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.]
In Attendance:
Ms. Kim Leadley
Select Committee Clerk
Ms. Sherri Mitchell
Select Committee Clerk
Witnesses
Mr. John Boudreau
Warden, Richmond County/District 2 Councillor
Mr. A.J. MacLellan
Mr. Vaughan Chisholm
[Page 1]
ANTIGONISH, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2008
SELECT COMMITTEE ON
PARTICIPATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
7:00 P.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Michel Samson
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, if I could call this meeting to order. My name is Michel Samson and I am the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Richmond County and I have the honour of being the Chairman of the Select Committee on Participation in the Democratic Process.
The reason it's called a select committee is that while we do have permanent committees of the Legislature, at certain times we find a need to strike a committee to deal with specific matters. In the past we've had a committee that dealt with national unity back in the 1990s, and back in 1998, when I was first elected, we also had a committee on workers' compensation - Mr. Parker, I believe you were with me way back then.
Following the results of the last provincial election in 2006, when we once again noted a decline in voter participation, following discussions amongst all three Parties, it was decided that a committee should be formed in order to review our existing rules around voting in Nova Scotia and what could be done to increase the turnout. Following that, a resolution was passed in the Legislature, which was supported by all members of the House, which called upon the Speaker to strike a committee in order to review this very subject.
I had the honour of being asked to chair this committee and our purpose has been, as I indicated, to try to find ways in reviewing some of these statistics from the last provincial elections, the federal elections, and even municipal elections, in order to try to determine why there is a decline in voter turnout and what possibly can be done in order to change that trend.
[Page 2]
This committee has done its process a little differently than previous committees in that we decided rather than simply seek public presentations such as this evening, we are also going to have focus groups. Earlier today we met at the NSCC campus in Port Hawkesbury with students from the community college, as well as students from the various high schools throughout the Strait Regional School Board, where we had an opportunity to speak to them and some of their teachers about the issues facing them and some of their suggestions.
We also had a focus group here at St. Andrews Community Centre where we had representatives from different community organizations who were able to give us some of their thoughts and suggestions as well. Tonight we finish off with the public presentations, an opportunity for the public to provide us with some of their suggestions and some of their experiences and any comments that they have as to what changes we might be able to make.
[7:15 p.m.]
Before we do start that process, I should start by indicating that this is a public meeting and it is being recorded by Legislative Television, which is doing the audio of this meeting. As a result, the audio will then be transcribed into Hansard, which is the official record of the House of Assembly. So what is said this evening, and any discussions, are public and will be recorded. As well, we do have some representatives of the local press here, so your comments could be recorded in the local press - I simply point that out as a reminder to our presenters.
Before calling upon any presenters, I want to introduce to everyone the members of our committee. We do have representatives from each of the three political Parties in Nova Scotia.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Also, we have Sherri Mitchell to my left, from our Committees Office, joining us and Kim Leadley, who is with us as well at the back of the room. You will see to my left, as well, we have representatives from Hansard who are typing away and keeping track of everything, and representatives from Legislative Television who are doing the audio and taking care of recording this meeting this evening.
To start off with, if I could call upon the recently re-elected councillor for District 2 in Richmond County, the current warden of Richmond County, Mr. John Boudreau, to come forward and provide some remarks to us.
MR. JOHN BOUDREAU: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be here with you this evening. We've just come off an election, as the chairman has indicated. In my particular district the turnout was in excess of 88 per cent. We ranged from a low-low of 53 per cent in one of the areas - that is
[Page 3]
District 10, of course, which has 51 per cent of the total geography of the county and it's very sparsely populated and scattered - to a high of 94 per cent in Louisdale. The mean was around 85 per cent, so it's quite a turnout.
Mind you, I don't want to pretend that I'm here to give you the answer as to why we had such a turnout, and you're going to go and use my formula, and you're going to get the same thing because the formula is simple. We got them out, we dragged them out because we can do that, we have smaller districts, we have bigger teams on the ground and we don't have nearly as much work as you folks have to do in your regular jobs as our provincial representatives so we can devote the time to it.
As a history teacher and a citizen of my community, I certainly feel badly that the voter turnout is going down in federal/provincial elections and if we were to stop putting the effort in that we do, it would go down equally as sharply in municipal politics. So what is the answer? The answer obviously, the only one I can present to you folks, is education.
A couple of weeks ago I participated in a little forum in one of the junior high schools in my area and listened to the kids who had participated in the model election. I was struck by the facts they were reciting as being the reasons behind the way they would vote, they hadn't voted yet when I was listening to it. They would vote based on the fact that they didn't like a leader because he was wearing a light blue sweater. They would not vote for another guy because he couldn't speak very well. So it wasn't about issues, it wasn't about democracy, and it wasn't about the privilege that one should feel to be able to go out and vote in a democratic society. Somewhere we have lost that, and I'm not sure we haven't lost it because it is not a part of our curriculum anymore.
Certainly, we've had model parliaments. I've seen your chairman on the floor of our gymnasium in our high school many times participating in model parliaments, but model parliaments aren't the answer anymore. You folks are probably way too young to remember a Canadian history book that had a globe that was painted all white and the other globe that was painted all black and on top it said, if Adolph Hitler gets his way this is what your world will be. Then it went through the Battles of Vimy Ridge, the Somme, Ypres and the participation of our Canadian troops. It taught children, here is the value of democracy, here is what these guys did for you, they enabled you to have an opportunity to select your leaders and to force those leaders to work on the issues that you want. So it's an education process, I think, that is going to have to take place.
Mind you, if you have to wait until the children in today's elementary schools get to voting age, many of us won't benefit from that education process - but there's nobody to teach parents like children, is there?
[Page 4]
If we were able to start right now in not teaching the colours blue, red, orange and whatever else, not teaching the philosophical left and right of political Parties, not teaching about the issues that one certain Leader would take on and another certain Leader would take on, if we were to truly start an education process at a very young age that showed children exactly what it means to be able to live in a democratic society - and I don't see that anywhere on the curriculum and I think it ought to be there - and if it's going to be in the curriculum, the only way to succeed in education on any kind of curriculum module is to make it repetitive, repeat it, so if at Grade 3, using a model for example that we use on solid waste management, the child starts seeing the green alligator picking up empty cans and bottles, and at Grade 6 they evolve to another process, but it's the same philosophy, the same kind of teaching.
There has to be something in the curriculum of schools today that will demonstrate not political colour or political inclination, or issues, or leaders, or anything else, but will demonstrate the true meaning of democracy and what it means to be able to live in one. And we've lost it - I don't see it anywhere in the curriculum.
When I talk to children I don't think they know the difference between living in our world and in Cuba, where if you want to go to work as a doctor you're going to get enough to buy yourself a tube of toothpaste every month - and to see what we have in Canada. So the education process is going to be very important.
