEAVER: Sure.
MR. STEELE: Thanks very much, Mr. Beaver. We actually don't hear very much from non-voters, so it's actually interesting to hear your perspective. Here's my question for you - you've actually laid out a very nice distinction which is that you used to spoil your ballot and those do get counted and we see the totals of those, but now you don't vote. The difficulty we have, of course, is that the people who don't vote include people who are apathetic and don't care about voting, and it also includes people like yourself who choose not to vote, and it's difficult for us to know what proportion each of those is. So I guess it's not so much a question as a comment - there is a value actually in spoiling your ballot because then we know precisely which category you fall in, whereas if you don't vote at all we're not sure which category you fall in. Do you have any comment on that?
[9:00 p.m.]
MR. BEAVER: Oh, yes, I do. I feel that if there was a spot on the ballot that you could say that you have - sorry, I'm not very good with words.
MR. STEELE: Kind of like none of the above?
MR. BEAVER: Yes.
MR. STEELE: And do you think if we did that, that would increase voter turnout?
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MR. BEAVER: Oh, absolutely. I know of several people I've talked to, they would come and put their vote on that.
MR. STEELE: It's an interesting idea, you know, it would give people a way of positively expressing their dissatisfaction with all the candidates.
MR. BEAVER: Absolutely.
MR. STEELE: Thank you.
MR. BEAVER: You're welcome.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: Mr. Beaver, what would make you vote? What are you looking for in terms of candidates and in terms of issues - what would draw you out?
MR. BEAVER: Well, to tell you the truth, I would really like to see political patronage come back, because then I think you would get rid of all the deadwood in government organizations - very expensive deadwood because they're jobs that are given to people who follow the Parties, or whatever, and then after the government changes they just get pushed off to the side and have another title given to their name, but they don't lose their job any more which I think is part of the reason why government doesn't work the way that it used to years ago. So when you vote now, you don't change anything, you just add another person to the payroll.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Beaver, for your presentation. Who represents you provincially and federally?
MR. BEAVER: Right at the present time I have no idea, nor do I care. The last politician who came to my house, I told him to get out of my garage. He just walked in and started . . .
MR. THERIAULT: So you've never approached him for any kind of help in this, or to bring this to their attention?
MR. BEAVER: I approached him for, let me see, to increase the minimum wage, to give us a fairer tax base. What do you call it when you have - do you mind if I . . .
MR. THERIAULT: No, help yourself, take your time.
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MR. BEAVER: I'm kind of dry, I'm not used to public speaking or putting myself on . . .
MR. THERIAULT: Me either.
MR. BEAVER: When you have a tax system that rich people can not pay any taxes, through deductions and whatever, and the middle-class and lower-class people have to pay their taxes, that really isn't fair to the people who are paying their taxes and not getting anything back for it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Theriault, and again thank you, Mr. Beaver, for coming here this evening and sharing your thoughts with us.
MR. BEAVER: Thank you very much. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I didn't think I was going to be able to there for awhile.
MR. CHAIRMAN: No, we're pleased to see that you walk away pleasantly surprised with tonight's process, so thank you.
MR. BEAVER: I hope so, thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you to all of our presenters who came here this evening. Again, anyone who wishes to submit additional comments to us, there is a Web site to do so, there are e-mails, a fax number, a phone number, a mailing address, and a Facebook site - I think we've covered pretty much every medium there is out there to contact us, so please feel free to do so.
I can advise you that our committee work has not ended. In fact, we have a number of meetings which are still slated to take place. We intend to meet with the co-chairs of Democracy 250, John Hamm and Russell MacLellan, based on some of their findings that they have found through their extensive work throughout the province. We are also going to be meeting with a company that was heavily involved in the Internet voting which took place in a number of municipalities and look forward to their presentation. We, as well, will be meeting with representatives from both the Department of Education and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union to share some of the concerns that we received from them.
Again, thank you to all the committee members and to our support staff, and thank you for taking the time out to join us here this evening.
[The committee adjourned at 9:05 p.m.]