I believe the other thing that you would have to look at is trying to get the political Parties to agree that prior to an election, and I suppose you guys will probably get 30 days or 26 days or so if an election is called - to have the luxury we had, we had about 48 days, ridiculously too long, but prior to the calling of an election all political Parties should have a commitment to start airing sponsors' ads that show democracy, not political Parties, not political colours, nothing else, but prior to the election call there should be some wonderful, professionally developed television ads, newspaper ads, school circulars that talk about democracy and the right and privilege that it is and the wonderful things that can be accomplished if you participate in that democracy, no matter how small you believe you are and how insignificant you believe you are.
Those ads would set the tone for an election; it would set the tone for voting in an election. Then when people become attached to the concept of voting and you start presenting your election candidates and your election platforms, they automatically connect to that and they can make up their own minds which way they want to vote - but the principle of voting would have been established prior to the platforms being released.
I also believe that the faces of provincial politicians are not seen enough - Ronnie, I see yours way too often . . .
[Page 5]
HON. RONALD CHISHOLM: I don't know if that's good or bad. (Laughter)
MR. BOUDREAU: We've had pretty good luck. The faces of provincial politicians aren't seen enough - and I go back to what I said at the inception, that you can't be out there on the streets. So how do you do it? What do you do if you can't have the time - and I don't expect you would - to go house to house to house all the time and sit with your neighbours, like I had a chance to do for the last month, and drink a cup of tea and have a soda biscuit - you don't have time for that, so what do you do? You create televised forums within your districts that speak to the issue not just of what you are going to do for people, but speak to the issue of democracy and voting.
You let people participate in those forums, let them contact the station, the community channel or the media outlet that you utilized, and you let them contact you back through that medium and say "we liked what you said, but", or "we didn't like what you said, but", and then you get feedback - and it doesn't take that much time to do that.
I know that you people participate very readily in forums, but they are all forums about specific issues, and if people watching those forums don't like the issues, they're not going to go out to vote on them. And if it becomes an Americanized campaign like the one that we almost saw in the federal campaign this time - and we're getting close, I think, with the American version of mud-slinging - if we continue down that track and we don't teach about true democracy and we don't put some positive messages out there I don't see that we're going to increase the number of voters, I would say we're going to decrease them.
Gentlemen, ladies, I would like to thank you very much for the time tonight and I would welcome any questions if you have any.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Warden Boudreau, and I should have said that from the start, that we certainly had some questions. Mr. Dunn.
MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned about the education process - and I couldn't agree with you more - if you were given the task of changing the curriculum, at what grade level would you start?
MR. BOUDREAU: I would start at about Grade 3. In the education field we know that at Primary, Grade 1 and Grade 2, you are establishing the basis of understanding in reading and writing - the preliminaries - and by Grade 3 you want to start developing the mind in a thought-provoking process, and that's where I would start, albeit people may think that children in Grade 3 cannot educate their parents - I will guarantee you they can and they can bring home some pretty powerful messages - I would repeat it again at Grade 6 and I would repeat it again at Grade 9, and I would probably follow it up with good strong political science programs that have at least some components that are mandatory at Grade 11 or Grade 12. You need not take a full course, but you need to take some module course.
[Page 6]
And what I would not do, Mr. Dunn, is to put those teaching modules in the hands of regular classroom teachers. I would have a specialized team that would present, that would go around the Province of Nova Scotia presenting the curriculum to the children. You know what it was in mathematics, the last guy on staff - you get to teach math because nobody else wanted it. So I don't want the same thing to happen with a process like this; I would not want that to happen. You would need to create a team that would go to various schools across the Province of Nova Scotia. It could be created in your own municipal units, you might have two or three people who would spend a month going to the high schools; it could be created at the provincial level. But that's the way I would do it.
MR. DUNN: We certainly haven't had any amount of consistency from the elementary grades up through the high school - civics in middle school and maybe at the Grade 12 level, or a political science course in Canadian history in Grade 11.
Just another question I had, just trying to get an opinion from you about provincial members sending out newsletters to their constituency.
MR. BOUDREAU: Newsletters are one way to communicate, blogs are one way to communicate, but there's nothing like seeing the face and attaching the value to the face, and for that you need to either have a Web presence or a television presence. Albeit we have a great deal of connectivity, and Richmond County is probably the county with the greatest amount of technology connectivity in all of Nova Scotia, but we still have a tremendously aged population who do not benefit from that connectivity, but they do watch TV and I believe they would participate through that medium.
[7:30 p.m.]
MR. DUNN: A lot of the feedback we are receiving is we're finding out that there are a lot of homes now where there are no discussions around the kitchen table any longer with regard to a lot of things, politics being one of them. I know you just mentioned earlier, referring to Grade 3, that they can teach parents a lot, so I'm sure if they're learning that in some venue they are going to carry over to the home. Do you have any other suggestions, putting youth to one side and looking at a lot of adults in our communities who are no longer engaged in the process and are not involved with their children as far as talking about democracy and so on?
MR. BOUDREAU: That's where I say, for a month before you issue the writ and you start the election process, you would have to have some very professional, provoking advertising about the democratic process and the right to vote and the privilege of being able to vote, and you'd have to address it to that target audience. Professional marketers know how to target specific audiences and how to provoke specific audiences and I think that's the only way you would reach those. I wouldn't want to just target - and you're absolutely correct, the number of children in school is diminishing, most of our communities now are
[Page 7]
quite elderly and we will not reach a significant portion of the population if we do it through the children only.
But one thing I want to tell you, it's not just a matter of sending a child home to tell his parents that he learned about the democratic process - what we do, when we do it in other types of forums like solid waste management, we send the child home with an assignment for their parents to bring back to school. That's kind of an opposite type of education philosophy that we're used to, but it works amazingly well when a child goes home with four or five specimens and says, Mum and Dad, you have to tell me, you have to sort this and you have to identify what becomes of these items in this solid waste stream, and you fill out that sheet and I'm going to take it back to school tomorrow. Then I'm going to mark you on it, I'm going to score you and I'm going to tell you how you did on it. That's the kind of education process that I'm talking about.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: Thank you. Interesting, the themes we've been hearing here about education and it has been coming up over and over in our conversations with youth and with parents, teachers, elected people and so on, the importance of having civics or having democratic education within our school system.
I guess my question has been partly answered, you're talking about the importance of educating parents through their children - any children, I guess - and recycling was a real good example. You mentioned that's how we, as adults, learn from our kids coming back, hey, Mom, Dad, this is how to do it, this is what we learned - and Nova Scotians are leaders in the world now in solid waste recycling.
The curriculum, I guess, I'm just wondering how best to get that. You mentioned the idea of, something like a travelling group that goes from school to school maybe under the auspices of the Department of Education, I assume, but at the present time do you have the authority, as a principal or as a teacher, within the social studies curriculum, or whatever subject, to design a unit or to teach these topics now, or do you need permission from the Department of Education?
MR. BOUDREAU: You have to have permission from the department. The department sets a pretty strict curriculum in all courses that are offered in high school. To deviate from that curriculum is tough for teachers because they have to complete all of the prerequisites of the curriculum by the end of the year.
But there are courses like carrière et vie, which in English, I guess, would be a career and lifestyle module of a course. It's compulsory for all students to take and yet, in that, if you're going to talk about a career and proper lifestyle, there is nothing in there about the democratic process, there's nothing about elected representation, there's absolutely nothing.
[Page 8]
We teach kids to go out and seek a career and be in a vacuum when they're out there. Those are the types of places where you can place this curriculum, but it has to be designed, it has to be a design module and it has to be a spiralling model.
That's why I say, you introduce it at Grade 3 and again at Grade 6 and again at Grade 9 and again at Grade 11 - all learning has to be spiralled or else it has no effect. If you don't learn that one and one are two, don't ever try to learn that two and two are four. There has to be that spiralling effect. I'm not a curriculum design expert, albeit I've participated in curriculum design for some programs, but you do have the expertise at the Department of Education and if they were called upon to devise a module, I'm certain they could come up with something.
MR. PARKER: Okay, so you feel it's the Education Department's ultimate responsibility to do this - but under the present curriculum, is there any leeway?
MR. BOUDREAU: Oh, absolutely.
MR. PARKER: But in some of this right now?
MR. BOUDREAU: Yes, absolutely, there is room to put it in, but the classroom teacher would be reluctant to do it at the risk of not covering what they believe is the ultimate curriculum for that child at that grade level. With the department saying, look we're introducing a one-week module that you're going to have to do at Grade 3 with all of your Grade 3 classes, somebody is going to walk in there - and teachers are only too happy to get someone to come in and assist them with classroom learning, they are always very obliging. When I went to a school last week and brought our solid-waste education person in, all of a sudden I had six teachers saying I want him in my classroom. So yes, the department wouldn't have any difficulty in finding the room. I'm not talking about year-long modules, it doesn't take that much time.
MR. PARKER: So you're suggesting about a week in a Grade 3 classroom, Grade 6 classroom, whatever?
MR. BOUDREAU: Yes. Leading up to the fact that you'd then be building interest so that when you do get to the political science courses, or the global studies courses, or the economics courses, or what have you at the Grade 11 or 12 level, you would have some modules in there that would be longer than a week.
MR. PARKER: The other problem as elected officials is that from time to time we are invited to go into a classroom. I know I have been in Grades 1, 2, 5, and 6 classrooms from time to time; in fact, our Speaker of the House was out with the mace and went around and I had that privilege to be with him one day at the Salt Springs Elementary and I think there were another couple in Pictou County as well. Those are good things, children have all
[Page 9]
kinds of good questions and it's a great way to learn. I understand that in some parts of the province, elected officials, MLAs in particular, are not welcome in the schools. In your area in Richmond County, did you ever have any problem with that?
MR. BOUDREAU: I have never seen that problem.
MR. PARKER: In some jurisdictions in this province apparently we are not welcome, in some boards.
MR. BOUDREAU: Well, I'm going to tell you, if you're not welcome in the school as duly elected representatives of the population that serves that school, somebody, probably a minister, a certain Minister of Education, might want to straighten out those types of situations.
MR. PARKER: It's wrong. It's certainly not democratic.
MR. BOUDREAU: I would never stand for something like that. I concur with you that going in with the Speaker and the mace at Grade 1, 2 or 3, now what you have done is invoked those students, they have seen something wonderful and beautiful and started relating to it. If you were to spiral that along at Grade 3 again, and Grade 6 again, and keep them rolling, then you would be building the momentum with those children.
MR. PARKER: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Parker. Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Mr. Boudreau, are you running for warden again?
MR. BOUDREAU: I have one of my councillors in here and I refused to tell him that on the way up, I refuse to answer that question until Friday.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): You made some interesting points. How many voters are there in your district?
MR. BOUDREAU: In my district, 805.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): So one of the points you made was that you did go around and manage to have a cup of tea and sit down with most of them and that's great. If I was to do that in my constituency I would have to visit 6,000 homes. It's not possible, and you did make that point as well, so we have to find other ways. The interesting point - all of your points were interesting, but one of the points I did mark down here was that when you first opened your presentation you said that we did our job, we dragged them out to vote.
[Page 10]
The reason I found that interesting is because I think it's part of our job, as elected officials, to get people out to vote and how we do that, I think, is one of the questions that we're struggling with here right now, how we go about doing that?
On election day part of that job is to actually drag people out to vote, because some people will not go to vote for a varied amount of reasons, whether they don't have the time, they don't have the transportation, they don't want to or whatever. So the question I'm asking you is, do we do a good enough job of that and could we improve it?
MR. BOUDREAU: Again, I want to believe that you do as good a job as possible with the tremendous number of homes you have to visit and the tremendous amount of leg work you would have to do. I believe that you are probably from communities much like mine where the volunteer base is depleting. The numbers of people who are willing to go out and help you carry these people to the polls is becoming less every time you go out, I'm sure, and it's increasingly difficult to do that. Do I believe you do a good enough job of addressing voters? No, I think "The medium is the message." - that's Marshall McLuhan I'm quoting there - but you have the opportunity of using the media to invoke and I don't think we are making great strides in using that.
If I were to turn to tourism as an example, in the Province of Nova Scotia we try to build on tourism. We're saying it's a weakening industry and we're doing everything we can, yet Mitch MacDonald of Port Hood was one of two semi-finalists and the only one near Nova Scotia was Mitch MacDonald. There were five tremendously invoking ads on that particular show in terms of tourism. They were all from the Province of New Brunswick. There were none from the Province of Nova Scotia. You can invoke people through media and we are not utilizing that to its full capacity.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Well, you did mention that we should start advertising the issue of democracy well before an election campaign and I'm wondering, you have Elections Canada in Nova Scotia. You have - what do we call it? - Elections Nova Scotia. You do have agencies that are in effect on a year-round basis that deal with elections. They deal with voters' lists, they deal with a number of things. Should those agencies be given - well, they would have to be given the mandate and the money to make sure that democracy is promoted on a year-round basis.
MR. BOUDREAU: Absolutely, absolutely they should. It's not enough to get the big green flag that says Democracy 250 and hoist it up in front of the municipal building, it's not enough. You have to have a solid sphere, something, a direction and, yes, you have to have a group that's funded and directed to do that. You guys can't do it. You have family, you have your work in the Legislative Assembly. You have your constituent matters to deal with and you can't do it all. So there has to be somebody doing that for you and yes, Elections Nova Scotia should be given the mandate and the money.
[Page 11]
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): One last question. You said you had a high of about 95 per cent in Louisdale, but you had an area of about 50 per cent or lower. What happened?
MR. BOUDREAU: The geography is huge. It takes about an hour and 45 minutes to drive one way from one end of that district to the other and it's all gravel roads and dirt roads and people just don't want to drive dirt roads and gravel roads. Some people don't even want to drive the paved roads in that area or I might have been in Sydney last night as opposed to being here tonight.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Steele.
MR. GRAHAM STEELE: Thanks very much for coming tonight, Mr. Boudreau. My questions are to elaborate on a couple of things you've said. How many times have you been elected?
[7:45 p.m.]
MR. BOUDREAU: This is only my second time. I'm a rookie politician. My first term as a municipal councillor I was asked to take the reins of warden halfway through it.
MR. STEELE: One of the things we're trying to figure out in addition to why the voter turnout is low is why it is sliding, so what I was going to ask you is, is it getting harder to get people out to vote? But if you've only been elected twice, you may not have an opinion on that.
MR. BOUDREAU: It would be difficult to judge. I know it was extremely hard, it was a tough month, let me put it that way, a really tough month just to get 805 people, to get the majority of them out to vote. So I can imagine how tough it must be for people who have thousands of voters and it must be becoming more difficult.
MR. STEELE: Now, one of the things we know from our research is that even though the total number of voters in the province is sliding, it's uneven across the province. Some areas are terrible and some areas are pretty good and Richmond County actually stands out as one of the areas that is pretty good, where the voter turnout is quite high. Now, you've said that's because the vote is polled.
MR. BOUDREAU: Yes.
MR. STEELE: Do you believe that's the reason in Richmond County, or are there any other characteristics of the community that would explain the high voter turnout?
[Page 12]
MR. BOUDREAU: I think we still have one of those good old-fashioned, knock-em-down, drag-em-out communities when it comes to talking about politics. People in one particular poll during the municipal election were talking to me about the hollering that was going on outside the poll and the near fisticuffs because people were debating the issues a little more rigorously than the norm. I think it goes back to the fact that we still have people who have it in their heart and will want to face the issues and want to debate the issues. There is some of that.
MR. STEELE: My second question goes back to the question of the school curriculum. A number of people have suggested that, not just tonight, but elsewhere, that part of the answer here is teaching our children about voting, about government, the importance of voting. Sometimes it's phrased in terms of returning civics to the school curriculum, but it's not clear to me whether a course on government has ever been part of the curriculum. In your experience as a teacher, was it ever part of the curriculum?
MR. BOUDREAU: No.
MR. STEELE: Okay, so we're not talking about returning something to the curriculum, we're talking about adding something that has never been there.
MR. BOUDREAU: We're talking about something entirely different and new and something that is not just one course, but something that is a spiralling model that would carry through from very early on. We've had tattered attempts at putting things in, but they've always been based on the political colours, political Parties, some issues that may or may not have been relevant to the child. But they've never been solidly about the privilege of living in a democratic society and participating in that democracy and seeing it work.
MR. STEELE: What I worry about here is, there's a whole generation that used to vote, or still does vote, and they never had a civics course and yet we're talking about maybe trying to get young people to vote again by giving them a civics course which their parents and grandparents never had and their parents and grandparents voted anyway. I just wonder, obviously you believe that if there was something like that, it would have a positive impact on voting.
MR. BOUDREAU: I think their parents and grandparents probably had a nice nip of rum at the door, from time to time.
MR. STEELE: You know, that's actually a very interesting point. This came up in the afternoon session and if I may, Mr. Chairman, I just want to finish up on that point. Some serious political scientists have suggested that at least part of the reason why voter turnout is dropping is because in the old days some people were given something. They got something - a nip of rum, a box of chocolates, flowers or nylons for ladies, whatever. They
[Page 13]
got something and that was their incentive to vote. Now that stuff doesn't happen anymore, right?
MR. BOUDREAU: It doesn't.
MR. STEELE: Now that it doesn't happen anymore, do you believe or do you not believe that may be a factor, or is that irrelevant? That's one of the things we're trying to figure out.
MR. BOUDREAU: I think it's a factor, but I wouldn't want to go back to it, I wouldn't want to go back to buying votes with rum. I don't see that as a true understanding of the democratic principle that we live under.
MR. STEELE: Of course, no one is suggesting that, but I guess what we're trying to put our finger on is in the old days, if the rum hadn't been offered, would the voter turnout have been around what it is now? Or was there something else going on back then that got people to turn out anyway?
MR. BOUDREAU: I think people got more excited about elections. I think they got more stirred. I think, as I said, I recall the rallies - 50 cars going by our house and there was only 60 cars in the community. They were all tooting their horns and they were headed down to the parish hall and they were going to have a good bashing of the other Party type thing. The following night, it was the other Party that did it. People were really adamant that they were playing a role.
They've lost that identity with playing a role and I think we have to re-engage them. I know of nothing better to engage or re-engage citizens than a proper education process. That's how we do it in all other aspects of our life.
MR. STEELE: Thank you very much and once again, thank you for coming out tonight.
MR. BOUDREAU: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Steele. Mr. Theriault.
MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Boudreau, it was a wonderful presentation. For the last couple of days with this, education has been at the forefront in all the hearings that we've had. Tonight you seem to have some answers for that, how to go about that. That's good, some of the ways you've spoken about tonight are some of the first that I've heard, anyway, about how to go about educating our children.
[Page 14]
You also spoke about negative ads. I mean there are lots of problems why we're not going out to vote and negative ads were one of them. You brought that up at the first of your presentation.
You have the answers about education. Do you have any idea of how we would go about stopping the negative ads? Because I've heard it too, I've heard it from young people and older people, they're just disgusted to see someone in Canada get on television and run somebody else down to try to make headway for themselves. It's not the Canadian way, I hear that all the time. How do we go about stopping the negative ads?
MR. BOUDREAU: I wish I had the answer for that one, Mr. Theriault, but I can tell you that negative ads sell newspapers. Journalism is founded on sensationalism. Negativity is sensational. Positives are not that sensational. People don't like to hear the good-news stories, they want to hear the ones that they can add to and find something a little worse, not a little better, the next day.
It's going to be very difficult to stop the negative ads, they're sensational. I really think that a pre-election, positive ad campaign on democracy, on the right to vote, on why you should vote, on what you gain by voting, those will all be positive because they will be created positively and they'll be directed to be a positive influence. After that, it will be some negativity, but hopefully the retention of the positive value of voting may obscure some of the negative comments about personalities.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you. You spoke about it being mandatory for our children to learn about democracy in our schools.
MR. BOUDREAU: It should be.
MR. THERIAULT: There is mandatory voting around the world in places, Australia being one. What do you think about mandatory voting?
MR. BOUDREAU: I'm not in favour of it, I wouldn't be in favour of mandatory voting at all. I think there are a number of things that you have to be willing to do for God and country - participation in jury duty is one that I'd like to speak on, too, but this is not the forum to do it - but forcing people to participate in any kind of venue, against their free will to do so, is adverse to the democratic process, as I see it.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Theriault. Mr. Chisholm.
[Page 15]
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for the presentation. There were some very good ideas and the education one, I guess, is the one that kind of caught me more than anything.
I recall back probably four years ago I went to a school in Sherbrooke, in my riding, just before Remembrance Day, with a number of veterans, and I was really impressed with how the children, the kids, were engaged with those veterans, talking about the democratic process and what they had gone through during the war years. So now when I go to a school, I sort of make that part of my presentation as well. I think that as elected people, every chance we get we should be going into the schools and going into communities where we talk to people and address the issue of the democratic process.
Just in the recent federal election, you know, I had an opportunity to get back to some of the campaigning that I used to do, where I did have some town hall meetings and over the last number of years I haven't done that. Peter MacKay and I, I think in two days we probably had 15 town hall meetings, which kind of brought me back to where I started, back in 1999, and prior to that with my council years. So the people we're talking to - some days we didn't have very big crowds but we had enough that people were saying, we miss this and we should be doing a lot more of it. So I think that as elected people we have that responsibility, as well, when we get to schools.
I have a picture that I carry around with me when I go to the schools and talk about the democratic process. When I was a member of St. Mary's Municipal Council, there was a lady who lived in Lochaber who used to call me for help filling out forms and that sort of thing. One day I just happened to notice a picture on the wall of a group of fairly young guys in the army, obviously in the Second World War, soldiers, and I asked her about it. I got looking at it and my father was in the picture, my uncle was in it and a number of people that I knew down around the Heatherton area, probably about 15 people that I knew in that picture. Her son was in it and he was killed overseas. So I now use that picture when I do a presentation at a school and it really seems to get the kids involved, they can talk to veterans.
Somebody asked about the attack ads. Well, just in the past federal election, my grandson picked it up - I wouldn't vote for so-and-so because he's going to cut everything and he's bad and you know, and then you see the other guy criticizing the other guy, and then he wasn't going to vote for that guy. These ads really have a negative impact on our young people and it just truly, I believe, turns them off from the political process that we have and somehow we have to get back to, I guess, doing the old things that we used to do in the old days. Getting back to - not with the rum, by the way, although I think it may not be a bad idea, 94 per cent voting, but anyway, I agree, you can't go back to those kinds of days either.
We have to start engaging our communities. I come from a riding that I guess is probably the largest riding in the province and for me to knock on every door in an election campaign is totally impossible. If I left East Ship Harbour on the Eastern Shore and went to
[Page 16]
Canso, it would take me close to five hours to get there and then to go to Mulgrave, it would be another two hours. So between elections, I think that's when we have to be engaging the people in the communities - especially the young people, because that's where we're having the problems just trying to get our young people to be engaged in the political process, we seem to forget that. But anyway, I don't really have any questions but thank you very much for your presentation, it was very good.
MR. BOUDREAU: Thank you, Ronnie. I do want to just touch for a moment, if I could, on the concept of town hall meetings. I really agree with you, I think you have to get back to them, but we have the electronic technology, the IT capacity, to have town hall meetings without being in the physical space in the town, and that's what we've got to start utilizing.
And if I may segue to your story of the picture that you carry, one of the proxies I had for my municipal election was the wife of the last remaining veteran on Isle Madame who landed on the beach at D-Day. He was five feet, six inches tall, carrying a nine and a half pound rifle and a 90-pound backpack and when he hit the water off the ramp, if he hadn't had a taller chap beside him, he would have drowned right there and the bullets were whizzing by his head. I brought that proxy back the morning that she passed away, to her husband, and he's not feeling very well. But I'm wondering, as I look around my community, how many people knew that? How many people knew that chap was there, at that young age, taking the hail of bullets so that I could have the opportunity to run as a municipal councillor in his district.
[8:00 p.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chisholm. Mr. Bain.
MR. KEITH BAIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Mr. Boudreau. It's quite interesting listening to your talk on education. Just to follow up on what Ronnie has mentioned. I mention it quite often, I guess, when you see the tremendous success our Legions are having in going out into our schools. Remembrance Day and the sacrifices that people made were starting to become a thing of the past and thank God for our Legions and how they're going out there and bringing that awareness back. The awareness is sticking with the children and they're going home and talking about - well, we learned this and about this - I think that's part of the education process.
I have a couple of questions. First of all, you mentioned living in the world of technology. I would like to know your ideas about Internet voting, voting on-line.
MR. BOUDREAU: I absolutely love it, I think it's the answer.
[Page 17]
MR. BAIN: For what reason?
MR. BOUDREAU: It enables people, it gives them another mechanism that they can utilize. Transportation systems in rural areas in Nova Scotia are limited, we just hit the road in my area with the Strait Area Transit system and we're starting to try to get people back and forth to different venues, but we have a long way to go.
The opportunity to participate in elections and to participate in the democratic process should not be limited to those who can get there. It should be wide open to those who can judge it based on the technology that they have at hand and who can react to it with technology they have at hand, and that's electronic voting.
MR. BAIN: I think we've experienced that in the past municipal election in HRM where they did their advance poll, that there was Internet voting or voting on-line. I believe someone mentioned today the response was 37 per cent, is that correct?
MR. CHAIRMAN: It was 30 per cent of the 37 per cent.
MR. BAIN: Okay. The other question I want to ask is - people say, I'm not going to vote. Why should I go and vote? It's not going to make a difference. How do we change that attitude?
MR. BOUDREAU: It all gets back to what is democracy. If you could ask that same person what democracy is, they wouldn't have any idea what it is. If you were able to show them the difference between living in a democratic society and not having the option of a democratic society and a democratic process, I bet you they would change their mind on the vote. For me to be able to say I would not vote knowing what I know, having gone through what I - we filmed, on our island, Isle Madame, a film called The Crimson Flower of Battle, which is the story of all of our World War I and World War II veterans and the part they played in enabling our society to have a democracy. I participated in the filming of that, I showed it every year along with the Legion members in our high schools and I'm entrenched in the philosophy that the democratic process - there's no other alternative than democracy for me, therefore I will vote.
I don't think it's too late, I don't believe for a moment that it's too late to convince the majority of our population of that. I think we just - somebody mentioned a while ago - we've lost a generation, we just didn't do it for an entire generation. It's unfortunate that we lost, but don't be too excited about the one that got away, look for the next one.
MR. BAIN: If I could, just one more, Mr. Chairman. I think we evidenced polls in this last federal election. It seemed like at least once a week or sometimes twice a week there was a poll coming out. Do you think polls and the fact that polls are public now - all political Parties have their internal polls of course, but when polls are made public, would that
[Page 18]
discourage or encourage people to vote? If they see that so and so is going to run away with it, why should I bother?
MR. BOUDREAU: Yes, I think you're right, I think it does discourage people from voting. My first go-around four years ago, one very nice elderly couple who had committed to voting for me, told me after the election they didn't go out to vote and they were very sorry they hadn't, but they were told at five o'clock in the evening that the count had started and I was 300 votes behind and they may as well not waste their time going out to vote. So because they couldn't convince them to vote for my opponent, at least they could convince them to stay home, and that's a mini poll and yes, they have a detrimental effect.
MR. BAIN: Do you feel public polls should not be public?
MR. BOUDREAU: I think so.
MR. BAIN: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Bain. Mr. Dunn, very quickly.
MR. DUNN: Just a couple of comments, one from an educational point of view. My experience over the years is when you add something to the plate of a teacher in the curriculum area, they begin to cringe - at all levels. In particular, high school because they have a lot of pressures on them, especially students who are trying to prepare for post-secondary school - physics, chemistry, biology, advanced math and so on. I still think it can be worked in to some of their courses. You mentioned one, career and life management, which is a half credit course and it butts up against physically active lifestyles. It would be a good opportunity if they continue to have these courses in school, which is sort of something being discussed.
One last question, just an opinion, what about a teaching module of some sort in areas like sea cadets, air cadets, Army, Scouts, Cubs, Brownies?
MR. BOUDREAU: A tremendous idea. I think, yes, absolutely, there are all kinds, from the Brownies to the Girl Guides to the Scouts to the sea cadets, air cadets - all kinds of places where you can do that. That is where you can strike home very quickly. It's a tremendous idea.
MR. DUNN: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr Dunn. Warden Boudreau, just a couple of questions on the comparison between the municipal voting process and the provincial voting process. What was the process you used if an elector was not on the voters' list, what process did you use to get that person added to the voters' list?
[Page 19]
MR. BOUDREAU: I really believe in the Certificate of Eligibility, so I went out and did it in advance.
MR. CHAIRMAN: How does that work? Just for the committee members, because apparently each municipality could have possibly different rules, could you just explain to us what that looked like and how it was administered?
MR. BOUDREAU: I don't know whether we can have different rules because it comes from the Municipal Elections Act and one of the forms in the Municipal Elections Act permits a Certificate of Eligibility to be signed by a person who is not on the voters' list and ought to be on that register. I felt it was my duty - as opposed to making people go through the consternation of having stand at a table and be sworn in and baptized - or whatever it is they do - to go around with those certificates and have them signed and returned to the Chief Electoral Officer who promptly had them put on the electoral list so that when they arrive at the poll, their name is in fact at hand.
MR. CHAIRMAN: If I'm not mistaken, once you get someone to fill out this form, you, as the candidate, actually also swore an oath on the form indicating that this person resided where they resided and that's all that was required.
MR. BOUDREAU: Yes, that's it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So rather than the elector having to take the burden of doing this, under the municipal system, you, as a candidate, were able to actually seek out people who were not on the list. You took care of that yourself.
MR. BOUDREAU: Absolutely.
MR. CHAIRMAN: In your own estimation, would all of those individuals who ended up being added to the list, would they have gone on their own to do that had you not pursued that on your own?
MR. BOUDREAU: No, they would not have all gone. Some would have. The ones who contacted me when I made the first call to them, indicating they were not on the list and I could remedy that for them in advance of the election - those who contacted me right away and said, I want that remedied, would have voted. The other ones that I had to go see again and say, are you sure you don't want to vote in this municipal election, they would not have gone.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure.
MR. BOUDREAU: But by going to them and presenting them the certificate and saying how easy it would be, they did come out.
[Page 20]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Could you also explain to the committee how the proxy ballot system worked in this municipal election? What did you have to do to get someone who was either away or unable to go vote, what was the process?
MR. BOUDREAU: This year, for the first time, the proxy form was one as opposed to two. Before the proxy voter had his/her own form and the elector had his/her own form. To give you an example, a chap in Fort McMurray would be looking for a proxy, would have to sign the proxy form, the other form would have to be signed by that same chap and by the elector in the district who would be voting on his/her behalf.
This time, it's one long form. You send it to Fort McMurray and you say, if you wish to vote simply sign where the proxy voter has to sign and send it back. Indicate who you would like to vote for you and it's a done deal.
MR. CHAIRMAN: What ID requirements were part of that?
MR. BOUDREAU: There were no ID requirements.
MR. CHAIRMAN: And you could fax this out to Fort McMurray and get it faxed back?
MR. BOUDREAU: Absolutely. The only thing that was required is the proxy, the long form, has to be returned to the Chief Electoral Officer either by the proxy voter or the candidate. Whoever returns it has to swear that the affidavit on the bottom was authentically signed.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So as the candidate you could do this yourself?
MR. BOUDREAU: Absolutely.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think it's safe to say that we would all agree it's a much more friendly system than what we have been using provincially and federally. I'm curious, how many proxy ballots did you have on election day?
MR. BOUDREAU: I had 52.
MR. CHAIRMAN: And out of how many total electors you told us?
MR. BOUDREAU: Yes, 805.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that we had 52 out of 8,000 electors speaks for itself. Warden, just before you leave, we talked a bit earlier about the importance of voting and everything else. I know it didn't apply to this election but when you were first elected, just
[Page 21]
to remind all of our committee members and those here about the importance of every vote counts, I wonder if you can tell us, what was your majority in your first campaign?
MR. BOUDREAU: My majority was three votes in a three-way race.
MR. CHAIRMAN: And in this election it was?
MR. BOUDREAU: This time, 247.
MR. CHAIRMAN: A much more comfortable majority to say the least and every vote certainly counted. Warden, thank you again for taking the time to drive up here from Petit-de-Grat to be here with us this evening. We certainly appreciated your comments and I'm sure all of our committee wishes you well as you and your fellow councillors move forward over the next four years.
MR. BOUDREAU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and committee members. I want to tell you that if at times you feel like the task you've undertaken is a lost cause, please don't feel that way. We do have to maintain the sanctity of the democratic process and the work you are doing will, I'm sure, lead to an increased number of people going out to the polls and if you don't do it, we're going to lose it. Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Warden. Is there anyone else here who wishes to share their comments or thoughts with the committee? We're very informal as to who comes forward. I can tell you that in Sydney last night we had no one on our list of presenters and at the end of the night we had six presenters come forward and share with us their thoughts. So, again, if there's anyone who's here this evening, you certainly don't need a prepared text or anything.
Sir, if you want to step forward, just identify yourself and where you're from and speak directly into the microphone. Have a seat.
MR. A.J. MACLELLAN: I'm formerly from this area. I've been here for 17 years and married here.
MR. CHAIRMAN: And your name is?
MR. MACLELLAN: A.J. MacLellan. I didn't like how it was set up for the election and I can guarantee that's a lot of the comments I'm getting as far as seniors having to have two pieces of ID. Some of them don't have a driver's licence. Some of them don't have an ID or a passport, and that's what's turning the younger generation away. I got a card saying that I had to go to South River, the west side of South River, to vote. My civic address had 2903. My wife's was the same. I had to go to the university to vote, she had to come here.
[Page 22]
I only live five minutes up the road. So there's the problem with the younger generation not coming.
[8:15 p.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: This is the federal election you're referring to?
MR. MACLELLAN: Exactly.
MR. CHAIRMAN: And as far as the municipal election, did you encounter any similar problems?
MR. MACLELLAN: No, I just came in and voted. They had given me a form to fill out there that day but she said, well, you should have called in. Well, I said we got two cards together, I'm away working; the wife had seen her's and it was all right so she figured mine was all right. The day we came down, we didn't even notice until we got in the hall here and she said, no, you can't vote here, you've got to go to the Bloomfield school in Antigonish. I only live five minutes up the road and that's a concern.
Even my two teenage kids, they see this, what do they think? Is this the bull we're going to have to go through to go to vote? We're trying to get these kids to go vote and this is not helping and the same idea on TV - the cutthroat. I know from talking to my teenagers. I'm quite interested in it myself. I worked for the province. I like to keep tabs on things. My parents always did. We were a family of 13. But this is what's turning the younger generation away, I can guarantee it. I'm a businessman as well and I hear it from every house I go to. There's a lot of bull, so we've got to find a better way.
Do these lists come from Revenue Canada where they should come from? Everybody pays income tax, everybody who works has to pay federal tax, the forms always find the house. My revenue bills always get there, my GST never goes to the wrong house, so why can't they use that list to make a voter's list? Are they paying somebody to give them a job and they're not getting it right? But I can guarantee you, that's a lot of the problem and I'm hearing it from house to house I go to.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. MacLellan. I can tell you we certainly heard some of that last night in Sydney and I think all of us, individually, have heard those comments as well. Do members of the committee have any questions on that? Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: Thank you, Mr. MacLellan. I know you waited patiently for your turn, I appreciate that very much. I just want to make sure that I understand correctly what happened to you. If I understand you correctly, you and your wife live at the same house but you were each asked to vote in two places that were far apart from each other?
[Page 23]
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes. We've been there for 17 years.
MR. STEELE: Do you have any explanation at all for why that might have happened?
MR. MACLELLAN: No.
MR. STEELE: You also mentioned about the identification requirement. Are you personally aware of people who chose not to vote because of that requirement or who turned up to vote and gave up?
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes.
MR. STEELE: How many people are you personally aware of?
MR. MACLELLAN: I would say just since the election on the weekend there was probably four or five who mentioned that to me, the younger generation. I have heard two from seniors.
MR. STEELE: And for the younger generation, are you talking about young people who were asked to produce ID and couldn't and therefore didn't vote?
MR. MACLELLAN: That's right.
MR. STEELE: Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Steele. Mr. Dunn first and then we'll get to you, Mr. Wilson.
MR. DUNN: Just one quick question, Mr. MacLellan. Going back to the federal election in 2006 or the federal election prior to that, did you ever face the same situation where you had to go to a different place to vote?
MR. MACLELLAN: No.
MR. DUNN: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Mr. MacLellan, thanks for waiting, do you mind if I call you A.J.? Is that what everyone calls you?
[Page 24]
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes, it is.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I went to the poll myself to vote, at the advanced poll. When I walked in - in Glace Bay, I'm from Glace Bay - the guy who was at the head of the polls - his name was Bill MacDonald - he said, hey, Dave, how are you doing? I said, hi, Bill. The next person I ran into - her name was Emmaline Strong - I said, hi, Emmaline, and she said, hi, Dave, how are you doing? I said, good, Emmaline, how are the kids? Good. The next person to her was Alice - I said, hi, Alice, how are you doing? The next person to her was Mary - I said, Mary, how is your husband feeling? Good.
I turned around and Bill said, you know Dave, I'm going to have to ask you for ID - and I'm the MLA for the area. I didn't have a problem reaching into my pocket and taking out my driver's licence and giving Bill the ID because - those were the rules, right? Sometimes people make up pretty silly rules for whatever reason, so I didn't have a problem doing that and you probably didn't have a problem doing that either?
MR. MACLELLAN: No. I did get to vote here by the way. I just had to fill out a form, correctly signed and the people who were working there knew me, they were my neighbours. Other than that, say if they sent somebody from town out here to work the polls, I would have had to go to town.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): You just took away my next question, A.J. - I was going to ask you, did you finally get to vote and where you got to vote. (Laughter) Like I said, sometimes the rules are pretty silly but if you have other rules there that allow people to vote, when you go to a place to vote and you vote there by getting sworn in or if people know you, whatever the case may be, the bottom line is you got to vote. It would have been easier if you had walked in and that had been there from the very beginning. You did make one point there that there are some people, especially seniors, who no longer have a driver's licence, who may not pay that much attention to the ads that are there about what you have to take. When Mr. Steele asked you, you didn't know of anybody who actually didn't get to vote?
MR. MACLELLAN: No, not right off. They had complained about it to somebody they knew.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I guess my point is that in the end run everything worked out, right?
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): But you would like to see it simplified, made a little bit easier?
[Page 25]
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes, like the address double-checked and whatever. When you're sending these cards out that they actually get to the proper place with the proper address on them. Both of those cards had 2903 Highway No. 316, but when you came in and passed it to them they were saying, well, you're not from here, your poll is in town, if it was a stranger in the building at the time.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): How old are your teenagers, A.J.?
MR. MACLELLAN: They're 18 and 15.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): So one of them also voted this time around - the 18-year-old?
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): What do you tell your 15-year-old? What did you tell your 18-year-old, before he or she was 18, about voting? How do you convince them to vote?
MR. MACLELLAN: They just read up on it, papers and stuff like that. You can't make their choice; they have to make it themselves. You let them learn for themselves what they want or what they don't want.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): But do they not get an example from you?
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Did they not get an example that you weren't taking no for an answer that day, that you were going to vote no matter what?
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes, that's right.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): That's probably the best example you can give them.
MR. MACLELLAN: Yes. I wasn't giving up.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Wilson, and thank you, A.J. Any chance Revenue Canada will send your tax bill to town next time rather than send it to your home?
[Page 26]
MR. MACLELLAN: I hope so. (Laughter) I just wanted to let you guys know. You're looking for information and it's a place to start, right? Every little bit helps; you want them out there and you want them to go.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Bain, did you have something?
MR. BAIN: Yes, it's not a question, Mr. Chairman. I guess since we're sharing some stories here, and I realize the frustration you have when you and your wife both get a card at the same address but you're supposed to vote at two different locales.
At one time I used to be the fire chief at the Big Bras d'Or Fire Department and for years the polling station was at the fire hall, which is a separate entity. I got my card this year, same as everyone else did, and I didn't pay that much attention to it until my wife brought it to my attention - your place of voting was the Big Bras d'Or fire station, which was wrong in the first place, as it was the fire hall because we do have two separate buildings. Lo and behold, the address for the Big Bras d'Or fire station was my home address, so I told my wife that we could expect, last Tuesday, to see a lot of people coming up our driveway wanting to know if that was the place to vote. But that does show some of the mistakes that are out there and it makes it even more difficult - nobody came to my house to vote, to make a long story short.
We did make the returning officer aware of the mistake that was there. It was only because over the years when Elections Canada was sending out their cheque to the hall, it would be sent to the fire department in care of my address, so therefore my address was somewhere in the system - and I could have had people come looking to vote in my home.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Bain, and again thank you, Mr. MacLellan, for sharing that information with us.
Is there anyone else who wishes to come forward? Come right up. Have a seat and you can just state your name and address.
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: My name is Vaughan Chisholm and I just ran in the municipal election in Antigonish County. I just want to comment on Mr. MacLellan's comments. I know people who went in to vote in the federal election and didn't have to show ID and the person who came behind them was turned away because they didn't have ID. It caused some hard feelings and they blamed it on people who were politically inclined who worked at the polls, that they knew this person wasn't maybe going to vote their way and they gave him a hard time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think most of us have heard stories of that. I know in my own poll in Arichat, I was not asked to produce ID, nor was anyone else I spoke to, yet five minutes down the road my parents, who have lived in the community and in the same home
[Page 27]
for 45 years, both had to show their driver's licences to the lady who actually lived across the road from us. The rules obviously were not applied consistently . . .
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: I think it's a good rule because anyone could steal your card and go and vote under your name if they didn't show ID, but as long as it's consistent and everyone had to show ID. And running the municipal election, the other problem, there was a lot of comment on people who had to vote in two different areas, many miles away. Some of them didn't vote because they said they were not driving 20 miles to vote when they should be voting down the road. That was another problem.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm curious, Mr. Chisholm, what kind of voter turnout did you have municipally?
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: I had about 60 per cent in my district . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you know offhand, federally, what the turnout was in this area?
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: No, I don't. I was too busy with mine. (Laughter)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, you were preoccupied, I understand. Thank you very much, Mr. Chisholm, for sharing that. Mr. Parker.
MR. PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We heard from Mr. Boudreau earlier and he was talking about the certificate of election, where you get people on the list and he also had the proxy forms that he worked very hard. Here in Antigonish County, were either of those types of ballots used or not?
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: They certainly used the proxy ballot, yes. One thing about the proxy ballot was if you were running in the election you could only vote for one proxy, but a relative could have voted for as many relatives as they wanted. But you could get proxies and have your friends use them, but you could only vote for one if they weren't related to you.
MR. PARKER: And what about getting people on the list, this certificate of election - was that used in here or not?
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: No, I didn't see any. There could have been, but I wasn't aware . . .
MR. PARKER: So I assume if it's available in one jurisdiction, it would be available here . . .
[Page 28]
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: It could have been . . .
MR. PARKER: . . . but I'm wondering if councillors or the general public were aware there was such a form. I can't say I was aware of it; as MLA I haven't heard of it. But maybe it's something new or different, is it?
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: I certainly wasn't aware of it.
MR. PARKER: It's a good way to get people's names on the list.
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: Yes.
MR. PARKER: Okay, thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think as well, Mr. Parker, it may be a bit of reflection, as well, on the efficiency of the enumerators as to whether you actually needed to add those. I know in some districts the lists were almost perfect; there was almost no one left off it. Whereas, I know in my own municipal district, there were people who had lived in the community all their life who were left off the list - and there were quite a few of them. So it was important to - encouraging them to vote - make sure they were on the list so they didn't encounter any headaches, so it was as smooth a process as possible.
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: It seems the problem with the enumerators - I notice you go around campaigning to find people home, you know you have to consistently go back, but the enumerators probably didn't. (Interruption)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Just one quick question and if you don't know, Mr. Chisholm, maybe Mr. Boudreau can nod back there. That proxy form, is that a municipal form that's provided across the province? Because if it is, it hasn't made its way to Cape Breton Regional Municipality yet.
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: I'm don't know for sure; I would say it should be.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): No comment necessary.
MR. VAUGHAN CHISHOLM: If not, it certainly should be, I would think.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chisholm, I appreciate those comments.
[Page 29]
If there are no other comments, then I want to thank everyone for taking the time to be with us here this evening. As I mentioned earlier, we had a very productive session at the Nova Scotia Community College campus and we had a very successful session this afternoon with community organizations that were here to share with us some ideas as well.
Mr. Chisholm, did you have something you wanted to add?
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: I just wanted to point out that Donnie MacDonald, recently re-elected councillor for the County of Antigonish, is here as well.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chisholm, and congratulations, Mr. MacDonald. I'd be remiss if I did not point out that we also have Councillor Alvin Martell with us who was recently re-elected in District 4 in Richmond County. So certainly on behalf of all the committee, we want to congratulate you for your continued efforts in our democratic system.
[8:30 p.m.]
I know, Warden, that it should have been pointed out as well that in Richmond County, out of 10 municipal districts, eight were contested, two of those eight had three candidates in them, so we certainly saw a heightened increase in interest in our municipal elections. I didn't get the chance to ask you, Warden, but I'm sure you probably would agree with me that council's decision to televise their meetings probably played a big role in the new interest there, in that people can actually see what takes place at their meetings, and that has had a positive impact as well.
With that, members of the committee, tomorrow morning the youth focus group is going to take place at 10:45 a.m. at the Nova Scotia Community College Pictou Campus in Stellarton. That will be followed by the public hearing which will be at 7:00 p.m. at the Best Western Glengarry in Truro.
So other than that, if there's no other business, allow me to thank our staff: our researchers, Paula Romanow and Joanne Kerrigan, who are with us today; and again, all of our staff from both Hansard and Legislative Television, and both Sherri and Kim from the Committees Office who join us and make this whole process a success for us.
So again, thank you very much. Drive home safely and thank you for participating.
[The committee adjourned at 8:31 p.m.]
